Z
16 companies
Zappos
E-commerce / Footwear Retail
Zappos represents the epigenetic model of cultural inheritance in acquisitions. When Amazon acquired Zappos for $1.2 billion in 2009, Tony Hsieh insis...
Zoom
Video Communications / SaaS
Eric Yuan founded Zoom in 2011 after leaving Cisco WebEx, detecting signals others missed: terrible video quality, desktop-first products in a mobile-...
Zara (Inditex)
Retail / Fashion
Zara moves from design to store in 2-3 weeks. The industry average is 6-9 months. That speed premium isn't about fashion - it's about correctly identi...
Zomato
Food Delivery / Technology Platform
Zomato is one of India's largest food delivery platforms, coordinating 300,000+ delivery riders serving 50+ million customers across 1,000+ cities. Th...
Zalando
E-commerce
Fashion platforms face the paradox of abundance: more inventory attracts more customers, but excess choice paralyzes decisions and destroys margins. Z...
Zapier
Technology/Automation
Distributed-first automation company that designs remote work topology intentionally, emphasizing asynchronous communication and transparent informati...
Zeiss
Optics/Precision Equipment
German optics company that produces optical systems including EUV mirrors requiring atomic-level precision for ASML's lithography equipment. Zeiss has...
Zhihu
Social Media / Knowledge Platform
Zhihu operates as China's knowledge-sharing commons—81.4 million monthly users contributing and consuming long-form Q&A content across technology, bus...
Zillow Group
Real Estate - Marketplace
Zillow operates as a remora attached to the multi-trillion-dollar housing market, extracting value through information aggregation without owning inve...
Zinox Group
Technology
Zinox Group is a Nigerian technology conglomerate founded by Leo Stan Ekeh that operates as a predator-scavenger in the West African tech ecosystem. T...
Zions Bancorporation
Regional Banking
Western U.S. regional bank with strong presence in Utah and surrounding states, specializing in commercial banking, small business lending, and treasu...
Zirtual
Gig Economy
Zirtual's 2015 sudden shutdown—employees discovered via Slack—demonstrates how virtual assistant services face margin collapse. The company burned thr...
ZoomInfo
Sales Technology
Go-to-market intelligence platform providing B2B contact data, company information, buying signals, and sales engagement tools. Helps sales and market...
Zoox, Inc.
Autonomous Vehicles
Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company designing purpose-built robotaxi with bidirectional driving and symmetrical design.
Zscaler
Cloud Security
Zscaler operates cloud-native security platform for zero trust architecture. First-mover advantage in cloud security with network effects strengthenin...
Zurich Insurance Group
Financial Services
Zurich Insurance's $75+ billion annual revenue (property/casualty 75%, life insurance 20%) rests on portfolio theory made institutional: uncorrelated...