Yuga Labs New CEO

The impact of Yuga Labs hiring Daniel Alegre as the companies new CEO...

GM frens,

In today's edition of The Ground Floor we will be breaking down the impact of Yuga Labs hiring Daniel Alegre as the companies new CEO.

Yuga Labs New CEO

Yuga Labs has very big ambitions. 

To date, these ambitions have resulted in Yuga Labs building the top 2, 3 & 4 NFT projects by transaction volume, raising $450 million, acquiring Cryptopunks — the #1 most valuable NFT collection, all the while generating $350+ million in revenue in 2022.

Building on these ambitions, Yuga Labs announced this week the hiring of Daniel Alegre, the former president & COO of Activision Blizzard, the $68 billion dollar gaming giant.

Who Is Daniel Alegre?

Alegre studied at Princeton University before completing an MBA at Harvard.

Post Princeton & Harvard, Alegre worked for Bertelsmann (one of the world's largest media conglomerates), and later took on a position as Managing Director at BMG Music.

While music & media was the initial focus of Alegre's career, the primary focus of his career has been his tenure at Google where he formerly held the title of President of Global Retail, Shopping & Payments.

During his 16 year tenure at Google, Alegre was responsible for leading the opening of Google's Asian operations, led partnerships globally & led Google's global retail strategy.

At Activision Blizzard where Alegre has been President & COO for 2 years, Alegre will have obtained an intimate understanding of what it takes to create some of the most successful games such as World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and Diablo.

A Big Bet

Having earned a $1.35 million salary plus bonuses, during his first year at Activision Blizzard per SEC filings, it's clear such leadership talent doesn't come cheap in 2022.

Further, Yuga Labs have appointed Alegre as their CEO — a position that will allow him to shape Yuga Labs into the company they need to become to expand from creating NFTs to creating high quality multiplayer games where NFTs are a feature.

Daniel Alegre will not be short on capital to do so.

Yuga Labs have made well over $100 million from NFT secondary sales, raised $450 million from venture capitalists, and sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of NFTs.

Why Yuga Labs?

Microsoft announced its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in January 2022, with the goal of closing the deal by June 2023.

Daniel Alegre is departing Activision Blizzard at the beginning of April 2023.

From Yuga Labs standpoint it's clear why they would want Danie Alegre to lead the company into its next chapter & we also have clarity why Alegre is interested in the role.

"Throughout my career, I have sought to build disruptive and innovative platforms that provide long-term value to consumers.

Web3 presents an opportunity to reinvent how content is used, transacted and owned across the globe."

Alegre told CoinDesk. 

📡 Looking Forward

Yuga Labs have made some massive mistakes.

This move to hire Daniel Alegre is not one of them.

With a leader such as Alegre now sailing this ship, the likelihood that Yuga Labs can successfully establish itself as a top tier gaming company has significantly increased.

In the coming months, we expect to see Yuga Labs hire many more talented executives as Alegre alone cannot build Yuga Labs into an organization that can consistently create digital experiences that millions people would be willing to pay for.

✔️ The Lessons Learned

1) Daniel Alegre, the soon to be CEO of Yuga Labs is an extremely experienced executive. 

2) Yuga Labs are willing to make big bets such as replacing their CEO should they see an opportunity to increase their odds of the company succeeding.

3) More & more talented professionals are choosing to invest their time in Web3 as we have highlighted in past editions of TGF.

4) Bonus: Daniel Alegre recently purchased this Mutant Ape #3850 (a great choice).

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