Season 2, Episode 1: Zappos (with Alfred Lin)

Former Zappos Chairman & COO (and current Partner at Sequoia
Capital) Alfred Lin joins our heroes to kick off Season 2 with a
classic: Amazon’s 2009 acquisition of the internet’s quirkiest
online retailer for $1.2B in stock. How did three Harvard
undergrads go from delivering pizza to their dorm to delivering
happiness to the world — and become in the process one of the few
companies ever to compete successfully head-to-head against
Amazon in commerce? Tune in to find out! 


Note: Unfortunately the quality of David and Alfred’s audio
tracks in this episode were significantly impacted by a processor
issue on David’s computer, which we didn’t discover until after
recording. We’ve worked hard to fix in post-production, but it’s
still far from perfect. Still, the content from Alfred is so
good, we felt we had to put this episode out there even though
the audio quality isn’t up to par. We hope you’ll give it a
listen regardless, and we’re working on getting a transcript made
ASAP as well. 


-Ben & David



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Carve Outs:


Ben:  Andrew Mason on Recode Decode 

David: Justin O’Beirne on Google Maps’ Moat

Alfred: Walter Isaacson’s biographies of  Albert
Einstein and  Benjamin Franklin