Pattern Recognition - Investing in the Future

After founding Hotwire and Zillow, Spencer Rascoff is back building dot.LA to support the LA tech ecosystem. Spencer reflects on how the Zillow team kickstarted its early network effects and how it differentiated in consumers' minds with the 'Zestimate'. Spencer also shares how he approaches his board work with Zulilly, TripAdvisor and Palantir with a focus on scaling and managing talent. And lastly, Spencer discusses his work building dot.LA and how he's planning to empower entrepreneurs across SoCal.

Having sat at the helm of the world’s premier management consulting firm for close to a decade, Dom Barton has seen what it takes to build leading teams across the world’s most successful $bn companies. Alongside Ram Charan, Dom penned Talent Wins, a guide that lays out how to scale a dominant and long-term business by focusing on people.

So in today’s episode, we discuss how exactly Talent Wins. Specifically, we dive into the structural building blocks found in McKinsey’s culture and values that allow its people to achieve excellence. Additionally, Dom shares the key qualities he looks for in candidates that are applying to McKinsey and how junior talent should think about scaling to senior roles. Lastly, Dom shares the consistent patterns he’s seen across his most successful clients through the lens of multiple economic cycles.

For show notes, unreleased episodes, and more check out: https://patternrecognitionpod.com

Twitter: @JohnHeezy | Instagram: @johnghu

Last valued at $1.3 billion, Thumbtack provides a service marketplace for millions of consumers a year. So what's it like running the ship? Marco Zappacosta, Thumbtack's founder and CEO, walks us through how he thinks about differentiation in the gig economy, how to hire at scale, and how Thumbtack is empowering the small business economy.

With a $1.8bn market cap, Upwork is revolutionizing the way we work. As the head of the largest freelancer marketplace, Stephane Kasriel walks us through the operational metrics required to scale a billion dollar marketplace, from user retention to trust and safety. In addition to sharing how Upwork differentiates, Stephane recounts his experience merging the two leading competitors in the space to form Upwork and then ultimately taking the company public in a highly successful IPO. As Stephane shares his M&A integration tips and recounts each step of the IPO, you won't want to miss out on this episode!

Having raised at a unicorn valuation from SoftBank's Vision Fund and Kleiner Perkins, Alex Garden and his team at Zume are revolutionizing the way we consume food. In today's episode, Alex and I discuss everything from the unit economics of restaurant delivery to saving the world from global climate change. And within our broad conversation, we dive really deep into how Zume is using robotic preparation and mobile kitchen deliver to provide both consumers and restaurants with a higher quality, better tasting and cheaper experience. We also get into the nitty gritty of how Alex and his team think about KPIs and metrics, and how data-driven decisioning serves as the cornerstone of Zume’s business.