CAL3's Profile

Very interesting read! I am in complete agreement with you that Modern Meadow should start partnering with luxury designers as soon as possible to retain their competitive advantage and scale their operations as efficiently as possible. By trying to produce a finished good themselves, they would then have to organize their own go to market strategies and ultimately compete with an array of luxury designers who end up utilizing the technology via other start-ups. Additionally, I believe that price will play a huge role here. There are many contemporary brands that are using faux-leather (animal free and made of polyester), who have been able to provide the same aesthetic allure that real leather provides, while also demonstrating the importance of ethical production practices to their millennial base. These faux-leather pieces are typically offered at a fraction of the price as compared to real leather goods produced by designer brands. Modern Meadow needs to ensure that the quality and price of their biofabricated goods ultimately meets the demand requirements of the end consumer in order to justify the purchase.

I LOVE this article. Its incredible the way Chanel, the most profitable luxury house in recent years, has been able to transform and cement its own identity in the luxury brand space. I completely understand why consumers would purchase the 3D printed mascara brush, since its functionality is actually superior to the “regularly” produced mascara brushes, however, I question how 3D printed RTW (ready-to-wear) would perform in terms of sales. Do you think there is stigma attached 3D printed clothing, especially in the luxury designer segment, that would cause consumers to perceive the quality as “weird” or uncomfortable? Was Chanel actually able to sell any of the 3D printed tweed jackets?

I also love your take on the debate as to whether 3D printing can even be included in the same sentence as Haute Couture. I would assume that high paying customers, potentially paying anywhere from $100k-$300k, would feel cheated if they were told that 3D printing was used to make their custom dress. I can’t wait to see where Chanel takes this and how they will eventually use this to adhere to millennial consumer preferences, especially when it comes to the sustainability angle.

Great article! Thank you for sharing — I wish Facebook had started developing these new detective tactics at some point between 2012-2015……

I love the creativeness of some of your recommendations, however, I am having a difficult time trusting that we can put our faith back in the judgment of the user. While I can imagine a the scenario in which you proposed where users can read/see content that has not already been filtered for their preferences, I can also see a world where the consumer begins to become frustrated with the new user experience. Their perception may be that Facebook’s personalization algorithm is no longer optimizing their experience, leading them to make irrational decisions when flagging an article
as suspicious, or even just ignoring the flagging process altogether.

Do you truly believe that Facebook will be able to attack the scope of this project by the next presidential election? I have my concerns that Facebook won’t be able to quickly scale the process of “feeding” the machine learning tools enough contextual data to actually asses the nuances and credibility of an individual article.

Love the article — such an interesting read! In answering your concluding questions, I actually believe that Henri as a platform may actually become a more sustainable and viable option for Nestle to utilize as it has morphed into more of a dedicated ad-tech platform. I like how Nestle is using this buzz to gain entry into various ad-tech conferences and pitch competitions, and truly believe that this type of a brand building marketing initiative will enable Nestle to remain relevant in various external industries.

In my opinion, I believe that Henri will have a tough time convincing /recruiting more technical start-ups to become involved in some of the science-based partnerships UNLESS they raise the value of the winning prize. One would think that today’s tech start-up market is raising so much venture money that $50k would not be enough money to actually incentivize start-ups to pitch via the Henri platform versus finding other VC opportunities.

Since its release in 2009, it seems that the global popularity of the game itself has only increased. It also appears that founders have been iterating the end product successfully while also using various marketing channels. What leads you to believe that the game will follow the typical drop off trends of other electronic games? Is there data to support these drop off trends and are the games themselves actually comparable to a game that has scaled so rapidly like League of Legend?

Also, do you think its possible for Riot Games to control the gaming environment if they incite open innovation from their users? Will this ultimately distract Riot Games from putting out the best end product possible and ultimately cause them to contract their user base due to the perception that the company itself cannot innovate in the future.

PAWS is truly an inspiring mission and one that needs to be implemented universally, however, there are a few points that I would like to question. As we saw in the IBM Watson case, the quantity and quality of the data inputs that are “fed” into machine learning algorithms are extremely important for the predictive analysis to be accurate. How can we trust that the historical data will be able to correctly asses the way poachers and terrorists may adjust their poaching methods once they realize that their routes are being intercepted? Has PAWS actually been effective since its origination in 2013? Is there data to support that the machine algorithm is actually working?

Additionally, I agree with the content of the short-term and medium-term strategies, but I believe they both need to be implemented in the short term for the product to be successful. This is a race against time. If the awareness of the product is not recognized globally, we may unfortunately see a number of species become extinct.