What's interesting is the amount of publicly traded brands that still have family involvement (e.g., Levi's, Gap, Ralph Lauren) and the brands that are generationally owned vs PE-backed brands cashing out.

Fun.

But, what of my other clothing purchases?

To go a step further, I had several AIs make lists for menswear brands.

Here are a few links, from Gemini and Claude:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

How about a founder funded company that is a fourth generation shoe maker. In that timeframe, 13 years is nothing. The capital structure values longevity.

So, what do I do with this boot insight? Obviously, my next pair of boots is coming from a shop owned by a family / founder.

What got me thinking of this is boots.

I have two pair.

I have a pair that is 13 years old, and a pair couldn't last 60 days. The pair that didn't last 60 days, is from a PE-backed brand.

Do you want to guess the capital structure of the 13 year old pair of boots?

If you want to know if a company is directed towards consistent growth, hyper growth, cost management, or longevity, ask about capital structure. Publicly traded, VC-backed, PE-backed, or family/foundation/founder backed.

Different forms of capital value different things.

I bring this up because I have often maintained that an important parameter to any job is capital structure -- right after role/title, direct manager, and leadership.

Follow up here:

Support tells me that the company "does not exchange defective merchandise" and gives me a 30% credit, as though I would ever shop their again.

What even is the point of own a brand if you drive it into the ground?

Cost is easy to measure.

And what is measurable, gets bonus-ed.

Cost and a single sale is easier to measure than the value of what could have been a new multi-year customer with a disposable income, but has now become a brand detractor.

. . . oh, what's the capital structure behind this company? Does anyone even care? Is this a cost optimization PE thing? Dammit.

Google the company, and yes . . . PE firm.

My assumption here is that this company has targets to hit on margin per boot. Try to cut costs wherever possible.

The information wants to be free, bit it also wants to be expensive.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informa...

Of course, I wouldn't have needed AI if the material I was looking for was available -- if the glasses cases just had information that was processable / filterable (which Google could do) or if the manual to the specific drawers I had was complete. (It wasn't.)

The information is still hidden.

2. Repair advice. Needed to lift off a drawer to get to a leaky pipe. Got advice. Sent photos. Final determination was "just lift it off with a pull." After ripping the drawers off the hardware and sending pictures, AI responded, "unscrew the next drawer so you won't get damage."

Nice. Real nice.

After I Googled it, those were the first (and only people) I knew who would be watching.

🐻🏈