Thomas Kontchou's Profile

Hi Batman. While I like the Alfred operational model at its core, I am worried about its competitive positioning. InstaCart boasts that it can get groceries delivered faster than other apps and with higher accuracy; this is in-part because Instacart super-shoppers dedicate themselves to one task and can therefore become more productive. Apply a similar logic to other dedicated apps (Washio for drycleaning, etc.) Alfred may run into an issue where consumers that have a small amount of recurring errands may prefer to maintain a portfolio of dedicated apps, sacrificing convenience for potentially greater performance. I am curious whether Alfred will be able to capture the “multi-app” consumer given this challenge.

I found it interesting that Jet “outsources” the task of optimizing logistics to customers: price-conscious customers can maximize efficiency for Jet and realize a cost-savings by doing so. However, this practice implies that consumers living in large population centers will have structurally lower prices compared to consumers in more remote or rural areas (consumers that are arguably ‘stickier’ for an eCommerce company because brick-and-mortar stores are further away from them). Do you think variations in population density may be a headwind for Jet.com scaling its business outside of core cities like NYC or SF?

Great write-up, I found it particularly informative to learn about the supply-chain of the semiconductor industry. My question is, as ASML is at the very beginning of the superconductor value chain, how do they manage the raw materials that go into their products, especially considering that the physical properties of the raw materials has a direct impact on the technical limits of the end products? I assume that the chip manufacturers ultimately manage the raw materials, but is there collaboration between manufacturers and ASML on that front?