Open records
5 of 32 records, free, exactly as they appear in the set. 5 more verified records are in the purchased files.
| Company | Fork date | The fork | Options | Choice | Stated rationale | What happened | Judgment analyst | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airbnb Read the story → verified | 2020-03 | In the guest-vs-host conflict, protect guest trust or host trust? |
| Protect guest trust | The cycle runs on guest trust; a guest burned by one bad stay distrusts the next ten | 3 years · 2023 host earnings: hosts earned more than $57 billion in 2023 alone | reversibility low verdict held | CNBC (2020-11); SEC / Airbnb, Inc. (2024-08); Airbnb, Inc. Investor Relations (2024-02) |
| Alibaba Read the story → verified | 2011 | Whether to keep Alipay inside Alibaba Group or separate it out under founder control to clear the regulatory path |
| Separate Alipay to founders | The transfer was justified as regulatory: a payment license might be denied to companies tangled in foreign-investor VIE structures, so Alipay had to be made domestically clean | Latest · 2011 Yahoo's stake value in Alipay: reduced by more than 60% | reversibility low verdict held | U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission / Yahoo! Inc. (2011-05); Harvard Business Law Review (2021); Wikipedia / Ant Group (2024) |
| Apple Read the story → verified | 2020-12 | Whether to keep the flat 30% commission or reduce the headline rate for most developers while defending it against smaller players. |
| Cut rate for most developers | Apple has been quietly shaving the headline rate because the 30% was the part it could not defend. | 3 years · 2024 Services revenue: Apple's FY2024 Services revenue hit $96.2 billion - up 13% in a year - at a 73.9% gross margin | reversibility low verdict held | Apple Inc. — Apple Developer Documentation / App Store Connect (2023); Apple Inc. — Apple Developer (2024); Apple Inc. — Apple Newsroom (2020-11); AppleInsider (2016-06); U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission / Apple Inc. (2024-11) |
| DoorDash Read the story → verified | 2018-08-08 | Whether to give away per-order delivery margin through a paid subscription to buy frequency and retention |
| Launch paid subscription giveaway | Members retain better and order more frequently than non-members, so surrendering per-order margin buys frequency and retention | 5 years · 2025 Average order frequency: reached an all-time high in Q2 2025 | reversibility low verdict held | DoorDash / PR Newswire (2018-08); DoorDash, Inc. / SEC EDGAR (2025-02); DoorDash, Inc. / SEC EDGAR (2025-02); DoorDash, Inc. / SEC EDGAR (2025-02); Earnest Analytics / Consumer Edge (2025-02); DoorDash Investor Relations (2025-08) |
| Mastercard Read the story → verified | 2006-05-25 | Whether to convert the bank-owned cooperative into a public company via IPO |
| Go public via IPO | Members voted overwhelmingly in favor of the offering, framed as a modernization of the network's structure | 5 years · 2024-06 Proposed follow-on settlement rejected: a proposed up to $30 billion follow-on settlement was rejected by the court in June 2024 | reversibility low verdict held | Wikipedia / Britannica (corroborating secondary sources; primary is the Mastercard S-1 SEC filing) (2024); U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission / Mastercard Incorporated (2025-02); U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York / Wikipedia (case record summary) (2023-03); The Hill (2024-06) |
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- The fork, the options, the choice in the form the company faced them.
- Stated rationale as the company gave it or the record documents it, not our theory.
- Capital committed where the record states it; blank where it does not.
- Outcomes at one, three and five years or latest, each dated and cited.
- Reversibility and verdict as analyst judgments, marked as such.
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