Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 99% certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Blackstone interviewed Ancestry CEO Deb Liu entirely on Zoom after $4.7B acquisition

Deb Liu · Marketplace Tactics: Metrics, Growth vs. Focus, Business Strategy | Field Notes by Connie Chan · Apr 12, 2023 · at 1:08

Deb Liu, CEO of Ancestry and former VP at Meta, describes being hired by private equity firm Blackstone during the COVID-19 pandemic.

0:00 / 0:07exact quote · 7.8s
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“You're picking a CEO for a company they had just bought for 4.7 billion dollars. Blackstone did the entire interview process in zoom.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Deb Liu

Insight
Promotion committees judge employees disproportionately on their presence in large meetings
“In the calibration committee, it's all the people who only see you in the bigger rooms. And so if you're not showing up, the people who are deciding whether you get promoted, how your ratings are, They're, there's, what they see is the five percent, and they'r…”
Deb Liu Apr 14, 2023 ▶ 2:51 Marketplace Breakout Strategies: Take Rates, Defensibility, Payments | Field Notes by Connie Chan
Assertion Not checkable as stated
eBay employees knew never to buy from sellers below 4.8 stars
“Part of it was that every, every employee of eBay knew that you didn't want to buy from somebody that had a 4.8 star or less. Because in order to give someone a negative feedback as a seller, you basically had to buy your, burn your buyer account. You had to b…”
Deb Liu Apr 12, 2023 ▶ 12:16 Marketplace Tactics: Metrics, Growth vs. Focus, Business Strategy | Field Notes by Connie Chan
Insight
Employees should actively participate in meetings or skip them entirely
“It's like, either be present or don't go. And I think sometimes we have this kind of, well, just observe and absorb. And that's just, you're not in school. That's not how the workplace works.”
Deb Liu Apr 14, 2023 ▶ 1:52 Marketplace Breakout Strategies: Take Rates, Defensibility, Payments | Field Notes by Connie Chan
Insight
Relationship marketplaces should charge high upfront fees to prevent platform leakage
“And it's very hard, you know, especially for in, in markets like that, where it's very easy to take off platform, then maybe you want to charge a lot upfront and a little later, because if you're charging, say, 20% all along the way, at some point, I would jus…”
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Opinion
Deb Liu argues eBay failed to serve any individual vertical category effectively
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Deb Liu Apr 12, 2023 ▶ 7:39 Marketplace Tactics: Metrics, Growth vs. Focus, Business Strategy | Field Notes by Connie Chan
Opinion
Deb Liu warns mass-manufactured products risk undermining Etsy's core brand authenticity
“But then if they're manufactured in mass production, they're going to feel really inauthentic to me as a buyer. And so I think they're walking a really fine line of growth as well as authenticity.”
Deb Liu Apr 12, 2023 ▶ 11:01 Marketplace Tactics: Metrics, Growth vs. Focus, Business Strategy | Field Notes by Connie Chan
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