The WAY to WOW Shows
The 24-Episode Campaign: Strategy 4
February 24, 2026
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:00] Who are you? And where are you going? What do you want? Hello and welcome to uh Business Lessons from the Military. Uh, my name is Kevin Bemmel and I'm your host and I'm here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about military history, doctrine, and leadership practices and then distill from those sources lessons

[0:36] we can apply to our businesses and professional practices. So today is the uh fourth uh episode in a 24 episode series. um called the 24 episode campaign. I know, clever name, of course. Um and and what I'm what I'm doing in in this series is really taking a broad look at military uh uh theory, if you will, and then applying applying it to the business

[1:13] world. So, I'm starting out with several episodes on strategy. This happens to be the fourth one. and and then we're going to look at other areas of military doctrine uh after strategy. So today's uh episode is called the danger of total victory. Now this may sound very strange. Don't we want total victory? Uh back in World War II, for example, the the Allies decided that the war would be

[1:48] over and they would win when there was unconditional surrender by the Axis powers uh Germany, Italy, and Japan. And unconditional surrender certainly sounds like total victory, but but there is a difference. and and so uh I'm going to be talking about those issues today and then drawing from them five lessons that that we can use here in in civilian life. So um just

[2:24] just a little bit of of of um sort of background if you will. I I think that you know from ancient empires to modern corporations uh total victory sounds very attractive. We now have eclipsed all of our enemies, all of our competitors. We now control this particular geographic area in the case of an empire or this this particular product or service. The the reality though is total victory often

[2:59] times plants the seeds of decline for that empire or for that company. So eliminating all competition tends to also eliminate restraint on the part of the now you know totally victorious company. um as well as provoke a number of responses that I'll talk about later in the episode that all come together to basically try to defeat

[3:34] if not destroy what has become the you know sole or at least the overwhelmingly dominant market player. And so what we're really seeking to achieve is is sustainable advantage and that is indeed is what disciplined far-sighted leadership looks to do. Okay. Both on the military and and the business side. So historically looking at military doctrine now for for a few minutes. So

[4:11] total victory uh referred to first of all war. Okay. Now in ancient times warfare did not at all look like the way war looked in world wars one and two or even how it looks today. Okay. I mean a huge army could be a few hundred you know mounted soldiers for one you know for one of a better word for what they were right. So, but nonetheless, if you if you had, you know, 600 soldiers and the enemy had

[4:48] 300, you could potentially just overwhelm the enemy. Okay? Uh in the same way that if you know, today someone has an army of 500,000 soldiers, they're likely to dominate an army of only 100,000 soldiers. Okay? But not necessarily the case, right? So consider the Ukraine Russia war where by all measures Russia should have just plowed o plowed over the Ukrainian military but it has not. Okay. All right. So um total

[5:24] victory from a military standpoint first of all means a destruction of the enemy's military capacity. They can no longer wage war. Number one. Number two it meant political subjugation. Okay. So, a king often times would be uh would be killed or imprisoned uh typically not in the territory that was his former kingdom. He'd be taken back to the the country of the victorious army, imprisoned there, where the rulers of that country could keep an eye on him. Okay? It meant territorial

[6:01] absorption and and in many cases the loss of territorial and cultural identity for the defeated enemy and and it it it meant in total the elimination of a rival power. That's what total victory was all about. And so it it certainly appears decisive. It appears to be permanent. Uh but indeed oftenimes it was neither. So you know how many of the empires from 5,000 years ago still survive? I mean

[6:38] China kind of um Japan poststates China. Um the Mongolian Empire not really not as any kind of significant global power. um you know, Roman Empire gone, Greek Empire gone, Babylonian Empire gone, Persian Empire gone, Egyptian Empire gone. Right? All of these empires that became so dominant indeed that dominance did did not turn into long-term sustainability.

[7:14] So a couple of examples where uh where total victory was attained and yet it turned out to be uh py. So in the Punic Wars between Rome and its archeneemy Carthage, right after decades of conflict in 146 uh before the common era, Rome um overcame Rome basically defeated Carthage and raised the city. Okay, just turned it into nothing essentially. uh eliminating Rome's

[7:51] greatest rival in the Mediterranean area. So the short-term outcome was that there was no immediate competitor to Rome. It gained territorial expansion and it became the dominant naval and commercial power. However, the long-term effect of Rome's victory in the Punic Wars was a a tremendous amount of internal corruption. Uh a lot of political instability. There was a vast concentration of wealth in in the hands of a small number of

[8:28] people that caused a lot of resentment among the citizenry. And I'm talking the actual citizenry, not the larger population. Because most people in the Roman Empire were not citizens of Rome. That was something that was relegated or or held really for a ve a very select few. Okay? And this eventually turned into civil wars that ended up in the destruction of the Roman Empire. Right? So by eliminating any kind of external uh conflict, external

[9:05] balance, essentially what Rome did is they accelerated internal imbalance and in doing so uh they the this victory over Carthage revealed what was a great deal of internal uh structural uh fragility. ility uh that led to the downfall of Rome. So again, total total victory would seem like oh you know great, but in the end it did not lead to

[9:40] a sustainable empire. Okay, a more a more recent example is the allies uh victory over Germany in World War I and the imposition and I I use that word precisely the imposition of the treaty of Versailles that imposed very harsh very punitive measures on Germany. So in the short term it seemed like okay the the greatest or the strongest not

[10:15] necessarily the greatest but the strongest military power in continental Europe had been suppressed. Okay. And and presumably this was going to mean no more wars in continental Europe as well. Uh France for example was able to expand its territory. uh Germany's uh uh colonies in the South Pacific were taken away from it. Um it lost its colonies in Africa etc. So there were territory penalties. There were reparations, very harsh reparations put on Germany, uh,

[10:51] with the intention on the part of primarily Britain and France to get back, uh, the what World War I had caused them to fight. Okay? And and this, you know, interestingly enough, the United States urged leniency or or at least greater leniency in the Treaty of Versailles than what ended up uh going into the treaty. um to a certain extent the the US was I don't want to say sidelined but um

[11:27] Britain and France were just not going to um be reasonable in in the surrender terms and or in the you know in the treaty terms from Germany after the bleeding that they had taken for years in World War I. Unfortunately, what that meant for the longer term and in this case the longer term was only 20 years and barely that was Germany experienced economic collapse. It just could not operate an effective economy under the

[12:04] harsh reparation terms and other economic terms of the Treaty of Versailles. And this led to an opportunity for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party to radicalize a large enough proportion of the German population that they were coming that they that the Nazis were able to gain power in Germany. And in the event led that led to World War II which was an even more devastating conflict than World War I.

[12:40] So uh in the end again the the the sort of total victory that the allies claimed over Germany in World War I by way of the treaty of Versailles uh turned out to be a pirick victory because 20 years later they found themselves fighting another war and uh from from Britain's standpoint world war II essentially led led to the uh breakup of their empire. So the

[13:15] commonwealth remains but shortly after world war uh two India for example gained its independence and the the the whole sort of structure of its empire ended up changing into what we into what now today is called the commonwealth. So because the victory of the allies in World War I lacked strategic restraint, it created instability rather than a durable peace. Okay. So um so the the

[13:50] the sort of core military lessons are uh crushing an opponent can unify new adversaries and that is indeed uh what what we saw uh in World War II. So Italy who which in World War I was actually an ally of Britain and France and the United States joined the Nazi you know join Nazi Germany as part of the access axis. Uh Japan too was a um was an ally

[14:28] of the United States, Great Britain and France in World War I. uh Japan felt uh insulted under the terms of the treaty of Versailles where it was not able to gain any territorial advantages. It was treated like a secondass country and this caused a great deal of bitterness uh among uh the Japanese leadership especially which again led to an opportunity for a radicalization of of politics in Japan and Japan becoming a

[15:06] member of the axis rather than part uh rather than an ally of uh the US, Great Britain and France and other countries. countries in World War II. So, another factor is power vacuums, they just invite instability. So, we we we see this so often and we and we've seen it for example uh after the um defeat of Saddam Hussein and his removal from power in Iraq. One of the mistakes in that war that President Bush made was the total

[15:44] victory over Iraq led to a power vacuum that caused an immense amount of problems because there was there was no way there was no um governing authority to turn to that could make Iraq a solid ally of the United States and of the test. And that's just a small example, but it's one that's been repeated time and time again. It's one of the concerns right now um with what's going on with Iran. So it's not

[16:20] at all clear that uh if the mulas are defeated and removed from power uh that that there is uh any group that can come in behind the mulas and take a hold of Iran. Now the the crown prince is still alive and and and there's speculation that uh he would then go back to Iran. He's he appears to be pretty popular among just the regular people in Iran and he would form a government where it would be essentially a constitutional

[16:56] monarchy not unlike Great Britain. that is certainly an option, but it's by no means an assured uh situation that um that there won't be a power vacuum if if the uh if the moolas in Iran are removed from power. And so I think that's part of the hesitancy on the part of uh of President Trump as he works to, you know, deal with the situation there. Um another issue of total victory is the overextension

[17:32] uh or or overexpansion or overextension it tends to strain resources. Right? So um thi this was uh I think part of the thinking. Um so at the end of World War II clearly uh the Soviet Union was highly highly suspicious of the other allies primarily Great Britain and the United States and and clearly even at that time Stalin had been a bigger mass murderer than Adolf Hitler. And so, uh,

[18:11] Stalin was very concerned that, um, that that the US and Great Great Great Britain would attack the Soviet Union. And indeed, uh, General George Patton thought that that would be the right thing to do because there were, you know, the United States had huge armies. They were vetted in combat. They were, they had been very successful. And it was his thinking that they should just plow on through and take on the the Soviet Union then and there rather than

[18:49] letting happen what happened which in in the event was the Cold War, right? And and but I think part of the problem with that is uh at that point the Soviet Union had significantly increased its military uh military production. It also had a strong well-vetted army. Uh Stalin had realized that his earlier purgings of of senior military leadership had been a mistake. um that he and and so he had had to rebuild competent military

[19:24] leadership which he had at the end of World War II. So it would again it would be it was by no means at all clear that had the United States continued eastward and taken on Soviet Russia or so the Soviet Union that they would not have been overextending their resources. Far more likely that they would have been. Um and and then again and then also and I mentioned this a little bit earlier. So excess dominance or overdominance oftentimes provokes balancing coalitions,

[19:59] right? And we see that today. So the United States as far and away the most dominant military power in the United States. So we see different coalitions. We see Iran, China, uh, North Korea and Russia essentially in a coalition looking to push back on American military power. We even see it among our our allies uh France, Germany, Great Britain where they are they are skeptical of of the

[20:35] United States um which has under President Trump been much more forthright in exercising its military power. Right. and and and it it it's yet to be seen how this works out, but we shouldn't ignore uh the the fact that having a dominant military power, having I'm not saying the United States has achieved total victory, but but having a power that at least potentially could achieve the kind of total victory as that's historically been understood in military terms that that are, you know,

[21:12] that other countries just stand by and don't respond to that. Quite to the contrary, they look to create coalitions with which they could potentially rep, you know, repel those, you know, that that dominant military power. Okay, so that's from a military standpoint. Let's take a quick break and we'll look at some business applications. When life brings unexpected changes, managing inherited property shouldn't add to your stress. Magnum Properties specializes in probate and trust real

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[22:23] can we learn from uh from this idea that um uh that uh that there's danger um in uh total victory. Okay. So um like I said like I said at the beginning I I have five thoughts on this. Um the first one is how and we've se we've seen this many times how aggressive merger an aggressive plan of mergers and acquisitions can create or exacerbate internal fragility in the acquiring

[22:59] company. So large acquisitions increase complexity. That's that's for sure. uh they create cultural differences oftentimes. So um an example of this is uh when uh the Walt Disney Company acquired Pixar. So a as well as by the way when when it acquired Industrial Light and Magic, which was George Lucas's company. So both Pixar and Industrial Light and Magic had very different cultures, much more informal,

[23:36] much more flexible, much more kind of innovative, creative cultures than the Walt Disney Company did, which was as a much larger company than either one of them. Uh had had a much more corporate culture. And indeed, one of the concerns that people at Pixar and Industrial Light and Magic had in being acquired was that con that was that the the parent company, the Walt Disney Company, would put constraints on them that would

[24:11] not allow them to do the kind of creative work that they had previously done that had made them so successful in such desirable AC acquisition targets. and and there were definitely growing pains and and we're seeing now um while uh pretty quickly Pixar for example went through a very um um what's a successful run of movies more recently. Okay. A a as that acquisition has has um

[24:46] you know as as it's been longer since the acquisition took place uh it it seems like you know to use the vernacular Pixar has lost some of its mojo. So, we're not seeing the kind the same kind of creativity and success uh that that Pixar made with, for example, um the uh uh shoot the movies with Buzz Lightyear and um the cowboy character. Oh my gosh, I can't think of the name of the movies. Anyway, um but with with those earlier

[25:21] uh movies, so uh the the cultural clashes are real in business and they can absolutely undermine the the integration of of an acquired company and and and its execution. So leadership bandwidth also becomes stretched. So as a company gets bigger and bigger and bigger, the most senior levels of leadership either have to devote more and more time or they have to get further separated from parts

[25:57] of the company uh so that other layers of leadership can be placed in between them uh to effectively manage the company. Right? So there's a dilution in leadership that goes on as a company grows. And finally, often times debt burdens become so huge they restrict flexibility. So a company so if we if we look at the um merger kind of acquisition of AOL and Time Warner. So, it seemed like it was

[26:34] going to be this ideal acquisition, new media, AOL, Old Media, Time Warner. Um, but number one, the debt burden that was created by the merger of those two companies put a lot of economic constraints on the company. That was one problem. The second problem with that with that M&A was there was a culture clash. So how things were done old media at Time Warner were very different than how things were done at AOL which was this you know new media uh more cutting edge kind of company. Okay. Uh a and as

[27:12] well um leadership really struggled to get a handle on this big huge company and figure out how to actually get from it the kind of synergy and uh savings uh that that they thought they would get and in and in the end it was not a successful M&A. It was it was really it was bad for both companies. So often times winning an acquisition results in a weaker overall institution and so acquisitions need to be pursued

[27:51] highly strategically. Okay, acquiring just because it sounds good or looks good not necessarily the right thing to do. So if if you think about the uh battle going on right now for for Time for for uh I think it's still called Time Warner if I'm not mistaken where um Paramount is one bidder and Netflix is the other. Right on the So we on the one hand you've got Netflix which is today's new media company. It's it's dominant in streaming. um it has done some production right but

[28:29] it it's it's not bound by have owning for example an actual studio a a you know real estatebased studio so it can be very flexible where it produces its projects so for it to buy time Warner okay now it owns a big studio property how does that help it in its strategic vision it it's understandable that they want the film library. They they you know they want more content. Okay, that certainly makes sense. But the the cable channels, the legacy cable channels and

[29:05] all that stuff doesn't strike me personally as being a good fit for Netflix. On the other hand, looking at Paramount, um so you know, the Ellison's now control that company basically. So they've already got, you know, a bricks and mortar studio. what do they need with another one? Right? Uh it's it's kind of the same dilemma that uh the Walt Disney Company is in having acquired uh 20th Century Fox. So they own two major studio facilities. Uh I I I haven't read a whole lot about how

[29:40] that's going, but I know at least in the early days it was it was not particularly uh an easy integration. Um, now I will say that the difference for the Walt Disney Company and 20th Century Fox is they are very similar businesses, cable channels, studio facilities, content creators. Uh, Fox on the other hand was not particularly strong in streaming whereas Disney was and so that was something that the Fox from which the Fox assets could uh uh could benefit. So perhaps

[30:17] this is what uh the Ellison's and Paramount are thinking they'll do with Warner Brothers. Um you know bulk up in terms of again additional content. Um maybe Paramount will be able to take advantage of I don't know the legacy cable networks that Warner has uh CNN and and the Discovery networks and such. I I I don't know. Cable seems to me to be a dying business. So, I don't really I don't know. Um I I I I understand that there needs to be consolidation in the media business. I'm not sure that either

[30:52] one of the acquirers uh you know h has a clear strategic vision as to how this will work. Okay, so that that's number one. Aggressive M&A can create internal fragility. Number two, market dominance invites regulatory backlash. There's no there's no um there's there's no um what there's there's no disputing that this is the case. So dominant firms attract antirust scrutiny and and all kinds of

[31:27] government scrutiny. We see this among uh the large social media companies where uh Meta and um uh um X and um um I'm trying to think of the other one. Um shoot, it's not coming to mind. Anyway, um they are constantly being, you know, hauled it hauled before Congress to, you know, talk about this issue or that issue. um their any acquisitions they make are heavily scrutinized and and oftentimes from the get-go from the

[32:02] announcement of it there are politicians out there saying this can't happen you they're too big they're too dominant right so uh the the these companies have and by the way it the same is true with with with Amazon um and with with other companies of the the so-called magnificent seven. They are so huge. They are so dominant within their categories. Uh Google, another Alphabet, which owns Google, another another one of the mag seven, they're so dominant within their categories, within their

[32:38] industries that no matter what they do, they face push back politically um just because of their size and dominance. So uh and and not just by the way by the United in the United States uh the EU does the same thing. In fact the EU it seems to be even more forceful in in its attacks on the the MAG7 uh you know because I think in part they're not companies indigenous to Europe and in fact Europe has none of these companies going on. it really

[33:14] surrendered those markets to the United States. So um the the the sort of drum beatat politically against these companies and other dominant market players often times resound redowns into a shift of public perception. So whereas at one time uh most people seemed to look on the social media companies as good, they were they were uh you know mechanisms for more for easier communication, better dissemination of information etc. Uh now

[33:51] um because they are so dominant I think public perception of them has soured considerably. Now, by the way, there's also been a re-evaluation of is social media, for example, is it actually good or is it more of a plague on our culture? That that's another issue. But the the re-examination happened, I think, in part because of the dominance of these companies. It's part of the push back of them having achieved on some level total victory. So

[34:27] uh the greater the dominance of a company, the greater its visibility and the higher the political risk, right? Okay. So market dominance invites regulatory backlash. Next, crushing competitors can eliminate the pressure to innovate. Okay. So, the fact of the matter is competition sharpens discipline. Okay. When when I have to out compete my competitors, I

[35:02] need to be thinking about how do I do that? If I don't have any competitors, I can sit, you know, as they say, fat and happy and just, you know, pull in the money. The problem is in a dynamic economy and the United States is still a dynamic economy, probably the most dynamic economy in the world. No one is safe from competitors innovating. They may be very small and below the radar, okay, but they eventually emerge. One of the best

[35:37] examples is IBM. IBM International Business Machines uh became the dominant computer supplier back in what the 1970s into the 80s. They were huge. They were it okay? They had at least ostensibly achieved total victory. Where are they today in terms of computers? Nowhere. Right? They were overtaken by Dell, Apple, Huelet Packard, right? All these companies innovated with things like personal computers. Okay, that was

[36:14] really what that was really what did IM in. And by the time IBM realized what was going on, okay, it was too late to the game. It never was able to create a competitive product in the in the sort of personal computer laptop market, right? And so it became more of a services company today. Right. So while IBM essentially crushed all of its competitors, it in doing so, it it it also eliminated the need for it to continue to innovate

[36:51] in order to stay competitive. So uh the removing of rivals, it basically reduces the sense of urgency that is what really undergurs innovation. Right? We innovate because we have a problem. Rarely does innovation happen because everything is great, everyone's comfortable. No, innovation uh it it it comes from the same source as a pearl, right? So, how does an oyster uh create a pearl? It's because

[37:26] some sand gets into the oyster. The sand irritates the oyster and so it secretes this compound around the sand that eventually becomes a pearl. Right? So it is it is through the irritation that it and that innovation happens that solutions are found. Right? And and so when a company doesn't have to innovate, what replaces the innovative culture is a bureaucratic culture. Right? going back to the example of Disney acquiring

[38:01] uh Pixar and um Industrial Light and Magic again that because Disney had become such although not the dominant player Disney the Walt Disney Company certainly was had didn't achieve total victory but they were a a very dominant player in the entertainment business and had created a very bureaucratic culture. Now, dis the Disney company was fond of talking about how welcoming they were to creatives and all this kind of stuff, but but it was never as strong in in the

[38:36] Walt Disney Company's culture as they claimed. And that was that was why uh ILM and Pixar uh not not the companies themselves, but people within them were very concerned about merging with Disney, right? they they didn't want to have to deal with the bureaucratic culture of Disney uh which they did not have at ILM and Pixar, right? So with without uh competition, internal complacency becomes the enemy. And the fact of the matter is internal

[39:12] complacency by its very nature is much more difficult to combat than an external competitor. Right? And so the a company that falls prey to it uh oftentimes doesn't even realize it until they've been completely outflanked. Okay. Number four, total market control encourages the formation of coalitions. So when uh a company becomes dominant, okay, uh what res oftentimes results is

[39:51] very small companies who have little if any market power will band together in order to essentially be able to compete with the larger organization. Um trying to think of of a recent example of this. I I'll be honest, nothing comes to mind on this. Um I'm we see this more often in the political sphere. Um well, oh here, okay, here's an example.

[40:26] Okay. Um so this is going back to uh the late 1980s back when I had my real estate company. So, prior to the passing of of of a law called FIRA, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act, real estate appraisers did not have to be licensed. And so, the dominant category of real estate appraisers had a designation called Member Appraisal Institute. And they were they

[41:01] were appraisers who had qualified for this designation MAI. They were known as MAI appraisers. Okay. And then along comes FIREA which required each state to license real estate appraisers uh you know state by state. So I was not an MAI at the time. Didn't want to be an MAI at the time. But when the licensing regime came out, I got licensed right away as what was called still is I I I assume a certified general real estate

[41:36] appraiser. was the highest license that was available and quickly with my other non-MAI colleagues got together and started promoting how we had the most the the highest level of license available. Okay. And this was a more important credential than an MAI designation which was not given by a government agency. It was given by a bunch of insiders in the

[42:12] business. The end result of that and I'm not say it was I'm not saying it was due solely to my and my uh you know small colleagues efforts but this became a pretty much a a national movement. I wasn't the only one who thought of doing this. Okay. I don't want to over arrandise what I did. I don't mean it that way at all. But it occurred to a lot of us that if we started marketing that we were certified general real real estate app appraisers, CGEAS, we could in effect if not completely destroy at least severely downgrade what

[42:50] was largely a monopoly on appraising commercial real estate that was held by MAI designated appraisers. And in the event that is what happened. So today an MAI designation doesn't really mean anything like what it meant prior to 1989. Right? So uh the the dominance of MAI appraisers in the market led to the formation of a coalition by nonai appraisers that caused them to lose their dominance. Okay. and and um you

[43:28] know the the dominance of uh doctors uh medical doctors MDs in the market and how that worked out uh has led to the formation of a lot of sort of allied medical uh um levels things like nurse practitioners um things like physicians assistants and these sorts of things right so anytime um in in a in a business sense or a professional sense, some some company or some group seeks to control the market,

[44:04] inevitably what you see is uh coalitions of of this the small form to challenge that dominance. So uh from from the same thing happens if if one company is sort of the sole supplier of a particular product. Okay, it could be microchips, for example. Well, customers get nervous. What happens if their sole supplier cuts them off? Now they're out of business. So, they look for opportunities to diversify their supply

[44:39] chains. Okay. Uh and then finally uh new entrance uh re they're oftentimes or at least sometimes able to raise capital specifically to counter the dominance of the the company that controls the market. Okay. So uh when so the market will respond to imbalance. It's not just going to sit back and go oh ho h this company controls this market. Okay, well, we're going to move on. Nope, that is not the case. Okay, in fact, I I I

[45:15] heard an interesting podcast yesterday. Uh, a woman uh has started, not recently, but I think I don't know, maybe a year ago, two years ago, not exactly sure how long ago, a new uh pasta sauce brand of all things. And the hosts of the podcast were, "Why did you This is a competitive category. Why would you want to get into it? And the reality is that the category is not nearly as competitive as it seems. There are essentially two dominant players in the sort of premium pasta sauce market.

[45:53] Uh one is Carbone and the other is it's like Rio or something like that. Uh and and in this entrepreneurs's opinion, they were not particularly good. Now I I can't speak to them because I don't think either one of those are kosher. So, I don't know if they're good or not. I'm just reporting what uh you know, their competitor said on this podcast. And so, she decided to do something that was much higher quality, okay? In order to challenge their dominance, okay? And and that's often times what you see. She's she's been a and she's now in the

[46:29] midst of looking to potentially raise enough capital to really take them headon, right? and she mentioned that there's uh one particular investor who who knows her, knows her work, really likes what she's done. She's this isn't the only venture she's done. She's done many others. Um and he specifically wants to invest with her because he thinks she will be successful in challenging the entrenched players. Right? So that's the kind of backlash that market dominance often generates.

[47:05] Okay? Okay. And finally number five. So restraint really creates longevity. So it's a wise it's wise leadership that leaves space in the ecosystem. Okay. That doesn't look to decimate all other all other competitors. So they avoid you know smart leadership. They avoid predatory pricing that forces or at least well compels I guess the same thing as forces that compels a

[47:40] political response that compels or that that that causes competitors to level you know accusations of cheating and price fixing and that sort of thing. Okay. They choose sustainable margins over maximum extraction. Okay. Uh so they don't price their products and services to squeeze every last dime out of their clients and customers, right? They look to create a mutually beneficial business climate

[48:17] so that they can continue to operate for the long term. And finally, they look to maintain partnerships rather than humiliating rivals. And I now I I think this doesn't sound very popular today, but the reality is that while of course competitors cannot collude in a quasi monopolistic way, on the other hand, uh there's nothing that necessarily prevents competitors from maintaining a robust competitive market

[48:54] while at the same time not looking to cut each other's throats. Okay? Because the competitive market is mutually beneficial for the competitors. It keeps all of them on their toes, right? So if you look at um uh the fast food market, okay, this is a very competitive market. Even McDonald's, which is the largest fast food company in the world, right? McDonald's has absolutely benefited from competitors. Whether it's competitors who have different products like Chick-fil-A or

[49:31] um uh um whatchamacallit um shoot uh rallies and the other more premium hamburger fast food brands um whether it's competition where they don't go head-to-head like Taco Bell or um or Pizza Hut, right? So these the fast food companies, they get better from competition. So as healthier fast food brands came out, McDonald's had to improve the healthiness of their

[50:07] offerings. As uh Domino's became dominant in the pizza market by delivering, you know, credible pizza quickly, uh Pizza Hut and and and other uh pizza companies had to respond. Papa John's, whatever, right? Um, as Subway came out with fresher ingredients, right, other companies had to respond. So rather than trying to destroy rivals, the fast food market has really benefited from the competition, right?

[50:42] So, uh, uh, I'm I'm I'm missing my note here. Okay. Yeah. So um good management um I'm sorry um so healthy competition maintains company's ability to to innovate to retain market position rather than and longer than a conquest attitude. Okay.

[51:18] So in summary, what does restraint look like um in business? Well, first of all, restraint does not mean weakness. It means scaling a pace of that of expansion that governance can support. That's number one. Number two, acquiring selectively rather than aggressively. Number three, pricing for durability rather than annihilation. And finally preserving optionality. Okay. And uh so power needs to be

[51:53] managed not maximized right. And indeed historically that has been the strength of the United States's economic system as opposed to for example the mainland Chinese system where power is used to dominate. The government has chosen winners and losers and as a result, China is not an innovative economic system. Okay? And that that's why it's not as vibrant. Okay? People express

[52:28] concern about China as an economic rival, but in reality, China has a tremendous uh number of weaknesses these days because it doesn't have the kind of competitive climate that we have here in the United States. Okay. So, uh those are my thoughts on the danger of total victory. Um, you might argue, well, are you are you calling for a a a kinder, you know, business climate? Well, I'm not saying that competition shouldn't be sharp. It

[53:04] should be. Um, but there's a difference between sharp competition and cutthroat competition. And yes, I I don't I don't advocate for cutthroat competition in business. I think that's a mistake. I think that uh we want to be uh wise competitors. We want to be strong competitors. Uh we want to be uh uh um just competitors. Okay. Uh and and our entire economic system and indeed our entire country will benefit from that

[53:40] because through that kind of competition the tide will be raised for everyone. So, I thank you very much for joining me today. If you have any uh questions, comments, thoughts, criticisms, uh links to show notes will be uh links to social media will be in the show notes when this episode posts on YouTube. I invite you to look at there. By the way, there are links in the show notes on Spotify and Apple Podcast as well. I tend to focus on YouTube um because that's where my audience uh growth is focused right

[54:16] now. Uh but all of the show notes are on Spotify and Apple Podcast as well. So you can find them there and post comments. Uh speaking of uh Apple Podcast and Spotify, if you know someone who you think would benefit from or enjoy these shows, I would really appreciate it if you'd refer them uh to the show. Maybe just, you know, share an episode with them. I know I do that with with podcasts I listen to and I'd love to have the uh opportunity to gain them as a subscriber. So, I thank you very much for joining me. Uh tomorrow, by the way, 10 a.m. is my show, People Making

[54:52] Money. And then on every other Thursday, a reminder, every other Thursday at 5:00 PM is my show, uh Jiggers's Place, where we have a cocktail and a smoosh. So, hopefully I will see you again later in the week. And that just leaves me to thank you again for joining me and sign off as I always do. Marie darling, you are my bell.