How a dot-com giant is evolving to become the go-to digital platform for jobs

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Hi readers,

Looking at successful businesses, the adage “you snooze, you lose” has never been more apt. For example, if Netflix hadn’t revamped its 20-year-old DVD rental business to become a streaming service in 2007, we would not have been able to watch Shaman King, as recommended by Nat in the Saturday newsletter.

(Well, some people could still watch it illegally, but hey, that’s not the point.)

Companies have to adapt in order to survive in this harsh environment. Case in point: Seek Asia, which operates online recruitment portals JobsDB and JobStreet. Both might be leading players today, but they will need to stand out from the crowd or risk being outpaced and forgotten when newcomers enter the scene.

Today we look at,

• A dot-com giant’s plan to succeed in the recruitment space
• The Filipino decentralized guild that’s shaking up blockchain gaming
• Other newsy highlights such as Facebook’s recently launched loans for small businesses in India and Uber’s purchase of a Hong Kong taxi app

PREMIUM SUMMARY

How a 24-year-old dot-com giant wants to evolve

The name Seek Asia might not ring a bell, but you definitely have used its products if you’re based in the region and hunting for jobs. That’s because the Australia-based technology group operates JobsDB and JobStreet, two of the leading jobs portals in Asia. And now the giant is expanding further.

• Look ma, South Korea!: The company will be expanding to the market through a US$48 million investment in JobKorea, the country’s largest online employment platform. Seek Asia will also focus its resources on Indonesia, where JobStreet is the leading recruitment portal and only 1% of companies use jobs boards to hire.
• Seeking a fortune: Seek is huge: Its market capitalization in the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) is worth over A$10 billion (around US$7.2 billion). It also owns stakes in Zhaopin, one of China’s top job marketplaces, and education tech firms such as Coursera and FutureLearn.
• Change is coming: Peter Bithos, the ex-CEO of defunct streaming platform Hooq, joined Seek Asia as chief executive last year. He is working to reset the company’s strategy for the next five years, reorganize its leadership structure, and get rid of legacy systems that are holding the group back.

Read more: A sleeping giant in Asia’s online jobs space is waking up

PREMIUM SUMMARY

A16z’s first Filipino bet is shaking up blockchain gaming

We’ve discussed the rise of Axie Infinity quite a bit. While the play-to-earn game sounds enticing, the costs are not: To get started, users have to buy a team of three axies (those cute digital monsters), which could cost US$600 and more. So here’s where Yield Guild Games (YGG) comes into the picture.

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