This week on the Watson Weekly Weekend edition, Rick Watson and Jessica Lesesky are breaking down a massive shift in the retail and tech landscape. From the dramatic fall of a luxury giant to Walmart's historic milestone and the high-stakes risks facing Silicon Valley’s finest, we’ve got the insights you need to stay ahead.

We track the "episodic drama" of Saks Global’s decline, from unpaid vendors and empty shelves to the January Chapter 11 filing. We dive into the friction with Amazon and the aggressive store closures impacting Saks Off Fifth and Neiman Marcus.

Walmart has officially joined the elite tech-heavy $1T market cap club. We discuss how their massive investments in supply chain automation and a "dot-com culture" (thanks to the legacy of Jet.com) are now allowing them to outpace Amazon’s e-commerce growth.

FedEx is pivoting away from "tiny cheap shipments" to focus on high-margin sectors like healthcare and aerospace. We look at their Network 2.0 strategy and how they are navigating the rise of de minimus shipments from players like Shein and TikTok Shop.

+⚠️ The Existential Risks of Big Tech

What keeps CEOs up at night? We identify the "one big risk" for the giants:

1. Amazon: Will the $200B AI backlog actually materialize?
2. Shopify: Is a "high-performance sports team" culture sustainable for a 100-year company?
3. Meta: The massive bet on "face computers" and ongoing legal distractions.
4. OpenAI: The "show me the money" moment and the lack of native distribution.

#Retail #Ecommerce #Walmart #SaksGlobal #FedEx #BigTech #Amazon #SupplyChain #WatsonWeekly