He suggests that Target's financial decline is the result of poor leadership and a failure to understand their core customer base.

“One bad leader can destroy a brand. There was a point people were saying Target's a better product than Walmart. But you know what? The moment you forget what who your customer is, who who shops at your place, families, families who can't afford, this is low and middle- inome families that are comin”

A business's capacity is constrained by the aggregate skill set of its people, and growth requires adding 'barrels'—highly competent individuals who can execute independently.

“if you think about or I believe that the potential of a business is based on the aggregate skill set of the people contained within it. And if you're the person who has done every job in the business then it means that literally only one brain has is the max capacity of the business.”

To succeed, Macy's must improve its customer experience through store renovations, better staffing, and a more curated merchandise assortment.

“Improving the condition of our stores, more staffing, better visual presentation, embracing different store formats. And then at the Bloomingdels and Blue Mercury brands, it's leaning into the affluent and luxury consumer.”

Linus Sebastian argues that relying solely on data-driven metrics in ad sales misses the crucial emotional connection that consumers build with brands, which is a key component of valuable advertising

“It's an emotional connection that they want. How many Ryzen CPUs do you think every AMD Ultimate Tech upgrade sells? A handful, maybe. It's not about that. It's about AMD getting to be part of bringing positivity and being at the center of people's tech lives.”

Leveraging iconic models like the Renault 5 and Twingo is a strategy to build emotional connection and loyalty, which are critical assets against new market entrants.

“when you have a 100 years of legacy, there is something which is important which is uh all the trust all all the paths you created before.”