Ben Gilbert: evaluation

Transcript context

…When you read about exploding hoverboards, sneakers that are self-destructing after the second wear, or out-and-out fraud, it's because Amazon built these systems and scaled them. And in an Amazon-like way, ran them with algorithms, software, and a lot of human care and curation because they were moving quickly in setting up these systems and trying to globalize the marketplace before Alibaba, Wish, or anyone else. I thought that was a really interesting point that you made that was like, sure, there's this big problem with counterfeiting, IP theft, and factories selling direct even though it's really someone else's product. Let's even put that aside for a minute. There's a sort of legitimate battle going on between Chinese manufacturers with lower-cost structures who are willing to play by the rules and are willing to build legitimate brands. I think Anker is the brand that you cited that made phone chargers and all sorts of gadgets. They just have a dramatically lower cost structure than the American brand that they're selling against because everything about the company is China-based. As long as they can ship them to American customers, they can always undercut the third-party seller marketplace. Steven Yang, the CEO of Anker, says to a western seller named Bernie Thompson, who's the CEO of Plugable, which is in the same business accessories. He says to him at one point—in a very kind way because Steven’s a nice guy says—Bernie, we're going to run you over just because there’s the acknowledgement that you really can't compete. Steven and Anker, they have their manufacturing relationships and they have an underlying cost advantage. I went back to a lot of the sellers who over the years have been mentioned in Bezos’ investor letters, to take their temperature and like, here they are in the letters as the evangelists for Amazon Marketplace. I thought after many years what would their tune be, and all of them had become disgruntled because of exactly what we're talking about. One of them had that great quote, I feel like I was invited for Thanksgiving dinner and I was the turkey.…

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