Analysis

Every episode, in writing. The charts, the numbers, the key points — for when you don’t have time to watch.

Filter by industry

Case study — ServicesWhy college is so expensive in AmericaHarvard holds $57B and charges $82,866 a year. Tuition isn't the business — the undergraduate is the seed, not the customer.13 min readCase study — TechnologyWhy Insta360 beat GoPro at its own gameGoPro invented the category. A startup took 82% of the market and now owns a future that nobody thought was possible.8 min readCase study — FinanceWhy Ukraine's minerals are Iraq's oil all over againAmerica has signed this deal twice before, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and lost both times to the same rival.11 min readCase study — TravelWhy Asian airlines are so much betterAsian carriers deliver a service Americans barely recognize. American airlines earn more doing far less.8 min readCase study — TechnologyWhy the AI boom is the dot-com bubble againDifferent technology, same house of cards — and this time the pump happened in private, where nothing is marked to market.8 min readCase study — Food & beverageWhy your favorite brands got so much worseRecipes got cheaper and portions smaller across American brands at the same moment. Not a coincidence.8 min readCase study — Media & entertainmentWhy movie theaters survive off popcornTheaters keep less than half your ticket and lose money on the film. The popcorn is not a joke, it is the plan.8 min readCase study — Media & entertainmentHow much a haunted house actually makesA haunted house has six weekends a year to make its money back. The good ones out-earn Disney Parks on margin.10 min readCase study — Retail & consumerWhy UNIQLO makes more money than GucciSame playbook, three outcomes. The only variable was whether the boss knew what stage he was in.12 min readCase study — Food & beverageWhy the dairy industry is failingOatly lost $344M in a year and Dean Foods went bankrupt. Milk is priced by politics, and the subsidies stop at the farm gate.13 min readCase study — ServicesWhy Ozempic is so expensiveThe same two companies that quintupled the price of insulin now want obesity classified as a disease.12 min readCase study — ServicesWhy almost nobody makes money in an MLMTupperware went bankrupt and Avon was dissolved. The model works spectacularly, and then it always fails.7 min readCase study — TravelWhy almost no luxury carmaker makes moneyToyota sells 10.3 million cars a year. McLaren sells 2,137. Only two exotic makers have made that arithmetic work.12 min readCase study — TravelWhy car rental is such a bad businessMargins as thin as an airline, and the companies make more money selling the cars than renting them out.8 min readCase study — TravelWhy American public transit sucksNew York's subway loses $8.5 billion a year. Tokyo turns a 15% profit on an older system carrying more people.11 min readCase study — Retail & consumerHow a $1,000 jacket became a luxury brandCanada Goose built a real luxury brand in ten years. The margins prove it. The share price says it may not matter.11 min readCase study — Media & entertainmentHow much nightcrawlers actually get paidLocal news cut the night shift and kept the footage. The freelancers who replaced it carry every cost and get a watermark.8 min readCase study — TravelWhy Chinese EVs are so far aheadCheaper, faster and better equipped than anything the West sells, and cheap labor has nothing to do with it.8 min readCase study — Food & beverageWhy omakase is suddenly everywhereNo servers, no walk-ins, no storefront, revenue booked before the door opens. Omakase deleted every cost that kills a restaurant.8 min readCase study — Food & beverageHow Papa John’s buried Papa JohnSix regimes in thirty years, four of them engineered by the founder. The filings contradict his version.10 min readCase study — Retail & consumerWhy gun prices make no senseThe most lucrative consumer market in America is also the only one with no prices, no ads and no data.12 min readCase study — Media & entertainmentWhy there’s no money in making moviesThe Big Five survive flops because movies are one line item in a conglomerate. Lionsgate had nothing to fall back on.11 min readCase study — Media & entertainmentWhy arcades never actually diedConsoles killed the arcade market. They did not kill the arcade business — it just stopped being about games.11 min readCase study — FinanceHow credit card companies actually make moneyThe swipe fee is not the business. The interest is — and the networks taking the blame were founded by the banks collecting it.11 min readCase study — Media & entertainmentWhy Pokemon cards are worth so much moneyA piece of cardboard printed in 1999 sold for $420,000. What sets the price is not rarity or nostalgia.8 min readCase study — TechnologyWhy the scooter startups all went bankruptA Bird scooter grossed $2,000 a year, cost $1,300 to buy and $1,000 to maintain. It lost money on every vehicle, always.11 min readCase study — Food & beverageWhy Chipotle got so much worseA weekly staple became a byword for small portions and high prices in under ten years. Here is what broke.8 min readCase study — Media & entertainmentWhy free content never became a businessBuzzFeed's advertising revenue has never once covered what it costs to make the content. That is the whole story.10 min readCase study — Food & beverageWhy pizza is the best restaurant businessThe one restaurant category where independents beat the chains on margin and almost nobody goes bankrupt.8 min readCase study — Media & entertainmentWhy esports collapsed and who got paid for itThe audience never left. The money still vanished. That makes this a story about who was selling, not about fans.12 min readCase study — Food & beverageWhy fast food can't make a good burgerMcDonald's makes more from rent than from food. That is why it can't fix the burger — and why four LA independents can.10 min readCase study — Media & entertainmentWhy Xbox lost the console warsFrom defining a console generation to a distant third twice running, and the cause was never the hardware.8 min readCase study — Food & beverageHow much a Texas BBQ joint actually makesOne in three fail, brisket yields 40%, and the biggest variable in whether you survive is one magazine editor's palate.13 min readCase study — Retail & consumerWhy self-checkout didn't replace cashiersAmazon's cashierless store was a thousand people in India watching cameras. Every retailer copied it anyway.12 min readCase study — Food & beverageWhy Taco Bell had to get expensiveThe most profitable chain in fast food is being squeezed hardest, and the reason is KFC and Pizza Hut.8 min readCase study — TechnologyWhy Temu and Wish can't make moneyWish spent 90 cents of every revenue dollar on ads to buy customers worth $10. AliExpress never profited either. Temu is next.12 min readCase study — ServicesWhy private equity can't kill your barberRegis spent forty years consolidating barbering. The stock went $725 to $9, and independents still hold 80%.12 min readCase study — Food & beverageWhy nobody wants to own ice cream anymoreUnilever, Nestlé and Kroger all owned the biggest brands in ice cream. All three decided it wasn't worth keeping.13 min readCase study — FinanceHow casinos actually make moneyCasinos run 40%+ margins on gambling. DraftKings has never had a profitable year. The difference is not technology.10 min readCase study — Food & beverageWhy donut shops out-earn Krispy KremeThe average Krispy Kreme grosses $119K a year. A 650 sq ft Portland shop grosses $600K at a 40% margin.9 min readCase study — TechnologyWhy AI is just big data againBig data was sold for a decade and produced nothing. The same players are running the identical playbook with AI.12 min readCase study — Retail & consumerWhy the sneaker market collapsedStimulus money made everyone a reseller. What survived is the people who can price a used shoe from memory.8 min readCase study — Retail & consumerWhy Under Armour failedIts products were ugly. Rather than fix that, Kevin Plank spent $700M on fitness apps and called Under Armour a tech company.11 min readCase study — Food & beverageHow much a taco truck actually makesTwo sisters run fifteen unbranded taco stands in LA grossing $7.58M a year. Almost nobody knows the business exists.9 min readCase study — Retail & consumerWhy marijuana legalization never paid offEvery public cannabis company loses money. Three self-funded LA shops do not. Being unable to lose money is the advantage.11 min readCase study — Food & beverageWhy bubble tea is so profitableA Sawtelle boba shop grosses $1.08M at a 30% store margin on $9 orders. The moat is the supply chain, not the brand.8 min readCase study — TravelWhy budget airlines stopped winningThe low-cost carriers say the industry is rigged. It isn't. The legacy carriers just copied the only thing they had.13 min readCase study — Food & beverageWhy Crumbl won't lastMrs. Fields had its decade too. Crumbl store margins fell from 30% to 10% while corporate went from $4M to $152M.12 min read