The Robin Report

With the possible exception of Greg Abel following Warren Buffet, there’s probably been no tougher succession with more pressure than what Tim Cook faced when he took over Apple from Steve Jobs 15 years ago. Cook has done a magnificent job leading Apple and doing it in a totally different way than Jobs did. The company is now one of the most valuable in the world with a cult-like status, retail stores that are anchors on their communities, and a value has grown 13-fold under Cook.

It stands to reason that emerging technologies should help engineer visionary designs, and new tools will enable new solutions to old problems. That’s how Maria Intscher-Owrang, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Simplifyber used her curiosity and creativity and looked to sci-fi to reinvent a supply chain.

Forgive us for saying, that in an age of AI with overwhelming computer analytics and technology—the likes of which have never been seen before—one of the bigger trends in the retail world involves a machine first invented in 1883. It has risen from the ashes of irrelevance to a trendy, self-serve convenience popping up everywhere from airports and subways to city streets. Think of it as automated retail. Why is there a renaissance in vending machines?

Are we ready to stop pretending that Gen Z is chronically online? A burgeoning subset of next gens are vocally uncoupling from smartphones and urging their peers to do the same. This Neo-Luddite movement is spearheaded by college student and flip phone enthusiast Logan Lane, who founded the Luddite Club at her New York high school and then brought that same ethos to Oberlin College in Ohio. This isn’t just a local movement or regional obsession; it is a pivot worth paying attention to.

There are a boring number of business books and case studies written about what makes a great leader. The traditional route is a solid education, often an MBA, interning and training with an iconic company, and accepting the conventions of corporate ascension. But that’s not the only route to the top. Tanisha “T” Robinson is a poster child for being an outlier, and serial entrepreneur success story. Her career is peppered with a portfolio of startups.

It’s an age-old story. Retailers are constantly seeking technology to solve their problems. Self-checkout was supposed to ease checkout lines. Amazon Go was supposed to make self-checkout obsolete. Neither transformed the store. But what has transformed? Major brands, including Target, Walmart, Ralph Lauren, Best Buy, Gap, and Dick’s Sporting Goods, have C-level AI executives. These brands are taking the future seriously.

We don’t usually call out a company twice in a month, but honestly this deserves it. We recently cited Buc-ee’s ridiculous lawsuits against companies with what they thought were similar names or animal logos. But Buc-ee’s left us no choice this time.

Membership points and convenience aren’t the same thing as loyalty. Starbucks found this out the hard way when their app went dark; customers didn’t wait in line for their order; they walked down the street to the competition. Join Shelley and David Wachs, founder of Handwrytten, as they reveal why personal attention beats personalization. They unpack what scalable tools retailers can use to keep customers feeling valued.

If you feel like you’re in a parallel universe where up is down, right is wrong, and good is bad, nobody could blame you…especially if you’re Canadian. While the Trumpian tariffs were originally rolled out to punish countries like China and bring a return of domestic manufacturing, they’ve turned into a political sledgehammer, striking wherever and whomever the president believes has done America wrong. What will the new Canadian trade war do to Americans?

It’s officially the dog days of summer, and consumers have caught the seasonal malaise. Proof positive: The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index fell 8 percent to 51 points in August. The steepest declines were among older and lower-income, as well as those without a college degree—the very groups most vulnerable to inflation and job insecurity. Michigan’s survey also shows consumers expect inflation to worsen in the months ahead.