David Rosenthal: uncertainty

Transcript context

…There would be Reliance right now as the homegrown champion. I think I quote a Flipkart (maybe) board member investor in the book as saying, “If there was a mistake to make, we made it.” You had the great quote too, I don't know that you had a name on it but it was just an S-team member who said, “We didn't know if we were going to get it right in India, but we knew Walmart was going to get it wrong. ” Exactly. Then you have Reliance who's now an offline conglomerate, who’s now trying to be the national ecommerce champion. Yet, as we know from experience, moving expertise in physical stores into the online channel is not easy. It's really a completely different business. In some ways, it's really disruptive. That's a game in progress. Then I tell the story in Mexico, in part for two reasons, (1) they tried to launch in Mexico without Google. It was a great illustration of how concerned Bezos and Jeff Wilke were about Amazon’s reliance on Google and how they spent billions of dollars every year to advertise and acquire customers via search. They launched in Mexico without search advertising, and it doesn't work. Their numbers are upside down because they're trying to acquire customers with billboards and conventional ads, and it's super expensive and ultimately unproductive. So they turn on Google advertising. Then the second reason that was interesting was, it's a tragic story but they hired the CEO of their business in Mexico who ends up getting fired from the company. Then is accused of having his wife assassinated. Then goes on the lam and has never been seen since.…

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