Thank you for all the helpful advice. I’m still a relatively new female member of the club. How does the club office recommend women to male members? For example, if a man has a woman saved as a favorite, do they let him know when she has an open schedule? Or do they keep track of the type of women he prefers and introduce him to similar women? Do they also tell men who haven’t been active recently about new members? I was curious, so I thought I’d ask!

Maezawa from the President’s Office here as well. Thanks for your question. When staff are still inexperienced, they often do things like, “Shall we check with the women this member has added to his favorites?” But if he actually wants to make an offer, he’s usually already done so. Just because he has added someone to his favorites doesn’t necessarily mean he wants to make an offer right away. That’s the premise, so this approach generally isn’t very effective. Of course, if there’s information not included in the woman’s profile, sharing it may sometimes lead the member to decide to make an offer. However, we generally try to include as much information as possible in the profiles, so more often than not, there isn’t really any additional information to provide. So how do we make recommendations? When a man gives us information like, “I’d make an offer to this kind of woman,” we usually remember it. Then, when a woman like that comes in for an interview, that man’s name comes to mind. While interviewing her, we may already be thinking, “I’ll introduce her to this man…” That’s why I think the interview is especially important. Another opportunity is when a man asks, “Do you have anyone like this?” At that point, we can recommend women we think would be a good match. Hopefully some of the other staff members will answer as well. P.S. > But I imagine it must be difficult to change a system once it’s been fully built out. Not at all. We’re the kind of company that changes its internal tools almost every year. (笑) We have President Kida, who’s practically desperate to keep changing things. He’s been saying for years that he wants to introduce AI. The problem is that we don’t have any programmers who can work with AI. And even aside from AI, the renewal of our membership system has barely progressed, so at the moment we can hardly add any new features, such as recommendation functions. We’ve increased our programmer recruitment, so we hope you’ll look forward to what comes next. That said, I still feel like it may take several years to complete.

I’m Taro, a male member. Based on my own experience, the club hardly ever sends recommendations. They used to occasionally send me emails with suggestions out of the blue, but lately it’s been zero. Since the process is basically handled manually, I imagine there are limits to what they can do. I do think they should make full use of AI and machine learning, as people do nowadays, for recommendations and dynamic pricing. With this many members and past offers, they should have more than enough data. If they could increase the number of suitable matches, everyone would be happier. But I suppose changing a system once it’s been built out is difficult in all sorts of ways. P.S. Maezawa-san, that’s a little late. I do think bringing it in-house is the right goal in the end, but considering how difficult it is to recruit engineers, using outside resources is the realistic solution at first. It’s a shame for management to have identified the opportunity but then get bogged down in the “how.” (…And with that, I’ve just thrown a Molotov cocktail at the company, haha.)

I’m Kazu, a male member. As far as I know, there are quite a few cases where, during an interview or reshoot, staff think, “This woman seems like someone Mr. ○○ would be interested in,” and introduce her. There are also cases where a man makes an inquiry through the concierge service, and the staff search for and introduce women who fit his request. > If there are women you’ve added to your favorites, do they tell you when those women are available? If I ask them to look at my favorites when I make an inquiry, they will, but I don’t think they normally check them because they don’t know why I added each woman to my favorites. The only time I’ve asked them to look at my favorites was when I wanted the staff to understand the type of face I’m attracted to. On the other hand, there have also been several times when they recommended a woman to me and I told them, “I’ve already added her to my favorites.” The only time they checked women’s availability for me was when I suddenly had some free time that day and asked whether there was anyone who could be arranged for me that same day. In that case, they searched the women’s calendars. Basically, I don’t think they search schedules unless a man asks something like, “Are there any women available around noon on the ○th?” Besides, not many women diligently keep their calendars updated. > Do they keep women you like registered in advance, then look for and tell you about similar women? This probably applies only to Black and Platinum members, but when you ask, “Do you have anyone like this?” the club records it in the notes they keep on each male member. If a man frequently makes offers or inquiries and the staff remember him, they may recall his preferences when a woman comes in for an interview or reshoot and recommend her to him. I don’t think they proactively try to bring back men who haven’t been active recently. Also, characteristics that apply to many women, such as a refined, wholesome type, probably aren’t often a reason for a recommendation. Men generally don’t bother inquiring about those qualities individually, and even if the staff recommend someone based on them, it’s less likely to lead directly to an offer. I think women with some distinctive trait or personality are more likely to become recommendation candidates. Some examples of the types of women I’ve either asked about or had recommended to me include: “a popular woman who has been a member for a long time and receives many offers,” “a woman whose occupation is ○○,” “a woman with an unusual occupation,” “a woman who speaks ○○,” “a foreign national,” “a woman with visible abs,” “someone who might not accept offers from anyone except Kazu,” “someone due for a continuation check who still hasn’t received an offer,” and “someone whose offers have recently dried up.” As for the last three, the women were still unusual types that I would likely be interested in to begin with.