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281 analyses · Business Model
Philip Morris paid $13.1 billion for Kraft in 1988 — and gave 88.9% of it back to shareholders in 2007
Philip Morris
Delta cut Diamond status to 28,000 MQDs after the backlash — but kept card spend as the only path in
Delta Air Lines
IBM's next CEO killed the plan to break it into a dozen 'Baby Blues' in 1993
IBM
Disney launched Disney+ at $6.99 — and the cable channels, not the parks, ate the losses
Disney
McDonald's collects more rent from franchisees than it does royalties on the golden arches
McDonald's
Optum bills UnitedHealthcare $150B a year — and calls it revenue
UnitedHealth Group
Ryanair's €2.50 bag fee launched as a wash — then grew to €5 billion a year
Ryanair
Sears Put a Stockbroker Inside the Store in 1981 — and Sold It Back Out by 1993
Sears
Kaplan test-prep grew to half the Washington Post Company's revenue — then collapsed and took the paper with it
The Washington Post Company
Microsoft's own filings called the Xbox a 'negative margin console' — Windows and Office covered the gap
Microsoft
Foxconn Keeps About 1.8% of an iPhone's Value — and Runs the World's Largest Electronics Factory On It
Foxconn
Tesla Charged Hertz Full Sticker on 100,000 Cars — Then Cut Prices Under Hertz's Feet
Tesla
AMD Took the PS4 and Xbox One Chips at Thin Margins to Buy Guaranteed Volume
AMD
The 1980 IBM contract barred IBM from reselling DOS — and left Microsoft free to sell it to everyone
Microsoft
The 25,000-Seat Merrill Lynch Win That Became Salesforce's Enterprise Proof — and Nearly Its Undoing
Salesforce
Intel's Payments to Dell Reached 76% of Dell's Operating Profit — Then Almost No One Paid For It
Intel
Amazon Signed a 10-Year Toy Exclusive With Toys R Us in 2000, Then Fought in Court to Break It
Amazon
Microsoft Handed Yahoo 88% of Search Revenue in 2009 — and Wrote the Step-Ups Into the Contract
Microsoft
Cloudflare killed DDoS surge billing in 2017, then hit cloud egress fees a year later
Cloudflare
Microsoft kept Copilot's $30 seat and stacked a metered track for AI agents beside it
Microsoft
Salesforce Shipped Three Agentforce Prices and Killed None of Them
Salesforce
HubSpot Capped Its Free Tier at Five Editors and Made Everyone Else Pay Per Seat
HubSpot
Datadog Signs Commitments Against a Usage Meter — Then a Top Customer's Cutback Forced It to De-Risk 2026 Guidance
Datadog
Twilio's Growth Fell From 48% to 22% in Four Quarters as Customers Simply Sent Fewer Messages
Twilio
Snowflake Bills Data Compute by the Second — and Wrote the Volatility Into Its Own Risk Factors
Snowflake
Slack refunds you for coworkers who stop logging in — and turned the refund into a sales pitch
Slack
Enron Made $100 Billion in Revenue and Kept 2 Cents on the Dollar. The Math Was the Fraud.
Enron
Robinhood's $1.11B in Interest Income Makes Falling Rates Its Biggest Risk
Robinhood
Stripe Keeps 40 Cents on a Hundred Dollars. That's Not the Business — It's the Doorway.
Stripe
Square Sells the Reader at a Loss. You Are the Product It's Buying.
Block (Square)
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