Molson Hart

Thing I’ve been contemplating today about business: “The game you choose to play matters more than how good you are at it.” Not a 100% sold on that being a truism, but can’t find any counterexamples.

Agree with you, but can think of some sort of counterexamples. Walton, Bezos, etc. Very tough game, but a big game, so they had an outsized outcome when they succeeded.

Yeah, for sure. Both retailers interestingly. In their cases, played to the idea that economies of scale in retail are probably more impactful than any other industry. Though Bezos has real 2nd/3rd acts (ex AWS) where Walton didn’t.

Walton, as amazing as he was, is not as good as Bezos, who is otherworldly.

I might be able to come up with a few more for you: - joe jamail - Tillman fertitta - armancio ortega, tadashi yanai Bill gates was hitting 1 billion at least no matter the field. Buffett too.

Ah this is good. Looking up Jamail and Yanai, I’d argue those guys picked good games to play. Yanai in particular is totally blue ocean strategy. Arguably, so did Bezos and Walton, too. Another one is Guy Laliberte (Cirque de Soleil).

So maybe I think saying: The game of “retail” is bad and a red ocean. But Wal-Mart playing the “discount retailer game focused on small town America” is a GREAT game — a blue ocean.