Instacart is a great example of a company that as it exists today is a interim, not end state business. There will be opportunities to change that positioning, but they will face some critical choices ahead.

Supermarkets are built purposely in prominent locations to catch retail eye & the layout is designed to offer a wide range of SKUs while drawing attention to the highest margin and/or velocity ones.
1st problem: the supermarket's sprawling layout is suboptimally designed for efficiently picking & packing your order.
2nd problem: Instacart doesn't have perfect visibility into the SKUs at a given supermarket in a given day, so the inefficiency for a picker is twofold-can't find items, then have to wait for your approval for replacement goods before checking out.
So what is Instacart? The two things they do efficiently are:

1) own the customer & monetize the data that comes along w/ that.

2) Efficiently deliver last mile logistics.
They are NOT an efficient picker & packer of the goods themselves, though they do make plenty of money on that job today.

Importantly there are better models being developed & proven by some supermarkets powered by the likes of Ocado.
The problem as I see it for Instacart & for supermarkets is either Instacart has to build their own dark stores with wide ranging SKUs and efficient picking/packing (whether lightly or fully automated).
Or supermarkets need to dedicate more of their floorplan toward an optimized logistics-only fulfillment setup. If supermarkets do this, they will want to be compensated for the expense/service instead of Instacart itself capturing that margin.
In the pre-supermarket days, groceries were a counter, with a phone and the clerks picked stuff off linear shelves to either have ready for pickup or delivered to the door (full last mile). https://t.co/OmLdaFy5Tm
Going Back to the Future is inevitable here, but who controls which pieces and how profit pools are allocated across partners is not obvious yet.
How can Instacart coax supermarkets to evolve their presence for an optimized last mile setup without promising the notably low margin biz of supermarkets more of the revenue pie?
Alternatively, how can Instacart start building their own optimized, vertically integrated digital supermarket with last mile fulfilment without alienating their supermarket partners along the way?
Threading the needle between these two competing interests will not be easy, but it will be interest to watch as both a customer and investor studying (but not investing in) the space.
You can win a big market by winning in the interim state, owning the customer on the way to an endstate. Netflix is a great example of such a co who threaded that needle. https://t.co/7XSEXFSgA6

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Patriotism is an interesting concept in that it’s excepted to mean something positive to all of us and certainly seen as a morally marketable trait that can fit into any definition you want for it.+


Tolstoy, found it both stupid and immoral. It is stupid because every patriot holds his own country to be the best, which obviously negates all other countries.+

It is immoral because it enjoins us to promote our country’s interests at the expense of all other countries, employing any means, including war. It is thus at odds with the most basic rule of morality, which tells us not to do to others what we would not want them to do to us+

My sincere belief is that patriotism of a personal nature, which does not impede on personal and physical liberties of any other, is not only welcome but perhaps somewhat needed.

But isn’t adherence to a more humane code of life much better than nationalistic patriotism?+

Göring said, “people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”+

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