Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baker: Zodiac app tagged tens of millions in 24 hours before shutdown
“Within I think within 24 hours, we had tagged tens of millions of people in photos. I think including Zuck, and then I heard the platform team shut it down shortly after that.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baker: Friending Was Facebook's Number One Driver of User Retention
“Most of the growth team at Facebook at the time was actually focused on friending, because we discovered at Facebook that friending was the number one driver of retention and engagement.”
Assertion Supported
Baker: Uber used a WeChat bot to onboard Chinese drivers until blocked
“One of the engineers on our China growth team built a WeChat bot. WeChat's, you know, like a mess, the messaging app, or the Facebook of, sorry, the Facebook, and also the Internet of China, really. And so we built this WeChat bot, Where, as a driver, you coul…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baker: Facebook's MAUs Were Driven More by Retention Than Acquisition
“Facebook was already at a size where retention and engagement were bigger drivers of the North Star metric MAUs than new user acquisition.”
What-if
Baker: Uber would have kept growing without any paid acquisition
“Uber would have kept growing even if we had never done any paid acquisition, but especially in a competitive market it kind of makes sense to pay up to what the, that rider or that driver is ultimately going to be worth”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baker: Simple copy change made Japan Facebook's most viral market
“And Japan went from like our least viral country to our most viral country. But it was literally just a copy tweak to make people more comfortable with sharing what the product they were using with their friends.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baker: Uber Merged Core Product and Growth Teams in 2016
“We actually merged the product team and the growth team about a year ago at Uber for largely for those reasons. Especially as we started focusing more on engagement and retention within the growth team. And that's kind of what the core product team was working…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baker: Facebook's growth team reached around 500 people during his tenure
“And when I was at Facebook, I think the growth team was about, around 500 people or so.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baker: Facebook's entire analytics team was once part of growth
“In fact, all of analytics back then was part of the growth team.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baker: Uber chose weekly trips as North Star to balance supply and demand
“Ultimately we decided on trips, weekly trips as the North Star metric, because for every trip to take place, you need, ah, riders and you need drivers. And so by having trips as that North Star metric, you could then break that down into the supply side and th…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baker: Facebook Relied on Organic Growth While Uber Scaled Paid Acquisition
“So, Facebook, we didn't really do very much paid acquisition, but at Uber, we had an entire performance marketing team. Well, initially it was a one-person team, but ultimately became a team where we would actually spend money to acquire both riders and driver…”
Disclosure
Baker: Uber tested phone mentoring by existing drivers for first-time trips
“We also experimented with are there ways we can get potentially existing drivers or other people to, like, get on the phone with a driver and talk them through that, that first that first trip.”
