Amazon Just Dethroned Walmart 👑🛒

Plus: A $40K gym membership with a 1,000-person waitlist. (No, we're not joking.)

Author

Daniel Pereira
February 21, 2026

Biz Analyst Club Newsletter
by The Business Model Analyst

Hello, Biz Enthusiasts!
Amazon just stole Walmart's crown after decades of retail dominance, Nvidia and OpenAI quietly walked back their $100 billion deal like nothing happened, and Equinox is charging $40K a year for a gym membership — with a waitlist. Meanwhile, eBay is buying Depop to finally become relevant to people under 40. Bold move, eBay. Bold move. The business world is moving fast — buckle up. 🚀

Hot Takes 🚀

1. Amazon Beats Walmart in Revenue — For the First Time Ever 🛒👑
After decades of Walmart sitting atop the retail throne, Amazon has finally pulled ahead with $716.9 billion in annual revenue vs. Walmart's $713.2 billion. And it didn't get there by selling paper towels in bulk. Cloud computing, ads, and third-party sellers are doing the heavy lifting. The kicker? Walmart is now trading on the Nasdaq and crossed a $1 trillion market cap. These two aren't just retailers anymore — they're tech companies in disguise.
👉 Find out how this retail rivalry just leveled up

2. Nvidia & OpenAI Quietly Walk Back Their $100 Billion Deal 💸😬
Remember that big, splashy $100 billion partnership Nvidia and OpenAI announced last September? Yeah, about that. They're now finalizing a much smaller $30 billion equity deal instead — and OpenAI is still raising a round that could value it at $730 billion. Apparently, a little AI market turbulence (and a 17% drop in tech stocks) has a way of making billion-dollar handshake deals feel less exciting.
👉 See what the scaled-back deal means for the AI boom

3. Equinox Has a 1,000-Person Waitlist for Its $40K-a-Year Gym 🏋️‍♂️💰
You read that right. Forty. Thousand. Dollars. Per year. Equinox's ultra-premium "Optimize" membership includes personal training, nutrition coaching, sleep optimization, massage therapy, and a "health concierge" — whatever that means. And people are lining up for it. The global wellness market is headed toward $10 trillion by 2030, and apparently, rich people will pay basically anything to live longer. The rest of us are out here doing YouTube workouts in our living rooms.
👉 Discover why health is the new luxury (and status symbol)

4. eBay Buys Depop for $1.2B — Because Gen Z Isn't Coming to You, You Go to Gen Z 👗📱
Etsy bought Depop in 2021 for $1.63 billion and is now offloading it to eBay for $1.2 billion. Etsy's loss is eBay's calculated bet: Depop has 7 million active buyers, most under 34, and its U.S. sales hit $1 billion last year — up 60%. eBay hopes cross-listing products and adding its logistics muscle will supercharge the platform. Whether Gen Z will embrace the auction site that their parents used to sell old DVDs… that's the real question.
👉 See if eBay's Gen Z gamble will pay off

5. AI Detection Is Now a Billion-Dollar Industry — Thanks to AI 🤖🔍
We have officially entered the ouroboros phase of the AI economy. AI generates content → humans can't tell what's real → businesses pay for AI detection tools to catch AI-generated content. Schools, law firms, media companies, and hiring managers are all paying for "is this human?" software. The same technology that promised to save us time is now forcing us to spend money verifying we're still human. Very normal timeline we're living in.
👉 Find out who's cashing in on the authenticity economy

Quick Hits 📰

Want to receive exclusive business insights and in-depth analysis, delivered weekly? Become a premium subscriber and get instant access now. 👇

❝

Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.

Tony Robbins

💬 What Do You Think?

👀Which story caught your eye today? Hit reply and share your thoughts!

📩 Know someone who would love this? Forward it their way - they’ll thank you later!

Reply

or to participate.