Winner Sells All

I’m really not sure why, but I took a ridiculous amount of notes while I listened to this book. Usually, I take notes to help me remember. I consume enough information generally that things have a tendency to go in one ear and out the other if I’m not focused on remembering them.

While I learned quite a bit while reading this, I didn’t find any of the information revolutionary or surprising. It’s clear that the two companies have widely different cultures, and Walmart has struggled and essentially failed to adapt the stereotypical tech-business culture into its own in an effort to be competitive in the online market.

It took quite a long time for Walmart to begin leveraging its major advantage over Amazon in the online space: physical stores. The pandemic made grocery pick-up a popular option, and it is a service Walmart is much better placed to offer than Amazon. While Amazon provides superior delivery options, it struggles to make traction with grocery, which lead to its purchase of Whole Foods.

It’s interesting to observe these two companies work so hard to make progress into each other's area of advantage, but to date and hundreds of millions of dollars later there has been no significant change.

The one area both companies have tried unsuccessfully to crack is medical service. However, between the two of them, they have the power to create serious disruption in the pursuit of improving medical customer service and more importantly profit.

Coincidentally, I listened to the chapter titled “Amazon and Antitrust” the day after the FTC filed an antitrust claim against Amazon, and Lena Khan is the chair of the FTC.

For casual readers, this book is interesting but moves a bit slow. I’d definitely recommend it for anyone interested in business and technology.