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Ryan Smith
Apple Media Products
Ryan Smith pursued his education at the University of Rochester, earning a Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Finance and a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Political Science. Throughout his career, Ryan has held various instrumental roles in well-known organizations. He has worked as a Data Science Manager at Apple, as a Data Science Lead for Spotify Wrapped at Spotify, as a Senior Data Scientist for Strategy & Finance in Live Events at Spotify, as a Data Science Manager and Senior Data Scientist for Podcasts at Spotify, and also as a Data Analyst for Sports Partnerships at Facebook. Earlier in his career, he served as a Portfolio Analyst and Trading Assistant at Eaton Vance, as well as a Research Analyst at LVW Advisors.
Highlights
👋 Hi there. I recently joined Apple, where I'm leading a team working across media products like Apple Music, TV+, Live Sports, and Podcasts. I'm moving to Los Angeles too, wow! Many thanks to everyone who offered support throughout the search process.
So, some news. Last month I got swept up in the latest round of layoffs at Spotify.
The news was admittedly… surprising. On a Wednesday night, I was celebrating the launch of Spotify Wrapped, in particular the Sound Town feature I co-authored; it was the top trending topic on social that day, garnering coverage in the New York Times. On Monday morning, I learned my time at Spotify was over.
I eventually pieced together what happened. For the past two years, I’d been working on a team with real ambitions for Spotify in the live concert space. Upwards of 70% of this team was let go amidst a change in scope. I’d spent the last few months largely away from the team, focused on shipping Wrapped. I was thus no longer mission-critical, the business vertical I was working on was shut down entirely, and frankly I wouldn’t have been a good fit with the team’s new direction had I stayed.
I’m really proud of the work I did at Spotify. I learned a ton and was able to impact several important initiatives. Among the highlights:
➡️ I was one of the go-to insights practitioners across the company for podcasts, helping grow podcast MAU grew from <10M to >100M and overtake Apple as the world’s leading podcast platform.
➡️ I had the opportunity to present work to the CEO on multiple occasions, and to the rest of the senior management team on many more.
➡️ I created the content valuation methodology used to evaluate hundreds of millions of dollars of investments in podcasts, and personally built the deal models for some of the biggest investments like Spotify’s deal with Joe Rogan.
➡️ I contributed analysis to M&A deals like Spotify’s acquisition of The Ringer.
➡️ I built a team from scratch and hired a bunch of wonderful, talented data scientists.
➡️ I did a wide range of stuff for Spotify’s internal startup dedicated to live concerts: I built predictive models, ran financial simulations, presented to many industry partners, proposed novel business models, and even spent a few months booking concerts.
➡️ I was the data science lead for this year’s Wrapped and co-authored the viral Sound Town feature.
I’d always been a ride-or-die Spotifier, and fully expected to spend 10+ years there, which makes the abrupt end all the more disappointing. That being said, I’m feeling incredibly motivated, and am looking forward to the chance to talk to some amazing companies and find a new home.
If you’d like to help: I’d love an introduction to smart people working on cool stuff where I might be able to lend a hand. I’d also appreciate if you could share this post to increase the odds that the right person sees it! And of course, I’d love to catch up and see what you’re up to, particularly if it’s been a while.
What’s next? I plan on enjoying this Bills playoff run, trying to land tickets to Phish at the Sphere, and heading to the west coast for a while to avoid the worst of the New York winter.
Thanks to all my friends and colleagues for the support. I had a blast!
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
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