If you liked this article, "Company Man" on YouTube has a lot of great videos about companies and their histories. The "rise and fall" is a common theme -- occasionally you'll get a "rise and fall and rise again" story.
The concept is great but the channel and videos themselves miss out on key details if you know about the topic/companies being talked about. Same with the Coldfusion channel.
A good faith reason could be that the audience doesn’t want all of the most important or interesting to a geek or corporate/financial aspect, so that’s why they don’t include some details I feel should be included.
I don’t personally believe that though. I’ll try to rewatch a video of his soon and give out specific examples.
I agree. Some of his videos really do hit it out of the park, but then others leave some key details out. I guess he thinks his videos can't be too long? That and it seems he's now more interested in doing companies that few others have made videos for.
Apple is an obvious example that comes to mind but I can not think of any others. Anyone have some fun household name examples of the rise/fall/rise phenomenon?
The thing is their consoles have waxed and waned, but not the cornerstone of their revenue: the portable consoles. In that sense, the company has had the normal ups and downs of any artistic market, with their last true pit in the 60s before they found their true calling as a toy maker.
They made the mistake of pitching their entire product at a very singular niche and the people in that niche are now getting older and in many cases too old to ride.
Pan America seems to be moving inventory quickly and the Livewire has had great reviews. I'm not in the market for a motorcycle at the moment but if I was I wouldn't discount HD.
Sometimes you get a great company arising out of the ashes of a dead company.
The example I'm thinking of is Nucor Steel. They arose from a company called Nuclear Corporation of America, a 60s era conglomerate that ultimately failed and was broken up. A part that was viable made steel roof elements for industrial buildings. Through a series of risky investments they built a small minimill to remelt scrap to make I beams and such, and this eventually grew into the largest US steel company, with $20B in revenue in 2020.
Interestingly, they also have the old REO Motor Company in their corporate ancestry. The CEO of Nucor in its early days would sometimes get calls from people looking for spare parts for old REO vehicles (including the REO Speed Wagon, a light truck the band was named after.)
I'm assuming SPACs would not count, as this is just using the zombie shell of a dead company to do what is effectively an IPO of a new company.
I feel like Gamestop is tee'd up to be the next Blockbuster -- a leader that utterly dominated a market that no longer exists due to digital delivery mechanisms.
- The two newest consoles (PS5 and Xbox Series) feature all-digital models that effectively neuter Gamestop's primary used-game market.
- Microsoft is pushing Game Pass over individual purchases, which cuts Gamestop out of new game sales.
- Free-to-play games allow Gamestop to sell prepaid currency cards, but there's nothing special about GS doing that versus any other store that sells gift cards.
- Customers generally have preferred digital distribution over in-store pickups, since the former can message discounts more effectively and make for snap impulse purchases.
United Fruit/Chiquita had a roller coaster of a beginning in the early days and I highly recommend the book The Fish That Ate The Whale about Sam “the Banana Man” Zemurray if you’re interested in reading about the truly wild story. Fair warning: it starts off a bit dry with background about bananas and how they’re cultivated (interesting, but maybe a bit more in-depth than necessary to tell the Banana Man’s story) but it’s worth sticking it out.
Random story about my experience going to Planet Hollywood as a kid!
When I was a pre-teen, I used to always ask restaurants/fast food places etc if the soda came with free refills. I didn’t even drink a ton of soda growing up, but it was something I always asked and associated with better experiences while dining out when I was younger. If a restaurant had free refills, it was alright in my book.
The first and only time (I think?) I ate at a Planet Hollywood I asked the server if there were free refills and instead of yes/no, they said, “you get nine refills at no charge.”
I distinctly remember his business-like tone when he said it, so I believed this was part of Planet Hollywood’s model: up to nine free refills of soda.
I don’t know why I’m sharing this other than that it’s late and it’s such a weird thing to remember so vividly from childhood.
If you remember it then probably there was some important meaning in it for you! For example, maybe one of the first times you encountered an ambiguous situation like this; something something the answer was more complicated than your heuristic allowed. It did have basically unlimited refills, but not technically. So does it pass your rule, or not? Decisions, decisions...
Was this really a company policy? I have to wonder if the server just made it up to prevent you from filling a hidden container with soda or something else crazy a kid might come up with.
Although it never was actually determined which industry exactly is buying up all the glitter. My personal theory is boat paint. With the "conspiracy" being that the plastic in the glitter is contributing to microplastics in the food chain as it degrades off the boats.
I was curious what the author was up to now and she is now working for the NYTimes - https://www.nytimes.com/by/caity-weaver - so it would appear that mozzarella stick consumption is more of a career path that I would have thought.
Considering the volume of ice in a typical glass, nine refills is probably less than some of the massively oversized convenience store sizes, but somehow it feels much worse.
My Planet Hollywood memory is watching Bruce Willis & the Accelerators [0] perform for Planet Hollywood, out back of the hotel we were staying at. I guess for an opening?
This was Die Hard fame days, and I was probably slightly too young to have seen them. But of course had, and so Bruce Willis was a Big Deal(TM) to me.
My overriding thought was "Bruce Willis is a famous actor. Why does Bruce Willis have a band? ...well, I guess he enjoys it. So why wouldn't he have a band?"
Good life lesson that fame and money are only worth a damn if they help you do the things you actually want.
Did a timeshare presentation offer a few years back that came with an extremely discounted 4-night stay in a nice resort in Orlando, plus a $100 gift card to Planet Hollywood in Disney Springs. At the time my kids were so young they usually split a kids meal, so I remember thinking "I don't think we'll even be able to use this whole thing in one sitting!" Yet somehow two burgers, two kids meals, and a couple beers ended up at just about $100. Food was mediocre at best, maybe competitive with Applebees. Had I been paying out of my own pocket that would have been among the worst quality:dollar ratio of any restaurant meal in memory.
The problem a lot of chain restaurants are facing is the prevalence of the internet and online reviews. They are setup such that you can either go to a known ok place to eat vs some new experience that may or may not be good. However, finding a good place to eat is now easier than ever. I'll look for the type of food I want, then look at some restaurant reviews and I'm off.
Chains like Olive garden or Applebees struggle because every city probably has an Italian or American restaurant that's better quality and price. At this point their main clientele are the internet illiterate.
This is what has killed a place like Planet Hollywood. The entire appeal of it is to be sold to young people as a hip place to eat some good food... but young people are the most likely to read and leave reviews which doesn't bode well when you are serving terrible food. But also serving terrible food at a huge markup? That's a chain killer.
In the next 10 years, I expect that the only mid->high price chains that survive are the ones that adapt. Even then, the outlook is bleak. You aren't going to eat at Chili's when there's a local steakhouse at a similar price and higher quality.
Think of the Cracker Barrels all across the country. Always right next to a major highway, look exactly the same, food's exactly the same. Always packed pre-pandemic.
If you've just traveled 8 hours and don't want to fight with dueling blog reviews or having to decide "do I want 'the best Thai food in Provo' or 'the best cheesesteak I ever had'", a Cracker Barrel or Applebee's has a "basically fulfills purpose" charm.
They can slide a bit downmarket and survive, but a place like Planet Hollywood can't go truly upmarket without actual work on the food.
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[ 50.3 ms ] story [ 761 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQMyhrt92_8XM0KgZH6VnRg
A good faith reason could be that the audience doesn’t want all of the most important or interesting to a geek or corporate/financial aspect, so that’s why they don’t include some details I feel should be included.
I don’t personally believe that though. I’ll try to rewatch a video of his soon and give out specific examples.
They made the mistake of pitching their entire product at a very singular niche and the people in that niche are now getting older and in many cases too old to ride.
Fantastic overview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOwxxsPaogY
Simply put HD make nothing that appeal to rides my age (41) and younger.
The example I'm thinking of is Nucor Steel. They arose from a company called Nuclear Corporation of America, a 60s era conglomerate that ultimately failed and was broken up. A part that was viable made steel roof elements for industrial buildings. Through a series of risky investments they built a small minimill to remelt scrap to make I beams and such, and this eventually grew into the largest US steel company, with $20B in revenue in 2020.
Interestingly, they also have the old REO Motor Company in their corporate ancestry. The CEO of Nucor in its early days would sometimes get calls from people looking for spare parts for old REO vehicles (including the REO Speed Wagon, a light truck the band was named after.)
I'm assuming SPACs would not count, as this is just using the zombie shell of a dead company to do what is effectively an IPO of a new company.
Sorry
- The two newest consoles (PS5 and Xbox Series) feature all-digital models that effectively neuter Gamestop's primary used-game market.
- Microsoft is pushing Game Pass over individual purchases, which cuts Gamestop out of new game sales.
- Free-to-play games allow Gamestop to sell prepaid currency cards, but there's nothing special about GS doing that versus any other store that sells gift cards.
- Customers generally have preferred digital distribution over in-store pickups, since the former can message discounts more effectively and make for snap impulse purchases.
When I was a pre-teen, I used to always ask restaurants/fast food places etc if the soda came with free refills. I didn’t even drink a ton of soda growing up, but it was something I always asked and associated with better experiences while dining out when I was younger. If a restaurant had free refills, it was alright in my book.
The first and only time (I think?) I ate at a Planet Hollywood I asked the server if there were free refills and instead of yes/no, they said, “you get nine refills at no charge.”
I distinctly remember his business-like tone when he said it, so I believed this was part of Planet Hollywood’s model: up to nine free refills of soda.
I don’t know why I’m sharing this other than that it’s late and it’s such a weird thing to remember so vividly from childhood.
Fun memory, thanks for sharing
imo one of the best stupid long reads of all time is Gawker writer Caity Weaver vs TGI Fridays "unlimited" mozzarella sticks: https://gawker.com/my-14-hour-search-for-the-end-of-tgi-frid...
Although it never was actually determined which industry exactly is buying up all the glitter. My personal theory is boat paint. With the "conspiracy" being that the plastic in the glitter is contributing to microplastics in the food chain as it degrades off the boats.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/duw480...
https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/11/08/the-great-glit...
My Planet Hollywood memory is watching Bruce Willis & the Accelerators [0] perform for Planet Hollywood, out back of the hotel we were staying at. I guess for an opening?
This was Die Hard fame days, and I was probably slightly too young to have seen them. But of course had, and so Bruce Willis was a Big Deal(TM) to me.
My overriding thought was "Bruce Willis is a famous actor. Why does Bruce Willis have a band? ...well, I guess he enjoys it. So why wouldn't he have a band?"
Good life lesson that fame and money are only worth a damn if they help you do the things you actually want.
[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WOSucCPT7YY (not the show I saw? Or maybe it was!)
The problem a lot of chain restaurants are facing is the prevalence of the internet and online reviews. They are setup such that you can either go to a known ok place to eat vs some new experience that may or may not be good. However, finding a good place to eat is now easier than ever. I'll look for the type of food I want, then look at some restaurant reviews and I'm off.
Chains like Olive garden or Applebees struggle because every city probably has an Italian or American restaurant that's better quality and price. At this point their main clientele are the internet illiterate.
This is what has killed a place like Planet Hollywood. The entire appeal of it is to be sold to young people as a hip place to eat some good food... but young people are the most likely to read and leave reviews which doesn't bode well when you are serving terrible food. But also serving terrible food at a huge markup? That's a chain killer.
In the next 10 years, I expect that the only mid->high price chains that survive are the ones that adapt. Even then, the outlook is bleak. You aren't going to eat at Chili's when there's a local steakhouse at a similar price and higher quality.
Think of the Cracker Barrels all across the country. Always right next to a major highway, look exactly the same, food's exactly the same. Always packed pre-pandemic.
If you've just traveled 8 hours and don't want to fight with dueling blog reviews or having to decide "do I want 'the best Thai food in Provo' or 'the best cheesesteak I ever had'", a Cracker Barrel or Applebee's has a "basically fulfills purpose" charm.
They can slide a bit downmarket and survive, but a place like Planet Hollywood can't go truly upmarket without actual work on the food.