This Is Water NY
Commerce operators step back from the noise to discuss customer insight, experimentation, and the decisions that shape a brand.
When
4:00 – 8:00 PM
Where
New York
The Standard, High Line
Co-hosts
About the event
Commerce is running faster than ever. But what’s the destination?
Commerce has always run hot. The market shifts, consumer behavior swings, a channel changes the rules overnight… Every problem needs to be fixed yesterday. Then, AI made it both better and worse: new vendors launch by the dozen, each promising performance leaps that show up in the pitch long before they show up in the numbers.
At some point, this frantic pace became the default we stopped noticing. It’s how entire quarters, then entire years can go by without anyone at the brand thinking about the long term.
Commerce Symposium: This Is Water is an afternoon to step back. No FOMO-laden keynotes about the one tool, tactic, or marketing channel that will save you, and no trading tomorrow’s sanity for today’s gain. Just a room of commerce operators we admire: people who are putting in the work, have the scars to show for it, and are not afraid to tell it how it is.
Together, we’ll learn to separate what matters from what’s loud, spend our attention where it counts, and run a brand on intention instead of reflex.
Speakers
Alessandro Desantis
Partner, Nebulab
David Cost
Chief Digital Officer, Rainbow Shops
Zach Feldman
Staff Software Engineer, Framework
Daniel Pardes
CTO, Away
Austin Goldman
CEO, Shoplift
Jeff Bobula
VP of Product, Cometeer
Oren Halperin
VP, Digital & Merchandising, AJ Madison
Agenda
4:00 PM
Check-in & refreshments
Doors open, names get checked, and a drink finds your hand before anyone asks you a hard question. Thirty minutes to arrive properly, say hello to the people you already know, and meet those you don't.
4:30 PM
What the Hell Is Water?
Commerce has never moved faster: more tools, more vendors, more dashboards, more AI, and somehow less certainty that any of it points at the right thing. This is the question the afternoon opens on. What’s the water you’ve stopped seeing, and what changes the moment you look straight at it? A short, honest talk about attention as the scarcest resource an operator has, and how to start spending it on purpose.
Speaker
- Alessandro Desantis
5:00 PM
Know Thyself: The Arcane Art of Understanding Your Customer
The better we know the customer, the better we serve them, the more money we make. That’s one of the fundamentals of commerce (and the promise printed on every CDP ever made). But what does it even mean to know the customer? Two brands here have gone in opposite directions: one watches behavior at an enormous scale and responds in real time; the other talks to its customers directly, and they talk back. Both of them work—which suggests the useful question isn’t how well you know the customer, but how well you know yourself.
Moderator
- Alessandro Desantis
Panelists
- David Cost
- Zach Feldman
5:30 PM
Break & refill
Fifteen minutes to refill your glass, answer the one message you’ve been ignoring, and let the last hour settle. The best conversations rarely show up on the schedule, so go wander a little.
5:45 PM
Fast, Right, or Both? A/B Testing in the Age of AI
Every e-commerce team knows the tradeoff. A/B test properly and you unlock real insights, but slowly. Ship on instinct and you move fast, but you may also be wrong. By rolling out faulty A/B testing programs, most brands end up with neither rigor nor speed. AI was supposed to break the deadlock—and for some brands, it has, but not without handing those teams some harder problems in return. In this panel, we’ll talk about how AI is actually changing A/B testing, where human judgment is still needed, and how brands can keep up.
Moderator
- Alessandro Desantis
Panelists
- Daniel Pardes
- Austin Goldman
6:15 PM
Out of the Box: How Brands Create Lasting Value Beyond the Product
A strong physical product may earn the first order, but a strong digital product keeps the customer coming back. A subscription that adjusts to your preferences before you even ask; a mobile app that keeps you entertained; a loyalty program that rewards you in original and meaningful ways. None of this is easy to build, which is precisely the point. Executed well, digital product can be an incredibly strong retention lever—but in a marketing-dominated industry, it’s also the hardest to justify. In this panel, we look at how brands decide what to build, how far to go, and how to tell real value from added cost.
Moderator
- Alessandro Desantis
Panelists
- Jeff Bobula
- Oren Halperin
6:45 PM
Aperitif & afterparty
The program’s done. The good part starts. Head out to the terrace, argue about everything you just heard, and let the evening run long. Nobody ever regretted the conversation that happened after the panels.
Venue
The Standard, High Line
The Standard, High Line is André Balazs's glass tower on stilts, straddling the elevated park it's named for in the Meatpacking District. Floor-to-ceiling windows hand you the Hudson on one side and the Manhattan skyline on the other. Le Bain and the old Boom Boom Room crown the top floors; the Standard Grill and a biergarten sit under the tracks below. It's modernist, a little theatrical, and impossible to ignore. Walk in and you're already paying attention.
FAQs
Who is this for?
Growth and digital product leaders at consumer brands doing $50M and up. If you own growth, e-commerce, retention, merchandising, or data, feel free to apply!
Can I become a sponsor?
Maybe. We select every sponsor carefully and keep the number small on purpose, so the day never turns into a trade show floor. Email [email protected] and we’ll walk you through what’s left.
Can I apply to speak at the event?
Yes, possibly. Email [email protected] with what you’d want to talk about and the story behind it. We care more about a hard-won lesson than a polished pitch.
What’s with the whole water thing?
It’s a reference to David Foster Wallace’s famous speech, 'This Is Water.' Look it up now, and thank us later.
New York