#46 - Podcast Learning Medley on models of NBA vs. MLB, WeWork’s early foundation, and Uber vs. Lyft
July 10, 2020: Summarizing learnings from three particular podcast series. First is the organization model of NBA vs. MLB and how a revenue-sharing model where incentives are aligned with stakeholders come to reckoning in times of crisis. Second is a series on WeWork’s founder and a look at what life was like in the fast-growth era of the business. Third is a series looking at the battle between Lyft and Uber… looking at the different founding stories, tactics by the founders to build the business and hints at what the cultural difference internally could’ve been like.
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Episode Notes:
The Journal Podcast - Pro Sports Are Coming Back. Can They Pull It Off?
NBA vs MLB in how the relationships with the owner’s and the player’s associations impact the restart of these sports
MLB players do not have a salary cap. Making it one of the few major league sports that are capitalistic. This creates a competitive riff between the team owners and the players as owners get what’s left from the player’s playing (i.e. ticket sales, ads etc…).
NBA has a cap and that creates a mutual incentive between players and owners as it’s kind of a revenue sharing model where both parties want to increase profitability of the overall team and league for everyone to do well.
This has resulted in the NBA being able to come to agreements of the NBA-Bubble setup in Disney World, compared to the MLB where the players are holding out as long as they want and are in a position of being forced to play through strong-arming of the commissioner.
A comparative view on how a structure with aligned incentives can help things happen during hard times.
Foundering Podcast - WeWork Series
Not complete yet, 4 parts available currently.
My first look into WeWork’s founder’s history and the organization culture that shaped the foundation of WeWork.
The Israel Kibbutz: an experiment in micro-socialism.
Neumann’s hectic entrepreneurial journey, dropping out from college… trying to start a high heel company…. Then a baby clothing brand…. The man who walks around New York barefoot or topless, is married to Gwyneth Paltrow’s sister… and postures strongly about his upbringing that doesn’t shape out to reality.
A culture focused on Neumann’s love for parties ($2M annual parties), visions for purposely underpaying employees, a focus on cheap+fast… and something focused around a messiah complex
Fascinating stories in operations from condom wrappers in meditation rooms, “activation” schemes to woo investors, WeWorks with no functioning bathrooms or no door…..
Business Wars Podcast - Uber vs. Lyft Series
7 Part series looking at the shady/ruthless Uber and the PC/Friendly Lyft
Including Uber, Kalanick’s three companies all had legal/ethics issues… with the first few businesses focused on illegal music downloads and withholding tax payments to focus on company growth.
A lens into Uber’s ruthless tactics like crashing Lyft events to steal drivers, telling Uber drivers to mass order/cancel Lyft orders to discourage Lyft drivers, paying cash to Lyft drivers to bring them on, flagging accounts of transit authorities so they couldn’t catch Uber driver’s illegally operating in city, breaking Apple’s data collection rule to collect user data and subsequently paying off hackers to hide the breach of 57M user data.
Lyft’s original business model was on peer-to-peer driving and Uber was on using licensed cab drivers. Uber called Lyft a clone yet Uber ended up following Lyft’s peer-to-peer driving model.
Interesting global partnership model Lyft had created with Grab and DiDi but how shaky it can also be.
The party tech-bro culture of Uber with $25M Vegas parties… celebrities as shareholders… 200+ sexual misconduct findings..
Lyft’s start and focus seems to continue to be on the environmental preservation while Uber’s was on power/luxury.
Fascinating how the ’singular’ focused business model investor’s liked is now looked upon as a crisis as Uber survives on UberEats while Lyft struggles