Every argument clarity score on this site is built from rows on this page. Each
question and answer was assessed with names hidden, the host's own answers included, on
four things from 1 to 5:
directness (does it answer the question asked), coherence (do the ideas follow),
precision (concrete details and clear references), compression (says a lot per word). The weighted
mix (30/30/25/15) is the exchange score. A person's published score averages their exchange
scores on raw tape only, at least 8 of them, shrunk toward the cohort mean.
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Answered produced feed
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 5 5.00
Q You, you stepped away for about, I think about a year and a half, um, and came back As CEO in, in early 20, 22. Um, tell me the, the, the, the thinking behind it. I mean, when you had left, did you think it was temporary, or did you think that, uh, it was for good?
A I thought it was for good. We brought in Manish. I moved to Florida with my wife, followed her for her job. And I thought that was that. And then in December, late December, December, 28th of, um, 20, 21, Hugo passed away. And my feeling was the opposite of what I expected, which was more, this company is his, it's his legacy. Uh, I, I can't entrust that to someone else, regardless of how I felt about them. I felt deep responsibility to make sure that that legacy lived on, and, and so I had this strong urge or desire to jump in, and that, I don't want to speak for Manish, but, um, if I'm reading the room, it coincided with Manish's, uh, probably feeling very burnt out, uh, and he's a very positive Energetic person who was just feeling worn out. So I think we caught each other at just the right moment.
AI assessment note: “I thought it was for good. We brought in Manish.”
Answered produced feed
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 5 5.00
Q the end of 2011. There was massive rapid growth. You, you know, you saw it go public and, um, you know, I'm sure this is, you know, not fun to be reminded of, but still was and is not profitable. And, and so what did that mean? I mean, were you, did you feel like, I'm assuming you felt a charge to kind of get, get it to that place?
A More than a charge. Um, our, our fiscal year ends March 31st. I came back January 11th. Um, so that year ending March 31st, we burned a hundred and ninety-four million dollars, and if we had done that for the next 12 months, that would have been it. We're done. We're gone. So the immediate challenge is don't die. Just do everything possible to keep this thing alive and floating and, and looked at every, Angle to do that and got the unit economics in shape, got the supply chain fixed, brought on really great talent, brought on a fantastically talented CFO, brought discipline to the business, right-sized the team. There are a lot of those things that are difficult in the moment. They're not fun in the moment, but it was just survival mode. And, and we have really turned that around and gotten ourselves into Profitability and into cash flow generation, and, and now that's starting to compound.
AI assessment note: “More than a charge... So the immediate challenge is don't die.”
Answered produced feed
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q And so, presumably, they weren't paying for it, right? But there was a business model, like, you had to pay a membership fee or something to use it or to post.
A The, we were scrambling for a business model in the early days, and so the initial idea for a business model was, this will be great for all the businesses. What we'll do is we'll direct traffic into these local businesses, and, and they will pay us for sending foot traffic into their business. So, as an example, we sent a group of about 30 people into a Barnes and Noble in Union Square in New York, And then our, our smart plan was to call Barnes and Noble the next day and say, see all those people last night? You can, we can do that every day for you if you just pay us. And we called them, and we said that, and they said, that was you? Don't ever do it again. And, uh, they, they weren't ready for it, and so we, we learned something there, but we, we really tried everything we could, and we were cobbling it together and making a little bit of money, but, um, it took us probably four years to get to the subscription service.
AI assessment note: “it took us probably four years to get to the subscription service.”
Answered produced feed
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q Yeah. And so, I mean, I guess, I mean, there were initiatives that you launched, like, First of all, the food idea, you abandoned it, but, but then you must have come back to it, because you do have a food vertical today, a bark, I think it's called bark eats, right?
A Exactly. We've gone in and out and in and out of food. Um, the idea, again, maybe a misfortune of timing, but we went right before the pandemic, we launched a food thing saying, food is food, but, What is the service layer that you can apply to it that makes it special? And so we had this concept of bringing back the, the milkman in the U S and we deliver your food to your home. And I think we started that in January, February of 2020. And we found out during a pandemic, people don't really like someone coming to their door and coming in for a conversation about their dog. Uh, so kind of shot the whole theory right there, but we've Continue to try to navigate it. We continue to this day, and there's a concept just on the horizon for food that I think we're all pretty excited about. It's very different.
AI assessment note: “Exactly. We've gone in and out and in and out of food.”
