The Exchanges

Q What are some of the differences in, in sort of like really specific differences that you don't see in US apps? I'm thinking of the Constellation, for example, like I think that's a really interesting trend.

A Yeah. In the US, a lot of internet companies will have multiple apps and will choose to keep them separate standalone apps as opposed to in China. Alipay, for example, would very unlikely create a separate app. For Sesame credit or for some of its other products. The idea that everything lives in one app is actually seen as a good thing in China because it's less friction at the end of the day. So one very, very small detail to point out in the Alipay app is the app when you open it looks like a grid, right? And each grid has a logo and text underneath and clicking into it takes you to a bunch of new features. You can completely tailor and customize just like your home screen on your iPhone, which Items you want on the first row, which items you want on the second row.

AI assessment note: “In the US, a lot of internet companies will have multiple apps and will choose to keep them separate”

Q What about the cultural differences in the talent markets? What do you see happening in China, Connie? Are there cultural differences in the talent market in China? Um, and, and down to the mindsets or other aspects of how they think about, you know, working at startups versus big companies.

A I'd say the best students are still open to working at startups, just as they are working at an Alibaba or a Tencent or a Baidu. Um, and in addition to that, they're very excited to work for domestic companies. It's not just this halo effect of a Microsoft or Google in China, um, that those students want to go work at. A lot of them are very excited to work for domestic ones. And part of it is because they've seen, you know, other students work for domestic companies and become very successful and monetize that opportunity extremely well. And so I think it's a misconception that some people have that you're always naturally going to get the best talent just because you're a global brand. That's definitely not the case in China. You still have to find that unique person who is very passionate, ideally fluent in Chinese, um, who is very excited to work at a global brand versus the domestic one. Um, it's unclear now that you have a huge advantage of just being a global brand. I'd say another cultural difference is, um, At least something that I noticed at Alibaba, which has been extremely successful for that company, at least in its early years, is a really strong sense of building company loyalty. Um, and I think that paid off for Alibaba tremendously, um, versus the eBay China team in the early years, because Alibaba was able to retain really good talent. They were extremely har…

AI assessment note: “I'd say the best students are still open to working at startups”

Q any A-C-C-Z fund. For more details, please see A-C-C-Z dot com slash disclosures. There are so many different areas of technology that people are talking about today, whether it be AI or longevity science or rocketry, and those are all very exciting, but marketplaces is something that A-sixteen Z keeps coming back to. And so Connie, I want to hear from you. Why are marketplaces still so important to study?

A We are obsessed with marketplaces, and we have been since our inception. A lot of that comes from actually our partner, Jeff Jordan, who himself has been an operator and a pioneer in marketplaces, holding leadership roles at eBay, at OpenTable, and because of his experience, we have all been trained to believe that marketplaces are truly phenomenal, phenomenal business models, and there's a couple reasons for that. We are in the venture capital business, so we are looking for outsized returns. Many of the biggest returns historically have all been marketplaces, and this is because marketplaces generally share two traits that are incredibly valuable and attractive to investors. First, they generally have a very strong theory of defensibility. A marketplace, the larger it gets, the harder it is to disrupt. Let's think about the biggest marketplaces today. I mean, Craigslist, It's still a vibrant marketplace. And you look at this website, and you're thinking like, these are links. This is just text. There's no photos. There's no videos. You don't need it, apparently, because that marketplace has liquidity. It has traffic of buyers and sellers. It has traffic of a renter and landlords, and so you still get lots of matches that are happening. People try and pick it away, but it's still working, right? So theory of defensibility is very strong with marketplaces, which is something we…

AI assessment note: “Many of the biggest returns historically have all been marketplaces, and this is because”

Q Another example of this is Teemu, right? It's not on the list because it's not a private company, but that thing has grown massively. What can we learn from Teemu as it's kind of risen in the last year or so?

A For sure. So Teemu doesn't have video. They don't focus on video, but they also don't need it for the types of products that they're selling, right? Teemu is a monster in terms of its growth. I mean, Olivia and I chat about the stats. We're tracking it all the time. It is It's insane how quickly this company has grown largely, um, catalyzed by paid ads, but it has continued to grow. And the repeat purchase based off the credit card data that we're seeing is strong. Now, what I think is really interesting and the major nugget to learn from Timu is product discovery personalization. Also, gamification of shopping. They have lots of coupons and games that you can even play. I remember Olivia was playing like some fishing game inside of Timu to win some free slippers, and it's just something fun that we do, right? It makes shopping fun again. But going back to that personalization, which I think is a very new thing for marketplaces and commerce in the U.S. in general to adopt. When we go on Amazon, we all go to the search bar, but that's not how we shop in real life. When I go to Costco, when I go to Target, I go in to buy one thing. I leave with like 10 things, right? Usually more. And the natural way that we shop in real life is we get inspiration as we go along. And the reason why Timu is even more powerful than replicating a trip to Target is because the more I browse it, the m…

AI assessment note: “the major nugget to learn from Timu is product discovery personalization. Also, gamification of shopping.”

Q any A-C-C-Z fund. For more details, please see A-C-C-Z dot com slash disclosures. There are so many different areas of technology that people are talking about today, whether it be AI or longevity science or rocketry, and those are all very exciting, but marketplaces is something that A-sixteen Z keeps coming back to. And so Connie, I want to hear from you. Why are marketplaces still so important to study?

A We are obsessed with marketplaces, and we have been since our inception. A lot of that comes from actually our partner, Jeff Jordan, who himself has been an operator and a pioneer in marketplaces, holding leadership roles at eBay, at OpenTable, and because of his experience, we have all been trained to believe that marketplaces are truly phenomenal, phenomenal business models, and there's a couple reasons for that. We are in the venture capital business, so we are looking for outsized returns. Many of the biggest returns historically have all been marketplaces, and this is because marketplaces generally share two traits that are incredibly valuable and attractive to investors. First, they generally have a very strong theory of defensibility. A marketplace, the larger it gets, the harder it is to disrupt. Let's think about the biggest marketplaces today. I mean, Craigslist, It's still a vibrant marketplace. And you look at this website, and you're thinking like, these are links. This is just text. There's no photos. There's no videos. You don't need it, apparently, because that marketplace has liquidity. It has traffic of buyers and sellers. It has traffic of a renter and landlords, and so you still get lots of matches that are happening. People try and pick it away, but it's still working, right? So theory of defensibility is very strong with marketplaces, which is something we…

AI assessment note: “marketplaces generally share two traits that are incredibly valuable and attractive to investors.”

Q some people could argue that some of these aspects of social video And discovery commerce that you're describing are already in certain applications. I'm just going to use Instagram as an example here. So what gaps do you see in terms of how social implements discovery or changes its involvement with e-commerce and how perhaps does this maybe compared to other parts of the world that have a different state?

A So I think you're right in the sense that on Instagram, we already all shop from Instagram. Most of the time we get lots of product inspiration from the ads. But whether or not we actually complete the transaction right there and then that's still a TBD. And I think it's because a lot of the platforms today, the Western platforms still have way too much friction between inspiration to discovering more and learning about the product to finally doing the actual checkout, the actual payment completion. Today, you might find inspiration on Instagram. You might find a video of an influencer talking about a product, but you might not click and complete the purchase right there. And then you might instead open a browser and go to sephora.com and go search for that item or go to Nordstrom.com and go search for that outfit. The transaction right now is still kind of being broken up and that's because there's a lot of friction and the actual implementation of it's not great. But I think the other thing about video that's still very underdeveloped is the idea of something like live video and live video is a fantastic way to sell things. And it is something that I'd say we haven't really explored out in the West yet outside of these other platforms like whatnot that does live shopping for collectibles and other categories. And the reason why live is so powerful is a bunch of things. One th…

AI assessment note: “the Western platforms still have way too much friction between inspiration to discovering more”

Q is that just a reality that there's just friction, there's inertia in the way we do things, which sometimes is different to other parts of the world? Or is there some sort of misnomers or some sort of misunderstanding where people think, oh, there's like a different culture and therefore it won't apply here. I'm just trying to understand why it takes so long for us to absorb these learnings.

A It requires a very open mind because you have to go at it or think about product. With the assumption that, you know, just like ratatouille, anyone can be a cook. Like anyone can come up with a great product idea. And if you come up with that mentality, you become much more open-minded and you actually want to see as many examples of success or failure as possible. And I think another big reason though, why some of this stuff takes a while to implement is twofold. One, It requires huge organizational changes. This is really a top-down decision. It's very difficult to change this type of mentality bottoms up. And the reality is if you are changing your business model of say like an Instagram newsfeed and you start pushing all these live shoppable videos, that's taking up space that otherwise would have gone to an ad that generates money, right? So your P and L takes a near-term hit. You are using a pixel space that could have gone to something else. And so this is a very high level decision or high level framework that needs to really come from the top and have really strong buy-in from the top, because there are near term consequence, not consequences. There are, there are near term impacts when you try and make these big shifts, right? The second reason I'd say is as much as we use our phones and are addicted to our phones in the U S I think we are still mobile, but also PC. O…

AI assessment note: “why some of this stuff takes a while to implement is twofold.”

Q now been acquired by Snapchat. Like we have stickers everywhere in these different ecosystems. And one of the arguments that we made about emoji is that because it sort of translates interoperably, you know, unless of course, like Apple and Twitter have their own proprietary emoji sets, that's not necessarily true of stickers. So how do you smooth this communication across all these different platforms and have these custom folders?

A Yeah. Well, at least on WeChat, there is this ability to import any image from your photo album on your phone and make it into a sticker. And they have these automatic functions that strip out The background to make it look as close to a sticker format as possible. So you are able to actually import images and graphics from all over the web. So for example, a lot of the line characters, which is include this very popular brown bear called Brown and a cute little white bunny called Kony. A lot of those characters, I've seen people convert those images into WeChat stickers and actually use it on the WeChat platform. So you can really take an image from anywhere.

AI assessment note: “there is this ability to import any image from your photo album on your phone”

Q Another example of this is Teemu, right? It's not on the list because it's not a private company, but that thing has grown massively. What can we learn from Teemu as it's kind of risen in the last year or so?

A For sure. So Teemu doesn't have video. They don't focus on video, but they also don't need it for the types of products that they're selling, right? Teemu is a monster in terms of its growth. I mean, Olivia and I chat about the stats. We're tracking it all the time. It is It's insane how quickly this company has grown largely, um, catalyzed by paid ads, but it has continued to grow. And the repeat purchase based off the credit card data that we're seeing is strong. Now, what I think is really interesting and the major nugget to learn from Timu is product discovery personalization. Also, gamification of shopping. They have lots of coupons and games that you can even play. I remember Olivia was playing like some fishing game inside of Timu to win some free slippers, and it's just something fun that we do, right? It makes shopping fun again. But going back to that personalization, which I think is a very new thing for marketplaces and commerce in the U.S. in general to adopt. When we go on Amazon, we all go to the search bar, but that's not how we shop in real life. When I go to Costco, when I go to Target, I go in to buy one thing. I leave with like 10 things, right? Usually more. And the natural way that we shop in real life is we get inspiration as we go along. And the reason why Timu is even more powerful than replicating a trip to Target is because the more I browse it, the m…

AI assessment note: “the major nugget to learn from Timu is product discovery personalization. Also, gamification of shopping.”

Q a version of this last year when Clubhouse was copied by Just about every social app out there in terms of having live audio. And so why does it at least seem like social platforms today are just copying the same features from one another and not testing some of these more creative features, especially when we've seen some of these creative features work in other parts of the world?

A Yeah, I think there's, there's both logic to it if you think about it. But also opportunity, right? To, to change the status quo. The logical part is that, Hey, this is already a proven idea. I already have distribution on my app. Why don't I just copy this feature? It's going to work on my app too. And that's actually a very, I call it super app, the phrase super app, almost a super app mentality, which is that I have distribution. My users will want the same thing. I should stick that same feature or that same product in my app too. And it's going to work. And so there's logic for why they're doing it, but to your point, there is missed opportunity because there are all these other business models that they're not exploring yet. It's almost like they have to wait till some startup gets traction with it or some other company gets traction with it before they try and implement it. And if they don't do it correctly, it's, it doesn't always work, but you know, some of these Eastern to Western translations, they take time. This has been part of my investment thesis for the last 10 years. I take ideas that work in Asia and other parts of the world. I try and figure out what can be copied in the US and then I try and teach it to as many people as possible so we can learn from companies outside of just the US. My learning is that there's usually a time lag of at least a year and gene…

AI assessment note: “The logical part is that, Hey, this is already a proven idea.”

Q some people could argue that some of these aspects of social video And discovery commerce that you're describing are already in certain applications. I'm just going to use Instagram as an example here. So what gaps do you see in terms of how social implements discovery or changes its involvement with e-commerce and how perhaps does this maybe compared to other parts of the world that have a different state?

A So I think you're right in the sense that on Instagram, we already all shop from Instagram. Most of the time we get lots of product inspiration from the ads. But whether or not we actually complete the transaction right there and then that's still a TBD. And I think it's because a lot of the platforms today, the Western platforms still have way too much friction between inspiration to discovering more and learning about the product to finally doing the actual checkout, the actual payment completion. Today, you might find inspiration on Instagram. You might find a video of an influencer talking about a product, but you might not click and complete the purchase right there. And then you might instead open a browser and go to sephora.com and go search for that item or go to Nordstrom.com and go search for that outfit. The transaction right now is still kind of being broken up and that's because there's a lot of friction and the actual implementation of it's not great. But I think the other thing about video that's still very underdeveloped is the idea of something like live video and live video is a fantastic way to sell things. And it is something that I'd say we haven't really explored out in the West yet outside of these other platforms like whatnot that does live shopping for collectibles and other categories. And the reason why live is so powerful is a bunch of things. One th…

AI assessment note: “a lot of the platforms today, the Western platforms still have way too much friction”

Q a version of this last year when Clubhouse was copied by Just about every social app out there in terms of having live audio. And so why does it at least seem like social platforms today are just copying the same features from one another and not testing some of these more creative features, especially when we've seen some of these creative features work in other parts of the world?

A Yeah, I think there's, there's both logic to it if you think about it. But also opportunity, right? To, to change the status quo. The logical part is that, Hey, this is already a proven idea. I already have distribution on my app. Why don't I just copy this feature? It's going to work on my app too. And that's actually a very, I call it super app, the phrase super app, almost a super app mentality, which is that I have distribution. My users will want the same thing. I should stick that same feature or that same product in my app too. And it's going to work. And so there's logic for why they're doing it, but to your point, there is missed opportunity because there are all these other business models that they're not exploring yet. It's almost like they have to wait till some startup gets traction with it or some other company gets traction with it before they try and implement it. And if they don't do it correctly, it's, it doesn't always work, but you know, some of these Eastern to Western translations, they take time. This has been part of my investment thesis for the last 10 years. I take ideas that work in Asia and other parts of the world. I try and figure out what can be copied in the US and then I try and teach it to as many people as possible so we can learn from companies outside of just the US. My learning is that there's usually a time lag of at least a year and gene…

AI assessment note: “The logical part is that, Hey, this is already a proven idea.”

Q and you said it worked. And so what is stopping us from having these platforms or having the habits really of a consumer to go seek out that kind of shopping experience? Does it just really not exist yet? Has the right company not sprung up or why do you think we maybe see some of these behaviors in Other parts of the world, but not really in the West.

A We see them more exemplified in a place like China where live shopping is very big. I think it's because the platforms implemented it quite frankly, years ago. And there's also a huge ecosystem built out where you have people who are just curating products, handling logistics, customer service, and so forth. But there is no reason that that user behavior, that customer behavior is only going to work in Asia. In fact, in the U S with whatnot, You already see lots of people loving the community of buyers and sellers and finding things that they're buying that they didn't think to go by. There's already an element of discovery that happens with life. But you start that question asking about infomercials and, and let me ask you, when you saw those infomercials as a kid, it wasn't just the, the person was demonstrating the product. It was because if you buy it now and that like 10 minute window, you had all these freebies, right? Or if you bought it right then in that 10 minute window, it was discounted. But once that infomercial ended, it might not be that price. That's why infomercials worked. And that kind of time element is very possible with something like live video, but not what we're seeing today with kind of these prerecorded Instagram videos with celebrities, because quite frankly, the platforms haven't built out the tools to allow them to do something like that yet.

AI assessment note: “quite frankly, the platforms haven't built out the tools to allow them to do something”

Q on our Emoji podcast. How do real life social dynamics play out in these apps? One of the things that I've noticed, for example, in India is a lot of women would be really into like face lightening creams, you know, or other sort of things. Is this predominant only among women? Do men use it too? I'm kind of curious about the demographics and the Sociocultural aspects of it.

A Men definitely use it, but it is majority women, I believe. And there are definitely cultural nuances there. For example, a lot of the Asian apps will make your skin look whiter because whitening of skin is really popular there. But if you look at how it's impacted society, some things I'm really fascinated about, for example, include how it plays generationally. And I've heard stories where there's folks now where their parents who are in their sixties or seventies, when they travel, they take so many more selfies. Yeah. Because they're happy with how they look. And if you think about those kinds of stories, it's wonderful that these apps are encouraging people to take more images and capture more memories.

AI assessment note: “Men definitely use it, but it is majority women, I believe.”

Q companies want to become huge. Indian companies want to become huge. These innovations do not have to start from the U.S. any longer. But at the same time, U.S. companies are just dying to go to China and India. I mean, is it just because there's a huge, large global market and that's it? Or are there other reasons that you think, or other factors that are playing out there?

A I think that reason is good enough of a reason to go, to be honest. The size of the market, the number of consumers that are out there, I mean, you take the population of China, you subtract the population of the United States, you still have a billion people left. It's a massive, massive market. And on top of that, the market's growing. You know, no matter what your thoughts are on how quickly it's actually growing, it is growing, undoubtedly. Um, and so that alone, I think, is reason enough to try and figure out what a China strategy should be. On top of that, though, I mean, If you really, uh, do believe that innovation can come from anywhere, it's a market where you can study an entire new ecosystem of startups that are in related spaces, and sometimes when studying your counterparts, you're going to learn that they are similar but extremely distinct, and there are always ways that you can learn from them. So I think interest from United States startups, um, in Chinese companies or Indian startups should only increase as they start to Become aware that these companies are not exact copycats.

AI assessment note: “I think that reason is good enough of a reason to go, to be honest.”

Q People going to various parts of the world, etc. But you also do have local pockets. So I'm curious to hear your guys' thoughts on, first of all, some of those movements. Has brain drain reversed? And then secondly, about the talent markets in general and culturally their mindsets.

A Someone once recently told me that I think at Facebook over 20% of the engineers are Chinese. I haven't fact checked that yet, but, um, you know, I do think there are a lot of engineering talent, uh, in the Silicon Valley that is of Chinese or Indian heritage. Um, whether or not that trend has reversed, I think is a little bit early to say, but there have been a lot of Chinese companies that have been very successful. In hiring top executives from not just Silicon Valley, but all over the United States and all over Europe. Um, and I think part of it is they have the capital to do it. They also have very exciting growth markets that just individuals who love tech and innovation want to be a part of. Um, so I even personally know a lot of Chinese companies that have been able to either set up R&D shops in Silicon Valley or convince people to actually move back to China.

AI assessment note: “whether or not that trend has reversed, I think is a little bit early to”

Q It's so fascinating watching all the players trying to compete with each other, both domestic and international, especially when it comes to ride sharing. Like, what are some of the interesting things that, um, are playing out there in terms of how to do business in China?

A Transportation in China is changing very quickly. Um, it's always been a big need in China, despite sheer population. Uh, the, the largest subway number, the largest subway in the world is in Shanghai. Um, the second largest is in Beijing, and it's just because there's been massive urbanization happening in China, and so the kinds of traffic that you have to deal with now when you're in these cities is so much more painful than what you have to deal with even in a city like Los Angeles, and so the whole need for innovation and transportation has been, has been, um, a need that's been just bubbling in China for a very long time. Um, as a result, I think that That world is also changing very quickly and maybe innovating at a pace that's faster than what I see happening in Silicon Valley. Um, so for example, like Didi, uh, they are going beyond just cars to also thinking about what are other services you can offer to drivers? Um, what are interesting, uh, what are, what are other interesting sources of revenue that they can come up with, whether it's Rolling out buses, um, and not just personal cars, or thinking about, you know, can you tackle on insurance, or can you tackle on, uh, gas refills, or whatever it is, um, they're starting to brainstorm these kinds of additional services they can offer both passengers and drivers. And that, and the DD lived an example of, um, a company…

AI assessment note: “for example, like Didi, uh, they are going beyond just cars”

Q now been acquired by Snapchat. Like we have stickers everywhere in these different ecosystems. And one of the arguments that we made about emoji is that because it sort of translates interoperably, you know, unless of course, like Apple and Twitter have their own proprietary emoji sets, that's not necessarily true of stickers. So how do you smooth this communication across all these different platforms and have these custom folders?

A Yeah. Well, at least on WeChat, there is this ability to import any image from your photo album on your phone and make it into a sticker. And they have these automatic functions that strip out The background to make it look as close to a sticker format as possible. So you are able to actually import images and graphics from all over the web. So for example, a lot of the line characters, which is include this very popular brown bear called Brown and a cute little white bunny called Kony. A lot of those characters, I've seen people convert those images into WeChat stickers and actually use it on the WeChat platform. So you can really take an image from anywhere.

AI assessment note: “at least on WeChat, there is this ability to import any image”

Q is that just a reality that there's just friction, there's inertia in the way we do things, which sometimes is different to other parts of the world? Or is there some sort of misnomers or some sort of misunderstanding where people think, oh, there's like a different culture and therefore it won't apply here. I'm just trying to understand why it takes so long for us to absorb these learnings.

A It requires a very open mind because you have to go at it or think about product. With the assumption that, you know, just like ratatouille, anyone can be a cook. Like anyone can come up with a great product idea. And if you come up with that mentality, you become much more open-minded and you actually want to see as many examples of success or failure as possible. And I think another big reason though, why some of this stuff takes a while to implement is twofold. One, It requires huge organizational changes. This is really a top-down decision. It's very difficult to change this type of mentality bottoms up. And the reality is if you are changing your business model of say like an Instagram newsfeed and you start pushing all these live shoppable videos, that's taking up space that otherwise would have gone to an ad that generates money, right? So your P and L takes a near-term hit. You are using a pixel space that could have gone to something else. And so this is a very high level decision or high level framework that needs to really come from the top and have really strong buy-in from the top, because there are near term consequence, not consequences. There are, there are near term impacts when you try and make these big shifts, right? The second reason I'd say is as much as we use our phones and are addicted to our phones in the U S I think we are still mobile, but also PC. O…

AI assessment note: “another big reason though, why some of this stuff takes a while to implement”

Q and you said it worked. And so what is stopping us from having these platforms or having the habits really of a consumer to go seek out that kind of shopping experience? Does it just really not exist yet? Has the right company not sprung up or why do you think we maybe see some of these behaviors in Other parts of the world, but not really in the West.

A We see them more exemplified in a place like China where live shopping is very big. I think it's because the platforms implemented it quite frankly, years ago. And there's also a huge ecosystem built out where you have people who are just curating products, handling logistics, customer service, and so forth. But there is no reason that that user behavior, that customer behavior is only going to work in Asia. In fact, in the U S with whatnot, You already see lots of people loving the community of buyers and sellers and finding things that they're buying that they didn't think to go by. There's already an element of discovery that happens with life. But you start that question asking about infomercials and, and let me ask you, when you saw those infomercials as a kid, it wasn't just the, the person was demonstrating the product. It was because if you buy it now and that like 10 minute window, you had all these freebies, right? Or if you bought it right then in that 10 minute window, it was discounted. But once that infomercial ended, it might not be that price. That's why infomercials worked. And that kind of time element is very possible with something like live video, but not what we're seeing today with kind of these prerecorded Instagram videos with celebrities, because quite frankly, the platforms haven't built out the tools to allow them to do something like that yet.

AI assessment note: “platforms haven't built out the tools to allow them to do something like that”

Q that you have around you to come up with new innovative ways. You have reverse innovation, which is this philosophy that innovations that are happening in other places are now coming back to the U S what are we talking about here more broadly? I don't mean to keep Hammering on this, but I want you guys to convince me a little harder about what the innovation is that's happening.

A When I think about China, innovation to me means survival. And I say that because there are so many people in China, 1.3 billion people. There's a huge population of entrepreneurs in China right now. And, and you match that with a huge abundance of capital that's available to these entrepreneurs. And you just, you have an environment that's extremely fierce. And so for me, innovation is a lot about survival. Because in China, a lot of these startups, they're thinking of it as an all or nothing game. Um, everything is built because it has to scale, because if it doesn't scale, you're going to go to zero. And therefore innovation is, is very tied to business model path to profitability for, for a lot of companies and distribution.

AI assessment note: “innovation is, is very tied to business model path to profitability”

Q that you have around you to come up with new innovative ways. You have reverse innovation, which is this philosophy that innovations that are happening in other places are now coming back to the U S what are we talking about here more broadly? I don't mean to keep Hammering on this, but I want you guys to convince me a little harder about what the innovation is that's happening.

A When I think about China, innovation to me means survival. And I say that because there are so many people in China, 1.3 billion people. There's a huge population of entrepreneurs in China right now. And, and you match that with a huge abundance of capital that's available to these entrepreneurs. And you just, you have an environment that's extremely fierce. And so for me, innovation is a lot about survival. Because in China, a lot of these startups, they're thinking of it as an all or nothing game. Um, everything is built because it has to scale, because if it doesn't scale, you're going to go to zero. And therefore innovation is, is very tied to business model path to profitability for, for a lot of companies and distribution.

AI assessment note: “innovation is, is very tied to business model path to profitability”

Q about the WeChat story is the role of the conglomerate. Versus like an individual company, like a small company, or whether it's a startup or a huge company like, you know, an IBM. But we're talking about a different type of firm, like a different organizing entity that has a different mindset. How's that kind of playing out with this question of innovation in both China and in India, Anu?

A Yeah, well, I mean, in China, uh, Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, um, but even companies like, like a Xiaomi or a Chihu are very active in areas that are outside of their core product. Um, and they're very active in making investments. They're very active in doing partnerships. Um, and I think that's a wonderful thing. I actually, um, think that that just gets the ball rolling even faster in terms of innovation. Um, and I really do think it's Fantastic for the Chinese startup ecosystem as well, that a lot of these companies are not just looking at what's hot and rebuilding it themselves. They're now spending a lot of their own dollars to partner and invest in these startups.

AI assessment note: “gets the ball rolling even faster in terms of innovation”

Q on our Emoji podcast. How do real life social dynamics play out in these apps? One of the things that I've noticed, for example, in India is a lot of women would be really into like face lightening creams, you know, or other sort of things. Is this predominant only among women? Do men use it too? I'm kind of curious about the demographics and the Sociocultural aspects of it.

A Men definitely use it, but it is majority women, I believe. And there are definitely cultural nuances there. For example, a lot of the Asian apps will make your skin look whiter because whitening of skin is really popular there. But if you look at how it's impacted society, some things I'm really fascinated about, for example, include how it plays generationally. And I've heard stories where there's folks now where their parents who are in their sixties or seventies, when they travel, they take so many more selfies. Yeah. Because they're happy with how they look. And if you think about those kinds of stories, it's wonderful that these apps are encouraging people to take more images and capture more memories.

AI assessment note: “Men definitely use it, but it is majority women, I believe.”

Q It's so fascinating watching all the players trying to compete with each other, both domestic and international, especially when it comes to ride sharing. Like, what are some of the interesting things that, um, are playing out there in terms of how to do business in China?

A Transportation in China is changing very quickly. Um, it's always been a big need in China, despite sheer population. Uh, the, the largest subway number, the largest subway in the world is in Shanghai. Um, the second largest is in Beijing, and it's just because there's been massive urbanization happening in China, and so the kinds of traffic that you have to deal with now when you're in these cities is so much more painful than what you have to deal with even in a city like Los Angeles, and so the whole need for innovation and transportation has been, has been, um, a need that's been just bubbling in China for a very long time. Um, as a result, I think that That world is also changing very quickly and maybe innovating at a pace that's faster than what I see happening in Silicon Valley. Um, so for example, like Didi, uh, they are going beyond just cars to also thinking about what are other services you can offer to drivers? Um, what are interesting, uh, what are, what are other interesting sources of revenue that they can come up with, whether it's Rolling out buses, um, and not just personal cars, or thinking about, you know, can you tackle on insurance, or can you tackle on, uh, gas refills, or whatever it is, um, they're starting to brainstorm these kinds of additional services they can offer both passengers and drivers. And that, and the DD lived an example of, um, a company…

AI assessment note: “There is true partnership, um, dynamics happening where the executives are exchanging notes”

Q Yeah, let's see how that emerges next year. Hopefully we do round five of the marketplace. 100, but Connie, curious to hear from you. We've done four years of this report. Any high level thoughts around what we're seeing with marketplaces? And again, what's to come?

A I think the main message I also just want to convey is congratulations to all a hundred companies that made it on the list this year. Building a marketplace is really hard, really hard. The early days Getting enough supply so that you have supply there for your demand. Getting enough demand so that your suppliers don't lose interest and go away. That is so hard to catalyze. And it takes a long time to get right. It takes a while to find product market fit. It takes a while to get that flywheel working. And so for all the founders who have toiled for all the employees at these companies in the marketplace, 100, we know how hard it's been. And we congratulate you for the success you've seen, because getting on that list is hard. Um, but the good news is for marketplaces, when you do get that product market fit, when you do get that flywheel going, the staying power is great, and the potential of what you can expand into is massive. Right. Again, we love marketplaces. We really respect marketplaces and the teams that build them. And we just want to extend our congratulations to all the companies that made it on the list this year. And because we love marketplaces so much, we're also going to kick off a short series of podcasts where we talk a lot about some of the marketplaces that we really respect and what are the learnings from whether it's metrics that they're tracking that ar…

AI assessment note: “I think the main message I also just want to convey is congratulations”