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In September 2024, Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings took a brief interlude from taping one of Americas most iconic game shows to film another series: a YouTube show about the history of public transit, set in his local county of Snohomish, Washington. The show, called The Transit Effect, is a seven-part series that examines why public transit matters, diving into everything from infrastructure and economic growth to access to work, school, and healthcare. Its the brainchild of Community Transit, a public transportation agency in Washingtons Snohomish County, just north of Seattle. The shows first episode is now available on YouTube and on Community Transits website, with the remaining installments slated to drop over the coming months and into 2026. Starting with the electric streetcars of the 1920s, The Transit Effect maps how American communities have been shaped by public transitand, amid todays notoriously car-centric American infrastructure, it presents a thesis for investing in more sustainable transportation options. The show is especially timely, given the Trump administration’s current crackdown on renewable energy and support for various fossil fuel industry projects. We hope viewers come away with a deeper appreciation for how much public transit shapes daily lifeeven if they never set foot on a bus, says Community Transit public information officer Monica Spain. If this series sparks someone to think, I had no idea transit did all that, or nudges them to take a ride instead of drive, thats a win. How Snohomish Countys ‘Community Transit’ snagged Ken Jennings Rory Graves is a senior marketing copywriter at Community Transit who helped develop and write The Transit Effect. She says that, when the idea for the show first came about, the team knew the series would need to be anchored by a host who was both familiar and trustworthy to a wide range of audiences. It wasn’t a new challenge for the agency: In 2024, Community Transit partnered with American travel writer Rick Steveswho has lived in Edmonds, Washington (a city inside Snohomish County) since 1967on another educational transit series. For The Transit Effect, Graves thought Jennings, another longtime Edmonds resident, could be the perfect fit. We wanted to find someone who was a trusted source of information to do that storytelling. Who better than Ken Jennings? Graves says. In 2004, Jennings won 74 consecutive games of Jeopardy!, the longest winning streak in the show’s history, before becoming its host in 2021. Beyond his impressive credentials, Jennings also has a personal connection to Community Transit: As a college student, Jennings frequently rode the agencys buses between his familys home in Edmonds and the University of Washington. Today, he lives in Seattle. After Community Transit reached out to him over email, Jennings readily agreed to host The Transit Effect. But there was a small catch. Given Jennings tight schedule, the entire seven-part series had to be filmed in just four hoursa feat that required extensive preparation and multiple dry runs to test every piece of equipment, walk through the setup, and build in redundancies, Graves says. We dont have a huge budget like Amazon or Coca-Cola for our campaigns, but Ken was happy to collaborate with us, and were thankful for that. [Image: courtesy Community Transit] Exploring how public transit shaped America as we know it To give viewers a peek behind the curtain at the history of public transit, The Transit Effect is organized into sub-10-minute episodes by themes. Episode 1, for example, details how ’20s era streetcars, electric trolleys, and subway systems determined how major American cities expanded; episode 3 dives into the environmental impact of public transit compared to travel by car; and episode 6 explains how public transit can serve as a vital lever of accessibility for kids, the elderly, those with disabilities, and those without access to a vehicle. Throughout the series, Jennings refers to local examples to help illustrate this historylike in episode 1, which notes how the expansion of the Link light rail, a train system in the Seattle area that opened in 2009, has roots that extend back by more than 100 years. Everyones talking about Link light rail expansion, but did you know our region had electric mass transit more than a century ago? Graves says. The old Interurban Trolley once ran along the same route we now know as the Interurban Trail. We often treat electric transit like its brand new, but its actually part of our history. Whats fascinating is how long cleaner, electric options have existedand how car-centric planning pushed them aside. Another surprising tidbit explored in the show is how public transit shaped the musical world. The series highlights how New York Citys subway system helped make Harlem a cultural epicenter for Black Americans in the ’20s and ’30s, attracting the musicians that would ultimately bring the Harlem Renaissance to life. Its wild to think that something as everyday as a transit system could set off a domino effect that helped launch the careers of artists whose legacies have helped define modern music, Graves says. Through these stories, Spain says, Community Transit hopes to help viewers understand how public transportation shapes communities and removes barriers to opportunity, and to encourage community members to invest in their local public transit systems. More than anything, we want people to see transit not just as a service, but as a powerful force for good in our region, Spain says.
Category:
E-Commerce
Potential buyers in California have seen the daunting challenge of owning a home become even more difficult. Due to higher mortgage rates and increased home values, a recent report from the California Association of Realtors found that buyers needed an income of $218,000 to afford a median home, a figure thats jumped 82% since 2019. A Canadian startup seeks to make those figures a little more favorable, especially for working class and first-time buyers. Zown, which opened for operations in California in the fall, offers buyers what it calls down payment assistance. The model works like this: By using automation and salaried showing agents to help facilitate deals, it can reduce commissions that usually account for 2.5% or more of a homes purchase price to about 1%, offering the difference as a rebate to buyers to use toward a down payment or to cover closing costs. Zown was launched by Canadian entrepreneur Rishard Rameez, who documented his own struggles with housing affordability on a viral Reddit thread. He found the process laborious and expensive and, in 2021, started working on a way to simplify the transaction. He developed a model that uses automation and a team of salaried brokers to cut commission fees and pass those savings along to buyers. He said Zown is able to give back roughly $10,000 to $15,000 per buyer for down payment assistance, an amount that equaled what an average person could save in a year or two. Since launching the product in Toronto in 2024, Zown has helped more than 250 buyers purchase homes, and offered more than $3 million toward down payments. That assistance can often mean the difference between potential buyers who can comfortably make a purchase or ones who are stretching substantially to buy their home. Michelle Boyd is chief strategy officer for the Terner Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and studies housing startups and fintech innovations. She says the Zown model makes sense for first-time buyers and those doing more straightforward deals. (But those buying older homes or fixer-uppers would perhaps benefit from an experienced agents help.) I think there is a real opportunity to take some of that value that real estate agent is providing and give that back to the home, or that person who’s trying to purchase it, she said. Its maybe not going to totally change someone’s ability to buy a home, but its not nothing. Downpayment assistance programs, many run by cities and localities to help buyers in their area achieve homeownership, have been rising sharply in recent years due to the nations worsening housing crisis. Down Payment Resources, a group tracking this trend, found that more than 2,500 such programs exist across the country, providing an average of $18,000 in benefits to buyers. The number of programs has increased 55% year over year. Zowns salary model can also offer more stability in a profession that depends on irregular sales and commissions. The national average take-home pay for a realtor is just under $59,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The buyer-first model Lisa Touney has been running the California expansion of Zown in 2024, and has closed three deals in Corona and Newport Beach; one deal saved a buyer $30,000. A broker-owner with three decades of experience, Touney worked with one of the Zown co-owners and decided to help them launch in California. Touney has a license to work in multiple states, and the Golden State offers a great proving ground, due to its significant affordability crisis. Touney likes the salary-based model of Zown, which takes away the pressure of making sales, and offers an attractive, innovative way to help lower the cost of housing. Currently, Touney is working with two other agents, and says they can expect to make over a six-figure income with the Zown model. (The firm said a full-time Zown agent in California can expect to earn solid mid-to-high five figures annually under Zowns productivity-based pay model.”) Rameez hopes Zown can facilitate 1,000 sales in its first full year in California. Diana Zaya, an expert on real estate brokerage models, says she doesn’t find the Zown model as innovative as is being touted: realtors have long sacrificed some of their commission to make a deal pencil out. In this case, its more systematized. She believes the push to lower costs is good and can really make a difference for buyers, but also worries, long-term, that taking away commissions could lead to a devaluing of realtor pay and a reduction in quality, since she believes the model relies on low margins. Rameez added that, This isn’t a race to the bottom; it’s a modern, trustfirst model where real value is measured by service and lasting relationships, not by a flat percentage. Zown is the latest in a number of startups seeking to make homebuying more accessible. Boyd said a number of such startups have gone under in recent years, as the combination of lower price appreciation and a higher interest rate spike hurt their plan to profit off of rising values.
Category:
E-Commerce
Recently, I was telling a friend about a marketing pitch Id received that ended with a hard sell. I mentioned to my friend that I was still thinking about the pitch, which promised to generate leads for my freelancing business. How do you know its not a scam? she asked me. That stopped me in my tracks. Id recognized the hard sell as soon as it startedand had even anticipated it. I scheduled the call before another appointment so Id have a good reason to hang up. But Id still been tempted. After a moments thought, I was able to articulate how I knew I wasnt being scammed. This company is offering to do something real that I could certainly do myselfidentify and contact potential clients. The company isnt scamming me; theyre just using high-pressure sales techniques. But my friends question was an excellent reminder of how easy it is to fall victim to investment scams, whether youre investing in your business or your nest egg. Thats why its so important to understand what investment scams look like and how to recognize them. Nothing new under the sun While the methods scammers use to reach their targets are constantly changing and evolving, the actual scams have remained basically the same since the first prehistoric cave dweller received an email from a deposed Nigerian prince. Even new investment scams, like Sam Bankman-Frieds cryptocurrency fraud and whatever the hell NFTs claimed to do, prey on reliable human frailties that dont changelike assuming we dont need to understand an investment to profit from it. Thats why most investment fraud is just repackaged versions of the same old scams. These might include: Ponzi schemes A century ago, Boston con artist Charles Ponzi promised investors a 50% return within 45 days on an investment in international mail coupons. At the heart of every Ponzi scheme is the promise of high returns with little to no risk. Of course, there wasnt really an investment. Instead, Ponzi continued to gather new investors, using their money to pay the returns to the original investors. This is the other hallmark of a Ponzi schemethe scammer must constantly bring on new investors to satisfy the older investors. Ponzis international mail coupon scheme fell apart when postal inspectors grew suspicious and his investors cashed out in large numbers. Ponzi schemes are inherently unstable and will inevitably disintegrate, either when investors cash out or when the scammer can no longer bring in new investors. But they continue to crop up, as Bernie Madoff reminded the world in 2008. You can generally recognize a Ponzi scheme when it seems too good to be true, when the returns are too consistent, and when those returns arrive nearly overnight. Those all feel great, which is how Ponzi schemes override your logic. This is why its always a good idea to embrace your financial paranoia. Pump-and-dump schemes The aim of a pump-and-dump scheme is to manipulate the price of a stock in order to profit. Under this scheme, scammers purchase shares of a company at a low price, then start aggressively promoting the stockpumping itto encourage investors to buy in. This inflates the price of the stock. At that point, the scammers sell off their sharesdumping the stockprofiting off the unnaturally high price. This leaves the investors holding stocks they paid too much money for. Typically, pump-and-dump schemes work with penny stocks on little-known exchanges and the scammers engage in high-pressure tactics to get you to invest now. If youve never heard of the stock or the exchange its traded on, and the sales pitch veers from buttering you up (A smart person like you wouldnt leave this opportunity behind!) to a hostage negotiation (Come on, do the right thing!), then you may be facing a pump-and-dump scheme. Even if you have to do the Zoom-call equivalent of locking yourself in the bathroom and escaping out the window, get out of that meeting. Pre-IPO investment scams We all like to imagine where our bank account would be if wed been one of the initial investors in Apple, which is why its easy to fall victim to a pre-IPO investment scam. These fraudulent offers give you the opportunity to purchase a stake in an emerging company before its initial public offering, or IPO, and they will often compare this startup to an established company so youll get dollar signs in your eyes. Who wouldnt want to get in on the ground floor of the next Amazon? Like pump-and-dump schemes, pre-IPO scams commonly include high-pressure sales tactics. The fraudsters want your money as quickly as possible and they dont want you to have time to think more deeply about their offer. The other red flag for pre-IPO scams is how you are contacted. These scammers often rely on cold-calling potential investors and social media solicitations (because thats really how the biggest companies in the world raised their capital, right?). Taking a moment to think through the weirdness of getting contacted out of the blue for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! can help you resist the temptation to invest. Affinity scams Scammers know that youre likely to lower your guard among your community, so the bastards exploit that. Affinity scams target members of affiliated groups, such as religious communities, military members, or other tight-knit circles. The fraudster either is a member of the group or poses as one. By earning the trust of a respected leader, who spreads the word about the investment scheme, the scammer is able to convince the group to invest. These scams can be some of the most difficult to identify, since the scammer is exploiting the groups social capital for their own gain, especially if they have hoodwinked a well-regarded leader. The best way to fight affinity scams is to ask a lot of questions. Legitimate investment professionals are happy to field questions and help you understand where your money is going. Scammers will pressure you to shut upand will use group dynamics to enforce your silence. And that faux-friendly insistence on slence after youve asked questions is the best indicator of an affinity scam. Know the signs of a scam Knowing what scams exist doesnt make you immune to them. Madoffs victim list included a number of brilliant minds and tough cookieswhich just proves that fraud can happen to anyone. Understanding the specific psychological tools scammers use can help you give yourself enough room to think before you act. Urgency: There is no legitimate investment that cant wait 24 hours. You can feel confident about walking away from anyone who pressures you to make an immediate investment decision. Ambiguity: Even if you are an investment noob, you need to understand what your money will be used for. If youre more confused after getting a string of smart-sounding gobbledygook or if youve been told not to worry your pretty little head, dont invest. Guarantees: There are no guarantees in investing. Give the hairy eyeball to anyone who tells you differently. Reaching out to you: Cold-calling is the last refuge of the desperate. (So says the writer who sometimes needs to find people to interview.) If someone is reaching out to you with an exciting opportunity, you need to wonder why. Not today, scammer Remembering that scamming techniques dont really change over time can help you protect yourself. Thats because all scams, from Ponzi schemes to pump-and-dumps to pre-IPO investments to affinity scams, aim to get your emotion to override your logic. Of course, it can be difficult to recognize when your lizard brain is driving. Thats why you can train yourself to look for the classic signs of an investment scam, including urgency, ambiguity, guarantees, and cold-calling. Before you sign on to any investment, do some basic research, starting with a simple Google search of the opportunity. The Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission provide information on common and emerging trends in investment scams, and scam victims will often share details of their experiences online. Just searching online for the investment may be enough to identify it as a scam. If youre still not sure, consider whether youre feeling pressured to invest. Take at least 24 hours (but consider taking longer) to do more digging into the investment and talking with knowledgeable friends and colleagues before deciding. And throughout your decision-making process, keep my friends savvy question at the top of your mind: How do you know its not a scam?
Category:
E-Commerce
Imagine an interface where you can quickly shift between talking, typing, clicking, and even drawing to instruct software, like moving around a whiteboard in a dynamic conversation, Carl Rivera tells me. An experience in which users are not presented with a barrage of nested menus, but with a blank canvas that invites creativity aided by an artificial intelligence that knows everything there is to know about online and brick-and-mortar retail and marketing. A fluid interface that adapts and anticipates your needs, automating tasks and recommending actions like the most brilliant partner you could dream of.Thats a dream in itself, but it isnt a fantasy; its Riveras future vision for Shopify. Rivera is the companys new Chief Design Officer and he believes that, in the very near future, the e-commerce platforms user experience is going to feel like sci-fi. Rivera joined Shopify through the 2018 acquisition of his startup TicTail. Right after that, he was key to launching Shop, the companys consumer-facing business. His new position directly responds to industry skepticism about designs relevance in an AI-driven landscape. In this time in which everyone is shifting to AI but almost nobody has a clear idea why, it makes sense that Shopifys founder Tobi Lutke thought he needed someone like Rivera helming that leading position.Were entering a new technological paradigm with AI, Rivera says, emphasizing that now, more than ever, it is strategic for Shopify to have a clear design vision about how to implement artificial intelligence in a truly empowering way for every company, from small retail shops to corporate giants. The company wants to reimagine its user experience, transforming it into a powerful tool for designers and business people that is easier to use and saves more time than ever before. Half of the people are talking about design being dead because the programs can design for you, he says. We take quite the opposite point of view at Shopify.Rivera believes that designs importance has only intensified with AI. He recalls how in strategic meetings participants, despite active discussion about the future, agreed but had different pictures in their head, different images of what that future they all discussed together looks like. This lack of shared visualization, Rivera explains, is precisely where designs power lies. Put a designer into that conversation and start prototyping live as the conversation goes by, you start visualizing these different points of your imagination. This process, he elaborates, enables participants to align and start to kind of come on to the same version of the future. He argues that when a designer begins to sketch ideas or build quick prototypes in real-time, abstract verbal agreements translate into concrete visual representations, forcing participants to confront and reconcile their differing mental models. [Image: Shopify]A Shopify UX revolution is brewingFor all of Shopifys history, merchants confronted your typical dashboard: nested menus, a labyrinth of left-hand navigation bars spanning orders, products, customers, and analytics, and module-specific toolbars for inventory or marketing features. This hierarchical menu systems approach has defined the digital age, from Word to Photoshop. It requires users to memorize pathways. The entire navigation of Shopify is revealed right when you come in, Rivera says, because thats how we have learned to navigate software.As Shopifys capabilities expandedadding banking services, global tax compliance, or AI analyticsthis static approach strained usability. It doesnt at all seem to me that that is how you must be navigating software in the future, Rivera says. Instead, he envisions interfaces where AI-driven progressive disclosure would surface tools contextually. Imagine a merchant discussing a winter campaign with Sidekick, he tells me, which prompts Shopify to generate just the relevant email templates and ad budget controlsbypassing the marketing modules full menu structure. The user experience will morph and adapt to the needs of the user at any given time, a sci-fi dream come true. Riveras redesigned point-of-sale interface previews this philosophy: visuals stripped of clutter respond to retail workers needing full proficiency within 15 minutes of the first day, as Rivera explains it. Future iterations could reduce that to seconds. Very, very complex software will look extremely easy, Rivera insists, because capabilities materialize only when essentialnavigation bars dissolving into contextual prompts, settings menus summoned by voice, dashboards generated from conversations. The blank canvas replaces the control panel.[Image: courtesy Shopify]His vision for this simplified interaction centers on Sidekick, Shopifys AI assistant. Previously, merchants might have asked Sidekick isolated questions like Whats my best selling product in Germany? Now, the system handles complex, multi-step requests. A merchant can prompt, Hey Sidekick, Im thinking about a campaign for next winter, I want to target my top markets and I want to be selling my top products and I think it should be email and social media. Sidekick then shows its chain of thoughts by pulling together disparate pieces of information and creating a linked series of tasks that the user can observe in real time.For instance, Sidekick would analyze sales data to identify top markets and top products, then leverage its understanding of marketing best practices to draft initial email copy and social media posts tailored to those products and regions. It might even suggest an optimal budget allocation based on historical campaign data, demonstrating why Rivera says its becoming this really capable and active business partner. Last year, Lutke described Sidekick as a Robin to merchants Batmansomething thats right there with you kind of working through the tasks. It aims to become what everyone calls today agentic AI but focused exclusively on your business and your industry.[Image: courtesy Shopify]Though agentic AI still has a long way to go before its truly useful, Rivera says Sidekicks strength is that it operates as an agentic AI constrained to the context of Shopify. Unlike a general purpose model, Sidekick performs actions within the Shopify admin on behalf of the merchant, and its context comes from Shopifys proprietary data, not the open internet. And thats a lot of data: an internal dataset, derived from millions of merchants. It allows Shopify to come up with the best business strategy to cater to each individual one of them and offer a marketing strategy. We understand more. We have a better output of how businesses run their companies than any other company in the world. For instance, a generic AI might offer general marketing advice, but Shopifys AI can tailor recommendations based on actual e-commerce success patterns within its specific ecosystem, understanding granular details like how certain sneaker designs sell when it rains in Berlin, for example.[Image: courtesy Shopify]Rivera also talked to me about Shopifys recently redesigned point-of-sale (POS) system as a proof of concept for this design philosophy. The overhaul focused on making the interface intuitive for hourly workers, who need to understand entire software and how it works, you know, within 15 minutes of the first day at the job. This presented a distinct design challenge compared to designing for the Shopify admin, where users are typically more accustomed to complex software. The solution involved simplifying complexity while maintaining the extensibility and specific configurations required for various retail environments. He points to the common complexities of a POS systemmanaging inventory, applying discounts, handling returns, processing multiple payment typesand how the new design strips away extraneous elements to make these operations intuitive for a novice user. It looks gorgeous, Rivera says enthusiastically. The future of Shopifys designersThe future of design work within Shopify, Rivera explains, will see designers shift from crafting individual interfaces to building foundational systems. He predicts that engineers will be able to vibe code interfaces by describing them. This means an engineer or product manager could generate a draft UI by simply putting it into words, for example: I want to create an analytics page that shows me my email campaigns for Germany over this time period. The AI would then generate an initial experience that looks pretty good. Designers, he clarifies, will then spend their efforts perfecting these reusable components by focusing on building great design systems that that that AI can pull from. [Image: courtesy Shopify]He tells me that they will spend much more time honing the details. If you create a perfect form, if you create a perfect animation from one page to the next, its going to be able to be reused over and over and over again for every consumer thats vibe coding a Shopify app or creating a Shopify experience in our team or amongst our partners, he says. This demands meticulous system building, as Rivera emphasizes that to create really great AI outputs, you need really amazing AI inputs. This approach means designers will spend more time on fewer things, and dedicate their expertise to high-impact foundational elements that AI can then propagate across millions of stores.[Image: courtesy Shopify]The roadmap for this evolution will unfold through incremental updates. Sidekicks current capabilities will expand into multimodal interactions. He envisions an interface where users can effortlessly shift between modalities. Its not just point and click. Its not just chat. Its not just voice. Its all of them at once. He suggests an environment similar to a meeting with a whiteboard, where one can explain this to you using voice, then draw a rectangle and have an arrow, and then pull up my computer and show you something that is there on that side or whatever. This means a fluid, open canvas where users can chat, talk, click, or draw to instruct the software. Rivera anticipates a notable level of AI personalization in just a year. Drawing a parallel to hiring a business partner, Rivera envisions a future where merchants can participate in a hiring process and choose which business partner you want to put into your admin and call it Sidekick. This implies distinct AI agents with varying approaches, akin to how different human partners bring unique qualities to a business, perhaps a data-driven analyst persona or a more creative marketer persona. But while that seems sudden, Rivera tells me that the revolution wont come all at once. Progress will be cumulative. I like the expression overnight success, 10 years in the making,' he says. He believes the change already started a year ago, when Shopify first launched Sidekick, and will continue with updaes like a voice version. Eventually, he predicts, it will feel like the sudden market dominance of the iPhone, transforming silly apps that like cant do anything into an intelligent interconnected system. By the end of this year, well have made a ton more progress, he says. And by the end of next year, well be pretty science fiction-like.
Category:
E-Commerce
Pharmacies are more than just stores. Theyre vital links between people and their healthcare. One of us, Patrick, witnessed this firsthand in 2003 while working as a pharmacy technician at Walgreens in a midsize West Texas town. Each day involved handling hundreds of prescriptions as they moved through the systemmeticulously counting pills, deciphering doctors handwriting, and sorting out confusing insurance issues. The experience revealed that how pharmacies are owned and managed is as much a public health issue as it is a financial one. Fast-forward to today, and Walgreensone of the worlds largest pharmacy chains, which filled nearly 800 million U.S. prescriptions in 2024is at a turning point. In March, the company announced it would be acquired by private equity firm Sycamore Partners for $10 billion, just 10% of its peak market value. That deal takes the storied pharmacy chain off the public market for the first time in nearly 100 years. Were professors who study the intersection of medicine and business, and we think this deal offers a window into the future of pharmacy care. It matters not just to pharmacists but also to the tens of millions of Americans who rely on outlets like Walgreens to meet their everyday health needs. The rise and struggles of Walgreens A lot has changed in the pharmacy industry since 1901, when Charles R. Walgreen Sr. purchased the Chicago drugstore where he served as a pharmacist. The company went public in 1927, expanded rapidly throughout the 20th century and grew to 8,000 stores by 2013. By 2014, a merger with the European pharmacy chain Alliance Boots made Walgreens one of the largest pharmacy chains in the world. More recently, however, the picture for the pharmacy industry hasnt been so rosy. Labor costs have risen. Front-end retail sales (things like snacks, greeting cards, and cosmetics) have fallen. And financial pressures from pharmacy benefit managersthose third-party groups that manage the cost of prescription drug benefits on the behalf of insurershave grown. All of these things have significantly constrained revenues across the industry, leading stores to shutter. Some estimates suggest that as many as one-third of U.S. retail pharmacies have closed since 2010. Against that backdrop, Sycamore Partners March acquisition of Walgreens raises big questions. What does Sycamore see in this investment, and what might their strategies imply about the future of American pharmacy care? Framing the private equity bet Private equity firms typically buy companies, streamline their operations, and seek to sell them for a profit within five to seven years of the acquisition. This growing movement of private equity into the global economy is by no means limited to healthcare. In 2020, private equity firms employed 11.7 million U.S. workers, or about 7% of the countrys total workforce. The total assets under management by such investors have grown by over 11% annually over the past two decades, a trend thats expected to continue. In looking at Walgreens, Sycamore, like many of these businesses, likely sees an opportunity to buy low, cut costs and improve profitability. One survey of private equity investors found that the most common self-reported sources of value creation in these deals for companies of Sycamores size were changing the product and marketing it more robustly to drive demand, changing incentives for those within the business, and facilitating a high-value exit. While private owners may have more patience than public markets, critics argue that private equity firms tend to have a short-term focus, looking for quick, predictable services of margin improvementlike, for example, cutting jobs. Theres some evidence in favor of that claim. One study found that employment often drops in the years following a private equity buyout. And if the focus shifts to repaying debt or prepping for resale, long-term projects, such as investing in future innovation, can get deprioritized. The history of privatized public companies offers a mix of successes and failures. Dell Technologies and hotel chain Hilton are two prominent examples of companies that went private, restructured successfully, and came back stronger. In those cases, going private helped management focus without the constant pressure of quarterly earnings reports. On the other hand, companies such as Toys R Us, which was taken private in 2005 and filed for bankruptcy in 2018, show how high debt and missed innovation can lead to collapse. Whats next for Walgreens So, where does this leave Walgreensand the investors involved in the deal? If part of the returns will be driven by buying low (the easiest indicator of potential future success to measure as of today) Sycamore started well: Its purchase price represents a mere 8% premium over the market trading value on the day of the announcement, significantly less than the 46% seen across industries in 2023. That said, Sycamore financed 83.4% of the purchase with debt, a number on the high end for these kinds of transctions. Healthcare groups have pointed to this number while raising concerns that innovation-focused investments may take a back seat to debt obligations. As the dust settles on the purchase, Sycamore has indicated an interest in splitting Walgreens into three business units: one focused on U.S. pharmacies, one on U.K. pharmacies, and one on U.S. primary healthcare through its VillageMD subsidiary. Thats not unusual: Sycamore has used a similar approach before with its investment in the office supply retailer Staples, a strategy that has garnered strong financial returns but been called into question for its long-term sustainability. Given the significant financial challenges VillageMD has faced since its acquisition by Walgreens, this represents an opportunity to separately evaluate and optimize its performance. Meanwhile, Sycamores historic focus on retail and customer-focused businesses might help it modernize the in-store experience or optimize staffing. For more than a century, Walgreens has survived and adapted to sweeping changes in retail. Now, its entering a new chapterone that could reshape not just its own future but the role of pharmacies in American life. Will Sycamore help Walgreens thrive, using its resources to strengthen services and deliver more value to customers? Or will pressure to generate quick returns create problems? Either way, the answer mattersnot just for investors but for anyone whos ever relied on their neighborhood pharmacy to stay healthy. Patrick Aguilar is a professor of practice of organizational behavior at Washington University in St. Louis. Peter Boumgarden is a professor of family enterprise at Washington University in St. Louis. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
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