Chili's beat AI with Wi-Fi 📶🔥

Biz Analyst Club Newsletter

by The Business Model Analyst

Hello, Biz Enthusiasts!
Chili's spent two years installing 23,000 iPads instead of robot servers and watched its stock climb over 500%, Ford lost $919 million on electric vehicles and raised its profit forecast the same morning, and Anthropic's free hats are now reselling for about $50 on eBay. Meanwhile Fiat is shipping a $14,000 car that tops out at 19 mph until you install a kit that takes it all the way to 25. At that speed you could be overtaken by a golf cart with somewhere to be, which is apparently a feature.

Hot Takes 🚀

1. Chili's Skipped the AI Hype and Bought Wi-Fi Routers 📶🔥 Brinker's CIO rejected robot servers and AI chatbots, then spent two years on network plumbing across 1,200 restaurants: 23,000 iPads, 9,000 kitchen screens, better access points. The result is 20 straight quarters of same-store sales growth and a stock up more than 500% since June 2022. Over 90% of US Chili's are company-operated, so every efficiency gain lands on corporate margin instead of a franchisee's. The most contrarian AI strategy of 2026 was fixing the Wi-Fi.

👉 See what Chili's bought instead of robots

2. Ford Lost 92 Cents on Every EV Dollar, Then Raised Guidance 🚚⚡ Model e booked $1.0 billion of revenue and a $919 million operating loss, while Ford lifted full-year guidance to $10 billion to $11 billion from $8.5 billion to $10.5 billion. That upgrade came from big trucks selling near $50,000, not volume: Q2 revenue fell 4% to $48.3 billion and US sales dropped 10.3%. Ford Blue earned $1.1 billion against $661 million a year earlier, and roughly $1 billion of new investment is heading straight into the electric side. One set of customers is quietly paying for a different set.

👉 Find out who is funding Ford's next buyer

3. Fiat's $14K City Car Tops Out at 19 mph 🚗🐭 Stellantis opened US orders for the Fiat Topolino at $13,995, or $14,985 with the $990 destination fee. You get a 5.4-kWh battery, 46 miles of range, 8 horsepower and 1,073 pounds of car, and out of the box it will not go faster than 19 mph, which keeps it off public roads entirely. A free conversion kit arriving late summer lifts it to 25 mph and turns it into a federally regulated low-speed vehicle. The slowness is not a limitation. It is the paperwork.

👉 Learn why the low speed is the whole point

4. AI Killed Digital Scarcity, So It Started Selling Hats 🧢🤖 OpenAI's Supply Co. store opened publicly in mid-July with $15 socks and $175 sweatshirts, several of which sold out. Palantir's $239 chore coat went in hours, Perplexity is selling a $129 leather journal, and Anthropic caps handed out free at a pop-up now move for around $50 on eBay, with one seller shifting 36 of them. When your industry drives the cost of making content to roughly zero, the only scarce thing left is an object someone has to physically manufacture. A $175 half-zip is not apparel. It is a billboard that pays you.

👉 Unpack why a $175 half-zip is media spend

5. Taco Bell Credits Transparency. The App Store Says $1 Pizzas 🌮💵 Yum Brands reported Taco Bell same-store sales down just 2% quarter-to-date after foot traffic fell as much as 31% following July 16, and the stock rose over 3% to $156.66. Management spent the earnings call on swift, transparent action. The transcript also shows back-to-back $1 promotions that briefly pushed the app to No. 1 on the App Store, plus a supplier swap that moved the story elsewhere. Two recovery levers, one of them in the press release.

👉 Check which lever actually pulled customers back

Quick Hits 📰

• X Money Pays 6% While the Fed Pays 3.63% 💳📉: The nationwide rollout landed July 27, gated behind an $8 Premium subscription, paying 6% on deposits and 3% back on card spend. Every leg loses money against market rates, and the arithmetic says X is buying retention for about 40 cents on the dollar.
  👉 Work out what X is really buying

• Adidas Sold 17M Jerseys and Kept €28M 👕⚽: Record Q2 sales of €6.74 billion produced €463 million of extra gross profit, of which €28 million reached operating profit. Marketing absorbed €212 million, distribution overhead took €222 million, and the shares closed down 11.5%.
  👉 Trace where the other €435 million went

• SpaceX Sold 4% of Itself for a $2T Price Tag 🚀🔓: The June raise pulled in $85.7 billion by releasing 4.3% of shares. On Thursday roughly 911 million more become sellable, tripling tradable supply two days after the first public earnings report, with the stock near $105 against a $175.50 trigger that never fired.
  👉 Watch what happens when the lockup opens

• McDonald's Keeps 82 Cents of Every Franchise Dollar 🍟🏠: Q2 comparable sales grew 0.8% while guest counts fell, with fatter average checks covering the gap. Now the new US chief has to convince about 13,000 franchise owners to fund heavy remodels out of thinner unit economics.
  👉 See why the landlord always eats first

• Microsoft's $15B Capex Cut Is Presentation 💻📊: Revenue hit $90 billion up 18%, net income $35.8 billion up 31%, Azure crossed $100 billion growing 43%, and Copilot reached 30 million paid seats. Then capex guidance dropped to about $175 billion from roughly $190 billion, and the market called it discipline.
  👉 Tell the performance apart from the presentation

• Base Power Hit $13B by Never Selling You the Battery 🔋🏡: Zach Dell's Austin startup raised $1 billion at a $13 billion valuation, more than tripling from $4 billion last October and passing $2.5 billion in total funding. It has installed over 23,000 batteries and runs roughly 100 a day, and it books revenue three ways from one box.
  👉 Study the model that keeps every asset

• Sony's $927M Weekend Pays Disney Better 🕷️🎬: "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" opened to $927 million worldwide including $355 million domestic, the second-biggest opening ever, and Sony carried the $225 million production bill. Disney sold those film rights for about $7 million in 1999 and still collects the compounding half.
  👉 Follow the $7 million deal from 1999

• Best Buy Is Shrinking Stores to Sell $900M of Ads 🏪📺: New locations run 12,000 to 15,000 square feet against the old 40,000 square foot boxes, with some Canadian stores as small as 7,000. Best Buy Ads already pulls in more than $900 million a year at margins the retail operation cannot reach.
  👉 Find the real product in a smaller store

• Kimberly-Clark Spent $250M to Patent a Plant 🌵🧻: Two decades and more than 30 patents went into hesperaloe, a desert succulent it says makes paper stronger and softer than wood pulp. The pilot plant opens in 2027, a first full crop takes about five years, and the earliest tissue patent expires in 2035.
  👉 Do the math on a 2035 expiry date

• H&M's Resale Is 0.8% of Sales After a Decade 👗♻️: ThredUp posted a 79.4% gross margin in 2025 and still lost $20.2 million, then gave its branded-resale software away and launched a 0% fee peer-to-peer channel. Vinted, which never touches a garment, cleared €10.8 billion of goods and €62 million of profit in the same year.
  👉 Compare which side of resale actually pays

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

💬 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!