Restaurants, food banks, nonprofits, and other organizations have stepped up to offer assistance to the 41 million Americans who have been thrust into limbo this month regarding SNAP benefits that have been halved. But retailers are prohibited from offering discounts on groceries.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has sent notices to retailers alerting them that they cant offer special discounts to customers affected by the lapse in funding. Despite skepticism about the authenticity of these reports, the USDA confirmed the veracity of the notice to Fast Company, though a spokesperson didnt provide any additional comment.
You must offer eligible foods at the same prices and on the same terms and conditions to SNAP-EBT customers as other customers, except that sales tax cannot be charged on SNAP purchases, the notice reads. You cannot treat SNAP-EBT customers differently than any other customers.
The USDA has sent out these notices despite the government shutdown that began last month.
EQUAL TREATMENT RULE
The USDA appears to be invoking the equal treatment rule in an unprecedented way: The rule was intended to ensure that retailers couldnt discriminate against SNAP recipients by charging them more for eligible items. Now, the USDA wants to ensure that grocery stores dont charge these customers less for eligible items.
Whats also unusual is that grocery stores, at their discretion, regularly offer discounts to customers for a variety of reasons including designated discount days for seniors.
ACTION FOR SNAP VIOLATIONS
Its unclear what penalties, if any, the USDA will impose on retailers who ignore this rule and offer discounts to SNAP beneficiaries. However, a discount apparently is considered a SNAP violation, and the Food and Nutrition Service within the USDA is tasked with monitoring such violations.
FNS takes immediate administrative action to ensure stores that violate SNAP rules no longer participate in the program, reads a March 2025 fraud notification letter sent to retailers and posted on the USDA website. Retailers that commit program violations will face consequences, including losing the ability to accept SNAP benefits. Retailers who commit program violations may also be subject to monetary penalties, fines, and/or criminal prosecution.
RETAILERS THRUST INTO LIMBO
Some locally-owned grocery stores had promised discounts to SNAP recipients, along with DoorDash and Instacart, which deliver groceries for hundreds of grocery store chains.
DoorDash sees no issue in waiving or reducing service and delivery fees for SNAP beneficiaries, as the company announced it would do previously, a company spokesperson told Fast Company. The company is among a group of pilot retailers for online SNAP that received a blanket regulatory waiver issued by FNS that waives the equal treatment requirement, said the spokesperson, who shared a copy of that notice.
Instacart also received a similar waiver from FNS and had offered SNAP customers a 50% off their next grocery order, though a company spokesperson didnt explicitly confirm to Fast Company whether it would continue with this offer.
At least two retailers had offered discounts to struggling customers and retracted them after receiving the notice from the USDA, according to Catherine Rampell, an MSNBC anchor, in a post on the X platform.
Chrysler is recalling more than 320,000 Jeep plug-in hybrid vehicles due to a faulty battery that can fail and lead to a fire, U.S. traffic safety regulators said.
Chrysler, which is owned by Netherlands-based Stellantis, is aware of 19 reports and 1 injury potentially related to the issue.
Owners of the vehicles, which include 228,221 Jeep Wranglers model years 2020-2025 and 91,844 Jeep Grand Cherokees model years 2022-2026, are being advised to park the vehicles outside and away from structures until a remedy for the problem is determined. Vehicle owners are also being told not to charge their vehicles, the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration said.
Interim notification letters are expected to be mailed to vehicle owners by December 2, 2025, with additional letters to be sent once the final remedy is available.
The number for the recall is 68C and owners may contact Chrysler customer service at 800-853-1403. Vehicle Identification Numbers for this recall will be searchable on NHTSA.gov beginning November 6, 2025. Vehicles that were previously recalled for the same issue under previous recalls will need to have the new remedy performed, the NHTSA said.
The batteries were manufactured by Auburn Hills, Michigan-based Samsung SDI America.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted Tuesday that there could be chaos in the skies next week if the government shutdown drags on and air traffic controllers miss a second paycheck.
There have already been numerous delays at airports across the countrysometimes hours longbecause the Federal Aviation Administration slows down or stops traffic temporarily anytime it is short on controllers. Last weekend saw some of the worst staff shortages and on Sunday, flights at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey were delayed for several hours.
Duffy and the head of the air traffic controllers union have both warned that the situation will only get worse the longer the shutdown continues and the financial pressure continues to grow on people who are forced to work without pay. FAA employees already missed one paycheck on Oct. 28. Their next payday is scheduled for next Tuesday.
Many of the controllers said, A lot of us can navigate missing one paycheck. Not everybody, but a lot of us can. None of us can manage missing two paychecks, Duffy said. So if you bring us to a week from today, Democrats, you will see mass chaos. You will see mass flight delays. Youll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace, because we just cannot manage it because we dont have air traffic controllers.
Most of the flight disruptions so far during the shutdown have been isolated and temporary. But if delays become more widespread and start to ripple throughout the system, the pressure will mount on Congress to reach an agreement to end the shutdown.
Major airlines, aviation unions, and the travel industry have been urging Congress to end this shutdown as soon as possible by voting to support the clean funding resolution that Republicans have proposed.
The U.S. Travel Association said in a letter to Congressional leaders this week that the economy has already lost more than $4 billion because of the shutdown, and the industry worries the impact will get significantly worse if the shutdown continues into the holiday travel season.
With Thanksgiving, the busiest travel period of the year, imminently approaching, the consequences of a continued shutdown will be immediate, deeply felt by millions of American travelers, and economically devastating to communities in every state, the U.S. Travel Association said.
Normally, airlines strive to have at least 80% of their flights depart and arrive within 15 minutes of when they are scheduled. Aviation analytics firm Cirium said that since the shutdown began on Oct. 1, the total number of delays overall has not fallen significantly below that goal because most of the disruptions so far have been no worse than what happens when a major thunderstorm moves across an airport.
But on Sunday, only about 56% of Newark’s departures were on time, and the Orlando airport reported that only about 70% of its flights were on time, according to Cirium.
As of midday Tuesday, there have been 1,932 flight delays reported across the United States, according to www.FlightAware.com. That is lower than what is typical although the FAA did say that flights in Phoenix were being delayed Tuesday morning because of staffing shortages. Strong winds are also causing delays at the Newark and LaGuardia airports Tuesday.
Josh Funk, AP transportation writer
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, one of Tesla’s biggest investors, said Tuesday that it will vote against a proposed compensation package that could pay CEO Elon Musk as much as $1 trillion over a decade.
There will be more than a dozen company proposals up for a vote Thursday during Tesla’s annual meeting, but none have generated more division than Musk’s potentially massive pay package.
While we appreciate the significant value created under Mr. Musks visionary role, we are concerned about the total size of the award, dilution, and lack of mitigation of key person risk consistent with our views on executive compensation, said Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages the countrys Government Pension Fund Global. We will continue to seek constructive dialogue with Tesla on this and other topics.
The fund has a 1.16% stake, the sixth largest holding among institutional investors.
Baron Capital Management, which holds about 0.4% of Tesla’s outstanding shares, said Monday that it will vote in favor of the compensation package.
Elon is the ultimate ‘key man’ of key man risk. Without his relentless drive and uncompromising standards, there would be no Tesla, wrote founder Ron Baron. He has built one of the most important companies in the world. Hes redefining transportation, energy, and humanoid robotics and creating lasting value for shareholders while doing it. His interests are completely aligned with investors.
Musk is the company’s largest investor, holding 15.79% of all outstanding shares.
Tesla management has proposed a compensation arrangement that would hand Musk shares worth as much as 12% of the company in a dozen separate packages if the company meets ambitious performance targets, including massive increases in car production, share price, and operating profit.
Pizza Hut could soon be up for sale.
Yum Brands, Pizza Huts parent company, said Tuesday its conducting a formal review of options for the brand, which has struggled to compete in a crowded pizza market.
Yum CEO Chris Turner said Pizza Hut has many strengths, including a global footprint and strong growth in many markets. Pizza Hut has nearly 20,000 stores in more than 100 countries, and its international sales were up 2% in the first nine months of this year. China is its second-largest market outside the U.S.
But Pizza Hut gets nearly half its sales from the U.S., where it has around 6,500 stores, and U.S. sales fell 7% in the same period. Pizza Hut was long saddled with large, outdated dine-in restaurants at a time when consumers wanted fast pickup and delivery.
In 2020, one of Pizza Hut’s largest franchisees filed for bankruptcy protection and closed 300 stores. Pizza Hut now controls 15.5% of U.S. pizza chain sales, down from 19.4% in 2019, according to Technomic, a food service consulting company.
The Pizza Hut team has been working hard to address business and category challenges; however, Pizza Huts performance indicates the need to take additional action to help the brand realize its full value, which may be better executed outside of Yum Brands, Turner said in a statement. To truly take advantage of the brand weve built and the opportunities ahead, weve made the decision to initiate a thorough review of strategic options.
Yum has not set a deadline for the completion of the review. The company said it will not make any further comments on the review.
Yum Brands shares were up nearly 7% in early afternoon trading Tuesday. The company also owns KFC, Taco Bell, and Habit Burger & Grill. Yum said Tuesday that its third-quarter revenue rose 8% thanks to strong sales at both KFC and Taco Bell.
Pizza Hut was founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas, by two brothers who borrowed $600 from their mother to open the store. They chose the name because their sign only had room for eight letters.
Pizza Hut’s familiar red roof debuted in 1969, and by 1971, it was the top pizza chain in the world by sales. PepsiCo acquired Pizza Hut in 1977 but spun off its restaurant division which became Yum Brands in 1997.
Domino’s, with its focus on delivery and carryout pizza, has since become the world’s largest pizza chain, with 21,750 stores.
The news of Pizza Hut’s uncertain future comes the day after another 1950s-era dine-in icon, Denny’s, announced it was being sold to an investor group and taken private. Like Pizza Hut, Denny’s has also struggled with customers’ shift to delivery and growing competition in casual dining options.
Dee-Ann Durbin, AP business writer
Microdosing isnt just about mushrooms any more.
While taking tiny non-psychedelic doses of hallucinogens was once the health craze du jour, small, sub-clinical doses of weight loss drugs have taken over the term microdosing in 2025.
Little research has been done on the efficacy of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic when prescribed in smaller doses, but that hasnt stopped the craze from catching on. People are turning to microdosed GLP-1s to manage their weight, stave off side effects and to make the medications more affordable on a long term basis.
For telehealth companies cashing in on off-brand formulations of popular weight loss drugs, microdosing is an option theyre eager to pitch. Compounded versions of drugs like Novo Nordisks semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide (Zepbound, Mounjaro) proliferated over the last few years due to a shortage of their name brand counterparts. With those shortages officially over in the U.S. and exact copies of those drugs now banned companies that sell compounded GLP-1s are getting creative to get around the rules.
One way to do that is to mix things up a little. Telehealth companies and compounding pharmacies can include the key ingredient in a weight loss drug while customizing it just enough to keep selling it to consumers much to the chagrin of the drugs developers. A knockoff version of Ozempic offered in a smaller dose or formulated with extra vitamins can skirt the FDAs ban on copycat drugs.
While these options remain lawful in the U.S. at least for now these creatively formulated drugs still arent subject to the same safety measures and regulations as their name-brand counterparts a fact that doesnt seem to be giving many people pause.
From the questions we get and the features people request, it’s clear there’s growing demand for tools that support microdosing and other personalized approaches, Aja Beckett, founder of GLP1 tracking app Shotsy, told Fast Company. That seems driven by a mix of curiosity, cost, and control; people are experimenting to manage side effects, stretch prescriptions, or fine-tune results once they’ve reached their goal weight.
Some people are tinkering with their dosage at home, while others rely on clinics and compounding pharmacies marketing custom titration and microdosing options for the smaller doses. It’s a gray area, and the popularity of these programs shows how quickly real-world GLP-1 use is evolving beyond the official guidelines, Beckett said.
Big money, tiny doses
Telehealths major players have pounced on the microdosing opportunity.
The telehealth Noom began marketing smaller doses of the compounded version of Wegovy in May to comply with the FDAs determination that shortages of Wegovy, Ozempic, Zepbound and Mounjaro were over. Noom later launched a full GLP-1 microdosing program for weight loss, recruiting actress Rebel Wilson, now featured prominently on the companys homepage, as its microdosing spokesperson. Noom cites fewer side effects, improved adherence and lower costs in its marketing materials, with plans that start at $99 per month.
This approach stays intentionally low, aiming for a personalized balance between results and tolerability, the company states. The goal is to find the lowest effective dose that delivers meaningful weight loss benefits while keeping side effects manageable and costs more affordable.
Last month, telehealth giant Hims & Hers introduced its own microdosing treatment plan. In its announcement, the company touted the programs flexibility while cautioning that the off-label use of weight loss drugs is an unexplored frontier that research has yet to catch up to.
While GLP-1 microdosing is an early-stage innovation that requires continued study, theres emerging research suggesting that GLP-1s may be valuable beyond traditional weight management, Hims and Hers wrote in the announcement, noting that microdosing plans can minimize side effects and provide a more gentle on-ramp to the class of weight loss drugs.
Ro, which boasts Serena Williams as its GLP-1 spokesperson, has an in-depth info page noting some possible benefits and concerns around microdosing, but isnt yet in the business itself. The weight loss industry might be out over its skis on the microdosing craze, but the anecdotal benefits are driving a ton of interest toward smaller, cheaper doses of GLP-1s.
My main concern is simply that without research, we don’t yet know which of these approaches are most effective or safe long-term, Beckett told Fast Company. Still, it’s clear that patients want more control and are looking for ways to personalize their care.
More than six years after a Boeing 737 Max jetliner crashed in Ethiopia, the first civil trial stemming from the disaster that killed all 157 people on board the plane appears poised to move forward.
Boeing has settled most of the dozens of wrongful death lawsuits that families of the victims filed against the aircraft maker after the March 2019 crash, but two of the remaining cases are scheduled to open before a federal court jury as soon as Tuesday.
The trial in Chicago, where Boeing used to have its headquarters, isnt expected to examine the companys liability. Boeing already accepted responsibility for what happened to Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and for a similar 737 Max crash off the coast of Indonesia that killed 189 passengers and crew members less than five months earlier.
Instead, an eight-person jury would be tasked with deciding how much Boeing should pay to the families of Mercy Ndivo, a 28-year-old mother originally from Kenya, and 36-year-old United Nations consultant Shikha Garg, who was from India.
The fatal crash happened minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. Ndivo and her husband were returning from her graduation ceremony in London, where she had earned a masters degree in accountancy. The couple are survived by their daughter, an infant at the time who is now almost 8. Ndivo’s parents sued Boeing on her behalf.
Like a number of the other passengers, Garg, a consultant for the United Nations Development Programme, was on her way to attend a U.N. environmental assembly in Nairobi, Kenya. She is survived by her husband and parents.
In a statement Monday, Boeing told the families of the 346 passengers and crew members killed in both crashes that it is deeply sorry.
“We made an upfront commitment to fully and fairly compensate the families of those who were lost in the accidents, and have accepted legal responsibility for the accidents in these proceedings,” Boeing said, adding that it respected the families’ rights to pursue their claims in court.
The two cases pending before U.S. District Judge Jorge Luis Alonso originally were among a group of five that potentially could have gone to trial this week. But Alonso said Monday that only two could proceed due to the U.S. government shutdown; an out-of-court settlement in either or both still could be reached at any point, even after a jury is empaneled and lawyers present their evidence.
Details of prior settlements, many reached just before the start of scheduled trials, were confidential and have not been publicly disclosed.
Robert Clifford, a Chicago lawyer whose firm represents many of the victims’ families, said attempts to reach a pre-trial settlement through mediation failed in recent months.
Boeing accepted full responsibility for the senseless and preventable loss of these lives, yet they have not been mediating in good faith to come to a resolution for these devastated families, Clifford said in a statement. We are determined to achieve justice for every one of them.
From nearly the moment pilots flying for Ethiopian Airlines took off in their new Boeing jetliner, they encountered problems with the plane.
A device called a stick shaker began vibrating the captains control column, warning that the plane might stall and fall from the sky, and for six minutes, the pilots were bombarded by alarms as they fought to fly the plane.
U.S. prosecutors later charged Boeing with conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with both crashes, accusing the company of deceiving government regulators about a flight-control system it developed for the 737 Max. In both crashes, the software had pitched the nose of the planes down repeatedly based on faulty readings from a single sensor.
The Justice Department asked a federal judge in Texas to dismiss the felony charge and to approve an agreement between prosecutors and Boeing that is pending. If it is approved, the deal would allow Boeing to avoid prosecution in exchange for paying or investing another $1.1 billion in fines, compensation for the victims families, and internal safety and quality measures.
Rio Yamat, AP Airlines and Travel Writer
Saudi oil giant Aramco reported Tuesday a $26.9 billion profit in the third quarter, down slightly from last year as global energy prices remain depressed over concerns of too much oil being on the market.Aramco’s results serve as a bellwether for the wider oil industry, which is still digesting the OPEC+ decision this weekend to halt planned production increases in the first quarter of next year over supply worries. Benchmark Brent crude, at just under $65 a barrel, has been fluttering near a four-year low.In filing on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange, Aramco, formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., reported overall revenue of $111 billion in the third quarter, compared with $123 billion in the same period last year. Its profit in the third quarter last year was $27.5 billion.The figures slightly beat analysts’ projections.“Aramco’s ability to adapt to new market realities has once again been demonstrated by our strong third quarter performance,” Aramco President and CEO Amin H. Nasser said in a statement. “We increased production with minimal incremental cost, and reliably supplied the oil, gas and associated products our customers depend on.”Under IFRS accounting standards, Aramco reported a net profit of $27.9 billion based on an adjusted bookkeeping.On Sunday, OPEC+ met and decided to increase its production by an additional 137,000 barrels of oil beginning in December. However, it said other adjustments planned in January, February and March of next year would be paused “due to seasonality.”OPEC+ includes the core members of the cartel, as well as nations outside of the group led by Russia.Aramco provides money crucial for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ‘s expansive development plans for the kingdom, including hosting the upcoming FIFA 2034 FIFA World Cup.Saudi Arabia’s vast oil resources, located close to the surface of its desert expanse, make it one of the world’s least expensive places to produce crude. For every $10 rise in the price of a barrel of oil, Saudi Arabia stands to make an additional $40 billion a year, according to the Institute of International Finance.The Saudi government owns the vast majority of the firm’s shares. Saudi Aramco publicly listed a sliver of its worth back in late 2019 and has weighed offering more shares publicly.
Jon Gambrell, Associated Press
When I think about the changes in the context for strategy across my career, my view contrasts starkly with the consensus view. Most obsess about rising VUCA (the combination of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) as the key change. I dontand I explain my position in this Playing to Win/Practitioner Insights (PTW/PI) called What has Changed the Most for Strategy: Implications for Your Strategy. And as always, you can find all the previous PTW/PI here.
The VUCA narrative
I started advising executives on strategy in 1981. The question I pondered for this piece is how has the context for strategy changed over the past 44 years?
The general answer I get from observers is that the context for strategy has gotten more VUCA, a concept borrowed from military strategy, which adopted it in the late 1980s and has gotten ever more obsessed about it since. And that obsession has rubbed off on the business world. It is a bit like SWOT. The acronym rolls off the tongue and is very evocative. The narrative holds that as a strategist, you must recognize that you live in an increasingly VUCA world, so you must do SWOT analyses (ugh) and set out OKRs (double-ugh) to deal with that scary world.
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I just dont buy the notion that the world generally, or specifically the business strategy world, has gotten more VUCA and wrote about it three years ago in this series. Perhaps my feeling is informed by the particular time I entered the business work world and my subsequent tenure in it.
I graduated into my first full-time job from business school in 1981, when the economy was in the middle of the third year of by far the greatest three-year inflation (39%) since WWI (19161918). U.S. unemployment was well on the way to hitting 10.8% in December 1982, its highest rate by far since the Great Depression. The Federal Funds rate (the basis for all interest rates) crested over 19% as I graduated. Policymakers had to invent a new name for the combination of high unemployment with high inflationstagflationwhich my economics courses taught me was impossible.
Suffice it to say, it was pretty damn VUCA. Neither governments nor businesses had a clue how to deal with itand simply made stuff up as they went along.
Then we had the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and Desert Storm to followalong with another deep recession. Then we had the dotcom bubble and crash between 1999 and 2001, followed by 9-11 in 2001, followed by the global financial meltdown from 20082009, followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
I think it is impossible to argue that it has not been nonstop VUCA for the past (at least) 44 years.
Honestly, I think the VUCA narrative is so popular because it makes a great excuse: We are doing badly because it has gotten so VUCA. While the breakdown of the Soviet Union is cited as the motivation for the U.S. War College adopting the VUCA narrative, my own belief is that it had as much to do with being outsmarted by the Viet Cong in the catastrophic Vietnam War that ended a decade earlier in 1975. Faced by the then-dominant U.S. doctrine of overwhelming air and technical superiority, the Viet Cong said no thanks and played an entirely different game, and won against what in the old game would have been an overwhelmingly superior force. But to rationalize the loss, the losing side saw it as a manifestation of this terrible new phenomenonVUCA.
It is not dissimilar to competing against Microsoft in personal computer operating systems. No competitor has been able to dent its near monopolistic share. However, the true competitors changed the game and worked on making an alternative device the “computer” of choicei.e. the smartphone. In that more broadly defined game, Android is the big winner with a share 50% greater than Windowswhich probably felt pretty VUCA to Microsoft. Dominant winning strategies always have and always will create VUCA responses as if out of thin air.
While the world simply hasnt gotten demonstrably more VUCA, two changes have generated the biggest impact on strategy over the time of my career: fixed/variable cost mix and price/value discovery.
Fixed/variable cost mix
Historically, and still as of 1981, variable costs dominated the cost structure of business (as I chronicled in this Harvard Business Review (HBR) article. Historically, companies were mainly factories (whether product or service factories) with a thin veneer of office tower overhead. The biggest proportion of costs varied with production and a tiny proportion were fixed. The auto industry is a perfect historical example. When the customer wants a car, the auto company must buy thousands of parts, assemble them, and physically deliver the producta whole lot of variable costs.
But beginning in the 1960s, large companies started to get really big, growing revenues 5.3 times in real terms between 1960 and 2000huge growth. And they doubled again in real terms since.
As they grew, they built up fixed costsin categories such as branding, R&D, and distributionin part because they became big enough to take advantage of scale economies in these fixed cost categories. As a result, cost-of-goods-sold (COGS) as a percentage of revenues has fallen dramatically since 1981 and the share of sales, general & administration (SGA) has grown similarly. That in turn has driven scale. If you dont spread your fixed costs over great volume, you are going to get out-invested by someone elseand then you are in trouble because your product wont be as advanced, wont be as branded, wont have the distribution. In this way, scale begets more scale.
Indusries that have the lowest fixed costs (as a percentage of revenues) remain the most fragmented, as with the auto OEM industry that has been famously consolidating for decades yet the biggest player, Toyota, still has a mere 12% market share and the next highest is below 10%. Industries with highest fixed costslike software where variable costs are minisculeare consolidated or consolidating. For example, in cloud software services, three companiesAmazon, Microsoft, and Googlehave 63% market share. In smartphone operating systems, Android has 75%, iOS 24% and everybody else combines for 1%.
Across sectors, this shift in fixed/variable cost has driven increased concentration, which I discussed in the HBR article above and is shown in various pieces of research including this University of Chicago study.
Price/value discovery
The second huge change impacting strategy is the dramatically increased speed and efficiency of price/value discovery. As of 1981, it was genuinely hard to compare prices and assess value of offerings, whether in B2C or B2B. Competitive prices were not easily available. You might need to go physically from store-to-store to compareand in many B2B businesses it was even harder. And to get accurate assessments of quality/value, you would need to subscribe to Consumer Reports or Car & Driver magazine and wait for the issue that dealt with the offering for which you were interested. In B2B, pioneer Gartner Group only came into existence in 1979.
In B2C, if a seller could lure you into its physical location, it had a decent chance to sell you something without you knowing what it cost elsewhere or how the offering actually performed. In B2B, a salesman visited you to sell you person-to-person and use the relationship to get you to buyagain often without knowing competitive prices or performance.
Obviously, it is completely different 44 years later. In most industries, there is ease and efficiency of price comparison. There is very little you buy today without knowing the price relative to competitive offerings. And there are endless customer reviews available to provide a (relatively) unbiased assessment of value. Price and value discovery happens instantly and cheaplya few clicks and you have what you need.
Implications for strategy
For me, there are three big implications for strategy of the intersection of these two fundamental changes.
More deterministic
Strategy has become more deterministic. With customers able to discover price and value quickly and efficiently, companies cant hide or obfuscate. Either you have invested more fixed costs wisely in making your product more appealing, or not. And that will determine results.
Of course it isnt perfectly deterministic. Nothing in life isexcept death and taxes! But it is far more deterministic today than in 1981 when obfuscation was much more effective.
Quicker to logical conclusion
The path to a logical competitive conclusion is shorter. In 1981, mediocre companies could survive as viable entities for decades. It was a controversial statement for Jack Welch to say in his famous 1981 speech that GE would either be #1 or #2 in its industry or exit the business. That seemed overly extreme#3 or #4 players could be profitable for a long time, couldnt they?
They could then but they cant now. If you cant find a Where-to-Play (WTP) in which you can put in place a How-to-Win (HTW), the clock is ticking fast for your demise. Winners get on an upward spiral of being able economically to invest more fixed costs in greater winning while losers get on a downward spiral of investments becoming unaffordableand these upward and downward spirals are happening quicker than ever before.
Peakier
Winners are winning bigger than they have ever before. As I discussed in the HBR article above, in 1978, the 100 most profitable firms earned 48% of the profits of all U.S. publicly traded companies combined, but by 2015 the figure was 84%. Even more narrowly the so-called Magnificent Seven (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Telsa) have been responsible for a huge proportion of stock market growth in recent years, as I have written about in this series earlier (though Telsa less so recently).
While these winners are winning big, losers are losing bigwhether Rite-Aid, Tupperware, Silicon Valley Bank, Neiman Marcus, Spirit Airlines, etc.
Practitioner insights
The first insight is that strategy is more important than ever in this deterministic, speedy, and peaky business context. Please ignore the voices who argue that seeking competitive advantage is fruitless in this VUCA world. They are 180 degrees wrong, and their advice is deadly to your health.
Pick a WTP in which you aim to create a matching and powerful HTW. Invest in that WTP/HTW combination quickly and aggressively. If your WTP is too broad and/or your investment is slow or tentative, someone else will be able to out-invest youand customers will figure that out fast. And when they do, it is a quick downward spiral for you.
If you are investing energy and capital in activities without an intention of winning, you are fooling yourself. I hear it all the time: Roger, we cant exit that mediocre product line/business unit because our overall sales will shrink. They foolishly assume that their position in that mediocre business is stable. It isnt. It will be crushedquicker than ever. And it will continue to bleed investment resources away from product lines/businesses that have a chance of an upward spiral.
Figure out a place to standand fight to win. Out-invest your competition. If you cant, you are fooling yourself. If you can, double down and take the fight to your competition. Encourage transparency in price/value discovery. Be like Progressive Insurance and show your competitors rates on your own website. If you are truly superior, the more transparency the better.
It is the age of “killer apps” (which I mean metaphoricallyF-150 is a killer app). Few offerings will win and win big. Many offerings will lose and lose entirely. If your chances of creating a killer app while doing X things is A%, it will be >A% if you focus on doing .5X things.
Simply, what has changed most in strategy is the diminished efficacy of throwing spaghetti at walls and playing-to-play.
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Here’s a guide to the most notable features of the top AI chat apps.
ChatGPT: Your Conversationalist iOS & Android
Advanced Voice Mode is the ChatGPT apps most distinctive feature. Ask it to play a tough interviewer or a skeptical client as you prepare for a difficult conversation. Or have it ask questions to help you make a decision.
Most of what you can do on your laptop you can do in the ChatGPT mobile app.
Create an image. Ask for an infographic, a cartoon, or a photo illustration. See examples of seven ways I use these images.
Ask for deep research. Get a detailed analysis with dozens of sources. See examples of nine ways I use this research.
Study & learn. This new mode helps you strengthen your skills & knowledge.
Analyze files or images. Turn a handwritten note into digital text, or make sense of any document, diagram, or manual. When I cant figure out how to assemble or operate something, this offers faster help than a Google search.
Use integrated apps. You can now access Canva, Figma, Spotify, Expedia, and other tools inside ChatGPT. Try prompting for a graphic within ChatGPT while waiting in line with your phone, then edit it later in Canva.
Pulse is ChatGPTs best new pro mobile feature. It creates customized notes for me every morning. The AI assistant synthesizes info from my chat history, my Google Calendar, and what Ive expressed an interest in learning.
This mornings Pulse note, for example, included tactics for using new Substack features, Penguin stories for sharing with my daughter, and breakfast ideas I had asked about for my rice cooker and bread machine.
These arent news updatestheyre personalized resources prepared by an AI assistant. I dont use or recommend relying on AI assistants for news searches, especially given AIs struggles with news accuracy. Caveat: Pulse isnt yet available for free accounts.
Gemini: Your Creative Partner iOS & Android
The Gemini app has five special features, in addition to its core chat capability.
Nano Banana image generation model. Edit photos, blend multiple images, or design a poster. Worth trying: ask it to turn any image from your phone into a record album, book cover, or billboard poster.
Deep Research. Generate exhaustive reports with citations whenever you need thorough background on an issue. Try this prompt: Create a stepbystep plan to adopt [tool/technology] in a team of [size]. Include costs, training time, changemanagement risks, and how to measure success. Cite case studies. See a few of my tips for strengthening deep research queries.
Veo 3 video generation. Paid accounts only. Create 8-second clips with Veo 3.1, Googles new video model. Experiment: create a slick moving background for a slide.
Canvas. Make an infographic, a quiz, or a simple game. Quick test: make a self-grading quiz to challenge yourself on something youre learning.
Guided Learning. Put Gemini in teacher mode to help you gradually strengthen your understanding of anything. Try this: ask it to walk you through the history of any concept or tech youre curious about.
When I choose Gemini: I use it as an alternative to ChatGPT and Claude when I want particular kinds of image edits and creative image designs. I also use it to experiment with generating short video clips, for guided learning, and for research reports.
Claude: Your Mobile Studio iOS & Android
Claudes app has a new voice mode I like. It waits for me to tap the screen to signal Im done, so it rarely cuts me off when I pause to thinkunlike ChatGPT, which often assumes Ive finished talking. You can choose from five voices.
Create on the Go
Create Artifactsinteractive little applicationsfrom your phone. You can make games, learning resources, document templates, or other useful mini programs. You can also now use Claude Code from your phone.
What I most value about Claude is its excellent Projects feature, which lets me organize relevant documents and instructions for each distinct area of work.
I use other tools (like ChatGPT, Gemini) for images and video, which Claude doesnt do, but I rely on Claude for assistance with alt-text, SEO text, project planning, and other tasks where understanding my context is crucial.
Copilot: A Flexible Assistant iOS & Android
Microsofts Copilot app is a good free option thats similar to ChatGPT and based on the same OpenAI models. One distinction is a new real talk mode that will sometimes challenge you. This helps address the sycophancy problem of AI chatbots blindly affirming your statements.
Other useful features: Copilot can generate a podcast episode on any subject (like this one about Wonder Tools). It can also generate an image, run a deep research report, quiz you on a subject of your choice, and conduct a voice chat.
Like ChatGPT, it can even help you understand something in your environment. Turn on your camera or load something onto your screen, then ask Copilot questions about something youre looking at. Ask it about fine print in a document, a confusing gadget, a troubled plant, or anything else.
Perplexity: The Quick Researcher iOS & Android
I rely on Perplexity for help understanding complex concepts. The mobile apps voice mode is especially useful for quick searching and getting a summarized response instead of a list of links.
For niche searches, adjust Perplexitys settings to focus only on finance info, academic sources, or social sites for Reddit results. You can also use Perplexity to search your Outlook email or your Gmail and Google Calendar for messages on a particular subject.
Tip: Turn on incognito mode in settings anytime youre searching on a sensitive or private subject. And as with all AI tools, avoid giving a thumbs up or down to a query because rating it signals that youre okay with it being read and analyzed.
Read more about why I find Perplexity so useful
Free & Low-Cost AI App Alternatives
Locally AI iOS | Free
Benefits: Free. No log-in required. Fully private. No data tracking. Easy to use.
Getting started. Pick a compact open-source large language model suited for your phones processing power. I considered options from Qwen, Meta, and Google. Qwen 3 supports 100 languages and Metas Llama excels at summarization. I picked Gemma 3 QAT from Google. If youre a tech novice or dont care about those details, just pick Gemma as your model and youll be fine.
Brief wait to get started. I had to keep the app open for about two minutes to download the language model to my phone. You only have to do that once.
How I used it: I recently asked for a custom workout, given my constraints (no equipment, limited time) and personal fitness priorities. The result was helpful and similar to what I got from ChatGPT.
Nice features
Customize or personalize your responses by inputting a prompt that will guide the app across all the individual chats. You can explain your personal or professional circumstances, for instance, or your preferences for concise or detailed answers, or any other needs you have for how the AI responds to you.
Set up Siri shortcut. You can activate Siri and say Hey Locally AI . . . to run a local AI search privately with your voice.
Well-reviewed. People seem to like it: 4.8/5 average rating with 208 reviews.
Vision tools. You can use this private AI app for text recognition, object recognition, or image comprehension. Thats useful if you want to use your phone privately to understand secure documents or convert personal handwritten notes into text. To get that benefit, within the app download the Qwen 2 VL model recommended for iPhone 15 or newer phones.
Caveats
Not the top models. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini perform better for image analysis than the small mobile models this app enables.
Slow start. Expect to wait several minutes each time you download a new model, including the first time you use the app.
No plug-ins. I couldnt connect this app to other services.
Private LLM | iOS and Mac | $5
Nice features
One purchase for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Family sharing means you can share the app with five family members for free.
Choose from 60+ models. Lots of models available in this app arent options in Locally AI. That may not matter, unless youre eager to use a very specific model.
Change AI models creativity level. Unlike Locally AI, this app allows you to adjust the temperature setting of your AI models to control how predictable or creative responses are. A model set to a low temperature sticks to more consistent, predictable answers, while one set to a higher temperature will generate more varied, imaginative replies.
Caveats
Single chat stream. You cant create multiple distinct chats in this app. Most other AI tools, including the Locally AI app, let you separate conversations into distinct threads for different subjects.
No help picking models. Figuring out which one to try is tricky with this app. You can click a tiny information button that links to a separate Hugging Face web page about the model, but theres no easy-to-understand summary for novices. Locally AI has helpful concise summaries showing each models strengths.
PocketPal AI | iOS and Android | Free
Nice features
Fully Private. No conversations, prompts, or data leave your device.
Create custom pals. Set up multiple AI assistants or personalities, with different settings and system prompts.
Access models from Hugging Face. Choose from many small AI models.
Caveats
May not work well on all Android phones. Depending on your phones age, the app might feel slow. A lot of Play Store reviewers reported this problem.
Mediocre ratings. 4.1 out of 5 with 1,200 reviews is OK, but not stellar.
The user interface lacks polish. The design isnt as elegant as what youll find on Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, r other top-tier apps. But its free, and if the AI responses are useful, you may tolerate a lower-quality interface.
