Alice's Profile

Fascinating post, Bipul. Really like your take on future expansion strategies, particularly the third idea of moving into non-gaming segments. It makes me wonder how media and production companies like Netflix, etc. are thinking about VR and whether Unity should be initiating these conversations now to lock-in these contract early.

Great post, Ellen. Interesting idea to have Niantic become a platform for AR game development with its own SDK– I do wonder how technically challenging it is for developers to launch a similar game. Do you think Niantic could bring enough value to the developer community to serve as a platform? My gut is that they may be best served becoming the best-in-class AR mobile developer (to your EA point), but I would be curious to see if they could do some sort of platform play.

Great post, Libby. Curious to get your take on whether entering this space via bras was the right strategic move (vs. some other apparel item). Wondering if there are other players that have tried this model elsewhere and have failed because they chose a different category.

Great post, James. Palantir has truly redefined how the government uses structured and unstructured data. Do you think there’s a world where a competitor could pop up and potentially steal a government contract? Or is Palantir’s reach already too entrenched in these departments? Also, this question is outside the government arm but curious to get your take on how they’ve expanded into other industries in the private sector and how sustainable this will be long-term.

Anish, very interesting to read about your ideas for how Quora could ultimately capture value. Given the founder’s vision of creating an environment where contributors “genuinely, intrinsically enjoy helping people,” I have to wonder whether they will ultimately move toward actually capturing value… or is this is against their culture / mission? Instead of monetizing with ads or promoted answers, do you think Quora has enough of a following to instead adopt a donation campaign model (similar to Wikipedia)?

Awesome post, Yezi. I completely agree with the challenges you outlined that Hyperloop faces. It’s definitely a one-of-a-kind sort of project where a figure like Elon Musk is able to rally such a talented group of individuals. To your point, unlike other crowdsourcing platforms, where individuals are able to contribute without necessarily impacting others involved, Hyperloop is a case where the end goal is one unified product. I struggle to see how Hyperloop will be able to successfully organize and make decisions on the overall vision given all of the people involved have different incentives in place and varied levels of engagement. Curious if you think Hyperloop will ultimately be successful and if this is a case for a new way of working and building product?

Great post on Codecademy, Rahul. One question that came to mind: How do their crowdsourced lessons perform relative to the content they create? My gut tells me their own content is considered best-in-class and since there are so many people who fall out of the funnel (per your dropout rate stats), I wonder if it strategically actually makes more sense for the Codeacdemy team to focus on providing and monetizing off their own quality content.

Great post, Brandon. I used Turo when it was previously RelayRides and remember comparing the options of using RelayRides vs. Getaround vs. Zipcar etc. It’s a great concept though it interestingly doesn’t seem like it’s taken off as quickly as its analogous AirBnB. Why do you think that is? Purely given it is homes vs. cars or an executional difference? One quick note I found interesting… I was told a while back that because Turo/RelayRides requires an in-person keys handoff, there tends to be less rental car damage because renters feel more accountable after meeting the owners (as compared to Getaround, which requires no human interaction when accessing the car keys). Curious if Turo/RelayRides intentionally designed this experience to be the case or if it was just a byproduct of their design.

Great post, Cameron. (And I’m not just saying this because I think it was your team that beat us in Game 1 of the platforms simulation.. 🙂

Curious what the competitive landscape looks like for these firms and how they’re differentiating amongst themselves in terms of data ownership. I can imagine there’s a point at which the one dominant HR platform (possibly HireVue) owns all the data across recruiting employers and thus is able to gather so many insights re: predicting high potential hires, etc. There’s a clear value proposition for employers to use HireVue, but I wonder how many of them are concerned that HireVue will ultimately own all parts of their HR function and may instead be choosing to build their own capabilities in-house.

Great post, Will. I used OfferUp a while back when moving out of SF and totally agree that the one edge OfferUp has as a platform is the user experience. I found it to be an easy, seamless process to post items to sell on its marketplace. I do wonder how they were able to successfully source users and reach a point where it makes sense for others to join the community (particularly given Craigslist’s strength as a competitor) and whether longer-term they will be able to find a sustainable business model.

Great post and take on Amazon’s Alexa strategy in the AI space. I’m really curious to see whether Amazon chooses to double-down here. They have so many different areas they’re going after right now (and doing many of them really well), and I have to wonder how Jeff Bezos sees it all fitting together (if at all).

Great post — I didn’t realize how “Sweat with Kayla” was such a built-out brand and business. Agreed re: your point on sustainability. I have to wonder whether more ‘newer + younger’ fitness gurus will pop up after seeing how lucrative this business is. Eg, One company that’s popped up recently is Forte, which is a blend of Netflix + ClassPass– I’m interested to see how they do in the market and how this affects companies like ‘Sweat with Kayla.’

Great post! Would be curious to hear your take on how replicable the Omada model is. Is it truly differentiated? Or is this easy for competitors to replicate?