The Private Equity Firm Buying All of Fast Food
Conventional wisdom holds scale as the ultimate competitive moat. The counterintuitive reality revealed by Roark Capital’s 25-year empire is that mass aggregation can mask strategic fragility—acquiring 110,000 franchise locations may build financial assets, not defensible businesses.
Snapchat: From $30B Industry Leader to Another Dead App
Snap's collapse reveals how product innovation without sustainable business architecture creates terminal vulnerability. The counterintuitive reality: rejecting Zuckerberg's $3 billion offer in 2013 wasn't visionary—it was strategic myopia disguised as confidence.
Beyond Meat: From $10 Billion Darling to Penny Stock
Beyond Meat's trajectory reveals how narrative capitalism collapses when product economics fail. The counterintuitive lesson: celebrity endorsement and values-aligned positioning cannot indefinitely subsidize fundamental unit economics deficiencies.
Why Every App is Getting Worse On Purpose
Platform decay isn't market failure—it's calculated extraction. The counterintuitive reality: today's worst user experiences represent optimized business models, not broken ones. Companies deliberately degrade products because friction generates more revenue than satisfaction.