Professor Steve Tadelis and Sphere Present
THEÂ ECONOMICS
OF DIGITAL PLATFORMS
Your chance to engage live with a UC Berkeley Professor and ex-Economist at Amazon & eBay, as well as a cohort of driven industry professionals
5 x 2 hr sessions (+ recordings of each live session)
Price: $750 per seat (expense through L&D)
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Learn what very few professionals master - insights, frameworks and tools that will give you an edge in product, marketing and strategic roles
Our instructors are the best in their field, marrying academic theory with industry applicability
We don’t do prerecorded videos - you learn directly from the best so that you get a personalized learning experience
Each cohort is a carefully curated group of young professionals from up and coming companies around the world
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Steve Tadelis
VP of Economics and Market Design at
Sr. Director and Distinguished
Economist at
Steve Tadelis is one of the leading experts in the economics & strategy of the internet. Steve has close to 25 years at Stanford and UC Berkeley where he currently holds the Sarin Chair in Strategy and Leadership.
Outside of academia, Steve spent 5 years as an academic scholar for Amazon and 2 years as a distinguished economist at eBay where he applied economic research tools to a variety of product and business applications.
At eBay, Steve led a team focussing on the economics of e-commerce, with particular attention to creating better matches of buyers and sellers, understanding the underlying value of different advertising and marketing strategies, and exploring the market benefits of different pricing structures. In his time with Amazon, his team focussed on improving the company’s efficiency and understanding how they can better serve their customers.
who need to guide innovation in this space and build world class products
who want to understand the forces behind both growth and decline in the digital economy
tasked with driving customer acquisition and retention
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The past twenty years have brought about great disruption in business with the introduction and proliferation of digital platforms. Marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon, and Taobao changed the way we shop; Search engines like Yahoo! and Google changed the way we gather information; Facebook, Instagram and Twitter changed the way we engage with each other; Uber and Lyft changed the way we commute. What is behind this revolution and why do some digital platforms succeed where others fail?
Participants in this course will gain key insights into the economics behind the most common business models, opportunities, and challenges of digital platforms. Economic modeling will come to life as we explore and dive into key issues such as network effects, e-commerce marketplaces, feedback and recommender systems, online auctions, product versioning and pricing, digital ads, regulation of big tech, and consumer privacy regulation. The goal is to understand the economic principles behind strategies and business models of digital platforms and obtain guidance into how to succeed in this space using these principles.
Using economic reasoning and results from applied research done in large digital platforms, the course will add valuable insights and powerful frameworks to professionals across several roles, including product managers who need to guide innovation in this space; marketing specialists tasked with driving customer acquisition and retention; FP&A managers who struggle to correctly measure success; and business leaders who must understand the forces behind both growth and decline in the digital economy, to name a few
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Lecture 1 - Network Effects and Economies of Scale
This lecture covers some of the most fundamental principles behind what makes digital platforms powerful business models. Aside from the economic forces of Network effects and economies of scale, we will cover the workings of two- and multi-sided platforms, the challenge of single- vs. multi-homing, and the role of switching costs in customer retention.
Lecture 2 - Designing Digital Platforms
Steve Tadelis | 15th February 2022
This lecture describes the main components of a variety of digital platform business models. In addition to spelling out the economic forces behind the most common business models, we will explore key components to revenue generation that include pricing, product versioning, marketplace fees, auctions and their role in the digital economy, and how big-Data can become an important strategic asset
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Lecture 3 - Trust in Online Markets
This lecture explores reviews and feedback mechanisms that play the role of fostering trust in online marketplaces. We will see how these systems often, if not always, include significant biases and strategies for removing bias from feedback and reputation systems are explored. We will also discuss the role of recommender systems in a variety of digital platforms.
Lecture 4 - Customer Acquisition, LTV and Advertising ROI
This lecture describes the many challenges of implementing and measuring the success of growth strategies behind customer acquisition and retention. The most problematic aspects of measuring ROI on digital (or any) advertising efforts will be uncovered and tools to overcome these challenges will be presented.
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Lecture 5 - Regulating the Digital Economy
This last lecture discusses the way in which the ground is constantly shifting under the feet of digital platforms with the increasing amount of scrutiny that regulators across all continents are focusing on the so-called “big tech” companies. We will briefly explore the economic analyses of the pros and cons of net neutrality, how regulators are trying to apply and modify competition policy in platform markets, and the pressing issues around data privacy and ownership.
Enrollments to the program end on October 22nd!
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