Solomon admits a major error in launching their consumer business was relying on the firm's insular belief that its 'smart people' could figure anything out. He now believes that for new ventures far from the core business, acquiring a platform with existing expertise would have been a better strategy.

The true power of an economic boycott lies not in its direct revenue loss, which is often negligible (around a 1% stock decline). Its effectiveness comes from creating negative media attention that pressures corporate leaders to reverse decisions in order to quell the public relations crisis.

Blockworks shut its news division not just for focus, but because it couldn't give the journalists the top-level attention they deserved. Keeping a deprioritized unit starves its talented employees of resources and opportunity, making it better to let them go where they can be a primary focus.

Goldman Sachs is divesting consumer-facing businesses like Marcus and its credit card to refocus on high-margin corporate advisory. Its stock is at an all-time high, validating a strategy where earning a small percentage (e.g., 0.2%) on multi-billion dollar transactions is far more profitable than serving millions of smaller retail customers.

Drawing from his experience partnering with Apple, Solomon cautions that most large-scale partnerships fail. For a partnership to succeed, it must have 'compelling glue'—meaning deeply aligned incentives, a shared purpose, and a governance structure that can overcome the natural friction between two different organizations.

Apple's historic commitment to user privacy prevented it from using the vast data pools competitors leveraged for AI. This created a technical disadvantage, forcing Apple to use its marketing prowess ('lipstick') to mask a technologically inferior AI product ('the pig').

Apple is avoiding massive capital expenditure on building its own LLMs. By partnering with a leader like Google for the underlying tech (e.g., Gemini for Siri), Apple can focus on its core strength: productizing and integrating technology into a superior user experience, which may be the more profitable long-term play.

After working out 22 distressed joint ventures during the GFC, the key lesson was that partner quality dictates outcomes more than the deal itself. When things go wrong, good partners collaborate to find solutions, while bad partners create conflict, making even a good deal untenable.

While critics say Apple "missed AI," its strategy of partnering with Google for Gemini is a masterstroke. Apple avoids billions in CapEx, sidesteps brand-damaging AI controversies, and maintains control over the lucrative user interface, positioning itself to win the "agent of commerce" war.