Case Studies

Decisions, examined

Structured breakdowns of what worked, what failed, and why: the decision as it was faced, the numbers behind it, and what happened next.

88 case studies

A Regional Equipment Rental Operator — Anonymized composite: a three-branch construction-equipment rental operator, built from documented rental-industry economics (American Rental Association market data; ~65–75% utilization benchmarks).
A DTC Brand That Grew Into a Cash Crunch — Documented pattern: Blue Apron (NYSE: APRN), from its public SEC filings (Form S-1, 2017; annual reports 2017–2019). The clearest public example of growth outrunning per-order economics.
An Agency That Productized Into Software — Anonymized composite: a marketing agency that converted its repeated client work into a software product; the documented archetype behind many SaaS origin stories (37signals building Basecamp out of its own client-project pain is the famous public example of the pattern).
A First-Time Laundromat Acquisition — Anonymized composite: a first-time buyer acquiring a 40-machine laundromat, built from documented industry economics (Coin Laundry Association survival data; ~20–35% margin ranges; utility-bill verification practice).
A Seller Squeezed by Marketplace Fees — Documented pattern: the rising all-in cost of selling on Amazon, per Marketplace Pulse's published seller-fee analysis (referral + FBA + advertising commonly totaling ~50% of revenue), told through an anonymized seller.
A Subscription Business vs. Churn — Anonymized composite: a small B2B SaaS at ~$1M ARR fighting monthly churn, built on the documented retention economics popularized by Reichheld/Bain (small retention gains compound into outsized profit gains).
An Equal-Split Partnership That Fractured — Anonymized composite: a two-founder services firm split 50/50 with no operating agreement; the most common documented pattern in small-business partnership disputes.
A Seller-Financed Home Services Purchase — Anonymized composite: an operator buying a retiring owner's HVAC company with a seller note, built from documented deal norms (~60% of small-business sales include seller financing; HVAC multiples ~2.5–2.75× SDE).
An AI Implementation Agency’s First Year — Anonymized composite: a two-person agency implementing AI workflows for local businesses; the emerging-services archetype from the AI & Automation category.
An Importer Undone by Landed Cost — Anonymized composite: a small importer of home goods whose margins existed only on the factory invoice, not in landed reality; the standard landed-cost failure pattern.
A Short-Term Rental Portfolio Meets New Rules — Documented pattern: the wave of city short-term-rental restrictions (New York's Local Law 18 in 2023, which removed most legal Airbnb listings in the city, is the highest-profile example), told through an anonymized three-unit host.
A Newsletter Built and Sold on Its Audience — Anonymized composite: a niche B2B newsletter grown to ~25,000 engaged subscribers and sold, priced on documented newsletter-market norms (~$1–$10 per subscriber; engagement over raw count).
How Platform Businesses Compound Advantages — Documented pattern: Amazon's publicly stated flywheel (the famous napkin loop: selection → customer experience → traffic → sellers → selection, with scale lowering costs), the canonical example of compounding platform advantages.
The Subscription Business Retention Playbook — Documented principles: the retention-economics literature (Reichheld/Bain, where small retention gains produce outsized profit gains) applied as a playbook, illustrated with the documented practices of durable subscription businesses.
Betamax vs. VHS: How Distribution Won — Documented history: Sony's Betamax (1975) vs JVC's VHS (1976), the canonical case that the better-distributed product beats the arguably better-engineered one.
When the Rainmaker Walked Out — Abstract composite: a buyer who paid full price for a services firm whose value was really one salesperson, illustrating documented key-person risk (valuation discounts commonly ~5–25%).
The Owner Who Was the Business — Abstract composite: a buyer who spotted that a business was really its owner, negotiated the discount, and systematized it into a transferable, more valuable company.
The Earnings That Shrank Under a Microscope — Abstract composite of a quality-of-earnings review, built from documented QoE norms (reviews commonly remove ~5–15% of claimed adjusted earnings; every dollar is multiplied off the price).
The Revenue That Wasn't Really There — Abstract composite: a buyer who trusted a seller's revenue dashboard instead of the bank statements, and paid for sales that couldn't be proven.
A Hundred Businesses to Find One — Abstract composite of a disciplined deal-sourcing pipeline, built from documented funnel data (buyers commonly review ~80–100+ businesses to close one).
The Deal Nobody Else Saw — Abstract composite contrasting off-market and brokered deals, built from documented pricing data (off-market deals commonly transact ~0.5–1.5× EBITDA below auctioned ones).
Five Small Shops, One Big Payday — Abstract composite of a roll-up, built from documented multiple-arbitrage norms (PE buys small at ~4–6× EBITDA and exits platforms at ~8–12×).
Same Business, Twice the Value — Abstract composite of operational value creation: buying an under-managed business and lifting earnings, which the multiple magnifies into a large value gain.
The Cheap Business That Cost the Most — Abstract composite contrasting a cheap, weak business with an expensive, strong one, illustrating why quality and trajectory usually beat entry price.
The First Hundred Days That Decided It — Abstract composite of two new owners, one who stabilized and one who charged in, showing why the first 100 days decide an acquisition's trajectory.
The Integration That Broke What It Bought — Abstract composite of a botched integration, built on documented M&A findings (poor integration is a top cause of the 70–90% of deals that fail to create value).
Two Buyers, Same Business, Opposite Endings — Abstract composite synthesizing the whole Acquisitions category: two buyers of the same business, one disciplined and one not, built on documented M&A failure data (70–90% fail; first-timers ~23% succeed, tenth-deal ~54%).
The Business That Looked Great on Paper — Anonymized composite: a buyer who did only financial diligence and was blindsided by the domains they skipped; built from documented M&A diligence patterns (inadequate diligence as a leading cause of value-destroying deals).
The Market That Wasn't There — Anonymized composite: a founder who built beautifully for a top-down "market" that didn't exist bottom-up; built from documented startup-failure patterns ("no market need" as the leading cause).
The Partner Who Wasn't Vetted — Anonymized composite: a handshake 50/50 partnership with no agreement that deadlocked and collapsed; built from documented partnership-dispute patterns and buy-sell-agreement practice.
The Inventory on the Books That Wasn't in the Warehouse — Anonymized composite: a buyer who nearly paid book value for padded inventory, then verified it; built from inventory-accounting (lower of cost or NRV) and M&A inventory-diligence practice.
The Single Supplier That Failed — Anonymized composite: a "thriving" product business that rested on one handshake supplier who raised prices after the sale; built from supply-chain risk-management and vendor-diligence practice.
The Money With Strings — Anonymized composite: a founder who chased the higher valuation and lost control to a misaligned investor; built from documented startup-financing and term-sheet patterns.
The Reputation Underneath the Reviews — Anonymized composite: a buyer who trusted a glossy 4.7-star average that was propped up by fake reviews over a souring real reputation; built from reputation- and review-integrity diligence practice.
The Competitor That Changed the Game — Anonymized composite: a "market leader" bought at the top of its game just as a funded entrant and a technology shift changed the field; built from competitive-strategy and commercial-diligence practice.
The IP That Wasn't Owned — Anonymized composite: a software business whose core code was never legally assigned to the company; built from IP-assignment and IP-diligence practice (general education, not legal advice).
The Numbers That Were Invented — Anonymized composite: a business whose reported revenue, costs, and inventory were partly fabricated; built from documented forensic-accounting and financial-statement-fraud patterns.
The Account That Got Suspended — Anonymized composite: a platform-dependent business taken to near-zero by a marketplace suspension; built from documented platform-dependence and marketplace-risk patterns.
The Business That Financed Itself to Death — Anonymized composite: a modestly profitable business destroyed not by weak demand but by stacking expensive, short-term financing on top of itself; built from documented over-leverage and merchant-cash-advance "stacking" patterns.
The Business That Raised the Wrong Money — Anonymized composite: a good, profitable, steadily-growing business that took venture capital it didn't fit and was pushed off its healthy path; built from documented "capital mismatch" and growth-at-all-costs patterns.
The Loan That Strained a Friendship — Anonymized composite: an undocumented friends-and-family raise that cost both the money and the relationship when the business failed; built from documented friends-and-family funding patterns.
Kodak: The Margin That Blocked the Future — Documented history: Eastman Kodak. Its own engineer, Steven Sasson, built the first digital camera prototype in 1975, and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2012. It is a public, well-documented arc.
The Franchise Whose Fees Ate the Margin — Anonymized composite: a first-time fast-casual franchisee, built from documented franchising economics, namely FTC-required Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDDs) and typical royalty (5–6% of gross) plus ad-fund (1–2%) structures.
A Landscaping Business vs. Its Own Winter — Anonymized composite: a residential landscaping company in a four-season climate, built from the documented cash-buffer problem (JPMorgan Chase Institute: the median small business holds under a month of cash reserves).
Blockbuster: The Revenue That Customers Hated — Documented history: Blockbuster Video. Late fees were widely reported around $800M a year near 2000 (a major share of profit), the company passed on buying Netflix for $50M in 2000, and it filed Chapter 11 in September 2010.
LEGO: Nearly Killed by Its Own Creativity — Documented history: the LEGO Group’s 2003–2004 crisis (losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars) and the turnaround under CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp that later made it the world’s largest toy company by revenue.
Southwest: The Airline That Insured Its Biggest Cost — Documented history: Southwest Airlines’ 2000s fuel-hedging program, widely reported to have saved on the order of $3.5B through 2008, amid a decades-long run of annual profitability unique among major U.S. carriers.
Dollar Shave Club: A $4,500 Video vs. a Century-Old Giant — Documented history: Dollar Shave Club. The March 2012 launch video (produced for roughly $4,500; ~12,000 orders in the first 48 hours, widely reported) through the 2016 Unilever acquisition reported around $1B.
The Second Location That Almost Sank the First — Anonymized composite: a successful single-location restaurant opening its second, built from documented restaurant-survival economics (BLS: roughly half of new restaurants don’t survive five years) and standard expansion arithmetic.
A Vending Route Bought on the Seller’s Numbers — Anonymized composite: a first-time buyer of a 40-machine vending route, built from the standard verification problem in small cash businesses, namely claimed revenue vs. countable evidence.
The Apartment Deal Killed by a Rate Cap Renewal — Anonymized composite: a 2021-vintage value-add apartment syndication on floating-rate bridge debt. Every market number below is documented, from the FOMC's own rate decisions, daily SOFR prints from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (via FRED), Chatham Financial's published rate-cap pricing, and Freddie Mac Multifamily's January 2024 Multifamily Maturity Risk research. The property-level arithmetic is illustrative, on round numbers.
The Business That Rented Its Customers From Google — Documented pattern: Google's September 2023 helpful content update and its March 2024 core update, told through an anonymized product-review publisher. The traffic figures are the published, self-reported numbers of one real casualty: HouseFresh, an independent air-purifier review site, which wrote on its own site that it went from about 4,000 daily visitors from Google Search to about 200.
The Tax Bill Hiding in the Sales Report — Anonymized composite: a direct-to-consumer seller that discovered a multi-state sales-tax exposure during diligence on its own sale. Built on documented law and published state procedure, namely South Dakota v. Wayfair (2018), California's Revenue and Taxation Code section 6487, California's Out-of-State Voluntary Disclosure Program, California's successor-liability rules, and the Multistate Tax Commission's published lookback chart. The dollar figures are illustrative, on round numbers.
Zipcar: Right About the Market, Wrong About the Weekend — DOCUMENTED: Zipcar, Inc. (Nasdaq: ZIP), built entirely from its own SEC filings (the FY2012 Form 10-K and the February 15, 2013 fourth-quarter results release), plus the Avis Budget Group release of January 2, 2013 announcing the acquisition. Every figure below is disclosed by Zipcar or its acquirer; nothing is estimated except where the text says so.
Hertz: The AI Found the Damage and Lost the Customer — DOCUMENTED: Hertz Global Holdings' 2024-2025 rollout of AI vehicle-inspection scanners, built from Hertz's own April 16, 2025 announcement, CBS News reporting of Hertz's scan figures, and two congressional inquiry letters: House Oversight subcommittee chair Nancy Mace to CEO Gil West (August 20, 2025) and Senator Richard Blumenthal to the same (August 26, 2025). The judgement below is on the ROLLOUT's design, not on Hertz's business overall, and the matter was still open as of those letters.
The AI Project That Died of Paperwork — DOCUMENTED: the Oncology Expert Advisor (OEA), an IBM Watson-based clinical decision-support system built for the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as recorded in the University of Texas System Administration System Audit Office's Special Review of Procurement Procedures Related to the UTMDACC Oncology Expert Advisor Project (November 2016), reported in detail by Forbes, The Register and PCWorld in February 2017. The audit deliberately declined to judge the technology, which is the whole point of this case.
Ford: The Company That Mortgaged Its Own Logo — Documented: Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F), built only from its own SEC filings: the Form 8-K of September 5, 2006 naming Alan Mulally CEO, the Form 8-K of November 27, 2006 announcing the financing, the FY2006 Form 10-K (Note 15, Debt and Commitments) describing the Credit Agreement and its collateral, the FY2009 Form 10-K on the debt reduction and the 2009 result, and the Form 8-K of May 22, 2012 recording the ratings upgrades and the collateral release.
Webvan: Twenty-Six Warehouses for Customers Who Never Came — Documented: Webvan Group, Inc., built only from its own SEC filings: the Form S-1/A of November 1999, the FY2000 Form 10-K, and the Form 8-K reporting the Chapter 11 petition of July 13, 2001.
The Succession Plan That Lived in One Man's Head — Anonymized composite: a second-generation specialty metal fabricator, about 60 employees, whose owner died at 68 with nothing about the handover in writing. Built from documented family-business data: PwC's 2023 US Family Business Survey (75% have a shareholders agreement, only 64% have a will, and just 34% reported a robust, documented and communicated succession plan) and the U.S. Census Bureau's 2019 Annual Business Survey (51% of responding employer-business owners were 55 or older). The estate-tax mechanics are the real ones in 26 U.S.C. §6166. All company figures are illustrative; this is general education, not tax or legal advice.
Delta: The Airline That Bought a Refinery — Documented history: Delta Air Lines’ 2012 purchase of the idled Trainer, Pennsylvania refinery through its Monroe Energy subsidiary, built entirely from Delta’s own disclosures: the April 30, 2012 announcement and the segment results in its Form 10-K filings for fiscal 2013 through 2025.
The Cap Table That Paid Everyone but the Staff — Documented history: Good Technology Corporation’s $425M sale to BlackBerry in 2015. The cap-table mechanics come from Good’s own registration statement (Form S-1/A, SEC EDGAR) and from the merger agreement filed as an exhibit to BlackBerry’s Form 6-K; the per-share outcome for employees comes from contemporaneous press reporting and is labelled as such.
Vanguard: The Owner Who Was Also the Customer — Documented history: The Vanguard Group’s investor-owned structure and what it did to fund fees, built from Vanguard’s own published statements, the Investment Company Institute’s annual industry fee study, and the passivity agreement Vanguard signed with the FDIC in December 2024.
The 96 Homes That Cost More Than They Sold For — Anonymized composite: a 96-home for-sale townhome community in a Sun Belt suburb, budgeted in January 2021 and finished in April 2024. Every market number is documented and fetched: the BLS producer price index for construction materials, Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, and the Census Bureau/HUD months' supply of new houses. The project's own budget and per-home figures are illustrative, on round numbers.
The Landlord Whose Anchor Tenant Was a Subsidiary — Anonymized composite: the owner of a 420,000 sq ft Class B office tower in a U.S. secondary downtown, whose largest tenant by area was a flexible-workspace operator. The tenant side is documented from WeWork's own SEC filings (Form 10-K for FY2022; Form 8-K of 6 November 2023 and its press release; Form 8-K of 12 June 2024), the statutory cap is 11 U.S.C. § 502(b)(6), and the market context comes from NBER working paper 30526 and Kastle Systems' Back to Work Barometer. The building's rent roll and valuation arithmetic are illustrative, on round numbers.
eBay: The Ads That Only Worked in the Spreadsheet — Documented: the paid-search field experiments run at eBay in 2012 and written up by Tom Blake, Chris Nosko and Steven Tadelis as "Consumer Heterogeneity and Paid Search Effectiveness: A Large Scale Field Experiment" (NBER Working Paper 20171, May 2014; published in Econometrica, volume 83, number 1, January 2015, pages 155–174). Every number below is from that paper.
Iridium: Sixty-Six Satellites and $1.6 Million of Revenue — DOCUMENTED: Iridium LLC and Iridium World Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: IRID), built only from their own SEC filings (the FY1998 Form 10-K405 filed 31 March 1999, the Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 31 March 1999, and the Form 8-K reporting the Chapter 11 petition of 13 August 1999), plus the Form 10-K of the present-day successor, Iridium Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: IRDM), for the year ended 31 December 2025. Every figure below is disclosed by one of those filings.
The Shovel Business Bought at Gold-Rush Prices — DOCUMENTED: the Hawthorne Gardening segment of The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (NYSE: SMG), which sells hydroponic lighting, nutrients, growing media and equipment to cannabis cultivators. Built only from Scotts’ own Form 10-K filings for fiscal 2021 (filed 23 November 2021) and fiscal 2023 (filed 22 November 2023). Every segment figure below is disclosed in those filings. Scotts’ fiscal year ends 30 September.
Microsoft: The Freelancers Who Were Employees All Along — DOCUMENTED: Vizcaino v. Microsoft Corp., the Ninth Circuit’s en banc opinion of 24 July 1997 (120 F.3d 1006) and its attorneys’ fee opinion of 15 May 2002 (290 F.3d 1043). Every fact and figure below comes from those two published opinions. This is general education, not legal or tax advice.
The 21% Tax Rate That Cost 39.8% — Anonymized composite: a three-owner U.S. management consulting firm that converted to a C corporation after the 2017 corporate rate cut and could not get its own retained profits out again. The company and its dollar figures are illustrative and use round numbers; every rule cited is the real one, in the Internal Revenue Code as it currently stands: sections 11(b), 531, 535(c), 162(a)(1), 1374(d)(7) and 1202. General education, not tax or legal advice.
The Insurance Bill That Erased a $700,000 Job — DOCUMENTED: American Building Innovation LP v. Balfour Beatty Construction, LLC, decided by the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Three, on 3 September 2024, together with the two California statutes it applies, Business and Professions Code sections 7031 and 7125.2. Every fact and figure below is from the published opinion or the statutes themselves. General education, not legal advice; licensing rules differ by state.
Peloton: The Quarter That Got Mistaken for a Trend — Documented: Peloton Interactive, Inc. (Nasdaq: PTON), built entirely from its own Form 10-K filings for fiscal years 2019 through 2026. Peloton's fiscal year ends June 30, so fiscal 2021 covers July 2020 to June 2021, the exact window in which the company decided how much capacity to buy.
Amazon Prime: The Exit Named After a War — Documented: the Federal Trade Commission's case against Amazon.com, Inc. and two of its executives, FTC v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 2:23-cv-00932-JHC (W.D. Wash.). It is built from the FTC's public amended complaint, the case docket, the Commission's own announcements, and Amazon's Form 10-K revenue disclosures. Allegations in a complaint are allegations; the September 2025 stipulated order is the outcome.
The Test That Was Winning on Tuesday — Anonymized composite: a mid-sized direct-to-consumer store that ships a checkout redesign six days into a fourteen-day test. The behavior is documented, not invented: Berman, Pekelis, Scott and Van den Bulte studied 2,101 commercial experiments run on the Optimizely platform in 2014 and found that about 73% of experimenters stopped the moment a positive result crossed 90% confidence. The false-alarm rates in the chart are simulated for this case study by the method stated in the chart note. All dollar figures are illustrative only.
The Supplier Who Knew We Couldn't Leave — Anonymized composite: a mid-size US e-commerce brand that buys custom-printed corrugated shipping boxes from one regional plant, and is handed an 18% increase at renewal. The market backdrop is documented and fetched: the BLS producer price index for corrugated and solid fiber box manufacturing (series PCU322211322211), annual averages 2019-2025. The brand's own volumes, its spend, and the value assigned to each concession are illustrative, on round numbers.
Viacom and Harmonix: The Earn-Out That Cost Three Times the Price — Documented: Viacom Inc.'s October 2006 acquisition of Harmonix Music Systems, built only from Viacom's own SEC filings (Forms 10-K for fiscal 2008, 2011, 2013 and 2014) and the Delaware Supreme Court opinions in Winshall v. Viacom International Inc. and Viacom International Inc. v. Winshall. Every figure below appears in one of those documents.
The Year Everyone Bought a Truck — Anonymized composite: one company driver who took their own operating authority in 2022, set inside a documented, industry-wide cycle. Every market figure is fetched and cited: the US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price index for general freight trucking, long-distance truckload (PCU484121484121), BLS payroll employment for the same industry, and the American Transportation Research Institute's annual cost-per-mile series. The driver is illustrative; the cycle is not.
Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact: Who Paid for the Growth — Documented: two direct competitors in small-business email marketing, built only from public filings and company statements. Those are Constant Contact's Form 10-K for 2014 (filed February 25, 2015), Endurance International's Form 8-K of November 2, 2015, Intuit's Form 8-K of September 13, 2021, and Intuit's Form 10-K for fiscal 2022. The pairing is not the author's: Constant Contact's own 10-K names the rival in its list of principal competitors as "The Rocket Science Group LLC (MailChimp)."
Bird: The Margin That Vanished When the Scooters Wore Out — Documented: Bird Global, Inc. (formerly NYSE: BRDS), built only from its own SEC filings. Those are the Form 10-K for 2022 filed March 16, 2023, the Form 10-K/A of November 2022 that restated earlier results, and the Form 8-K of December 20, 2023 reporting the Chapter 11 petition.
The Camera House That Beat a Bigger Fleet on Check-In — Anonymized composite: a 24-package camera and lighting rental house. The operator, its rival and the dollar figures are illustrative; the mechanism and the arithmetic are not. The measure it is judged on is United Rentals' own, from its Form 10-K for 2025: time utilization is time on rent divided by time owned.
MiMedx: The Restatement That Rewrote Three Years of Sales — Documented: MiMedx Group, Inc. (MDXG), a Marietta, Georgia wound-care company. This case is built entirely from its own SEC filings: the Form 10-K filed March 17, 2020 that restated 2016 and published audited 2017 and 2018 statements for the first time, the fiscal-2019 Form 10-K that lays out the revenue analysis in the company's own words, and the 8-Ks covering the executive departures and the Nasdaq delisting.
WeWork: The Metric That Rose While the Cash Fell — Documented: The We Company (WeWork), from the Form S-1 it filed with the SEC on August 14, 2019, the Rule 477 request that withdrew that filing six weeks later, and the Form 8-K reporting its Chapter 11 petitions in November 2023. Every figure below is from those filings.
General Growth: The Malls Were Full and the Company Still Filed — Documented: General Growth Properties, Inc. (NYSE: GGP), the second-largest US mall owner. The case is built from its SEC filings: the 8-K and press release announcing the Chapter 11 filing on April 16, 2009, the Form 10-Q for the quarter that ended two weeks earlier, the Form 10-Q disclosing lenders' motions to dismiss, and the 8-K and press release on emergence, November 9, 2010.
Apple: The Successor Who Refused to Compete With the Founder — Documented history: Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), built only from filings. Those are the Form 8-Ks covering Steve Jobs's medical leaves and his August 2011 resignation, Apple's October 2012 newsroom announcement of its executive reorganization, the FY2016 and FY2025 Forms 10-K, and the net sales and net income series in Apple's SEC XBRL company facts.
Parsons: Thirty-Five Years Owned by Its Own Employees — Documented history: Parsons Corporation (NYSE: PSN), built only from its 2019 IPO filings. Those are the Form S-1/A of April 29, 2019 and the Form 424B4 prospectus of May 9, 2019, which disclose the ESOP's terms, the cash it consumed, and what it did to the balance sheet.
Unity: The Fee That Was Never Collected — Documented history: Unity Software Inc. (NYSE: U), built from its own record. Those are the Runtime Fee announcement thread on Unity's forum, the October 2023 Form 8-K on the CEO's retirement, the September 2024 cancellation post by CEO Matt Bromberg, Unity's pricing FAQ, and the risk-factor language in the FY2023 and FY2024 Forms 10-K.
Dollar General: The Checkout That Moved the Cost Instead of Cutting It — Documented history: Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG) and its self-checkout rollout, built entirely from the company’s own SEC filings. Those are the annual reports for fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2024 and the quarterly report filed May 30, 2024. Every figure below is a line item or a sentence Dollar General published itself.
The Automation That Only Worked Once It Was Cut to One Form — Anonymized composite: a 70-person US commercial-lines insurance brokerage with four offices, drawn from a pattern common to back-office automation. The operating figures are the composite’s own illustrative arithmetic and are labeled as such throughout; the industry context is real and cited: adoption rates from the US Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey, and the certificate form itself from ACORD, the insurance industry’s standards-setting body.
Connelly: The Life Insurance That Raised the Price It Was Buying — Documented history: Connelly v. United States, No. 23-146, 602 U.S. ___ (2024), decided unanimously on June 6, 2024. Every figure below is taken from the Supreme Court’s own opinion in the case, which describes the agreement, the company, the valuation dispute and the tax assessed. The company is Crown C Supply, a building supply corporation in St. Louis, Missouri, owned by two brothers.