Weekly Wrap – Sweetgreen Post-Mortem, Confessions of a Job Hopper and a Fear of Friendly People...
A wake-up call on how jaded we’ve become.
August 30, 2025
▶Greetings from Cape Spear, the easternmost point in continental North America... Actually,that was a few days ago. As I write this we’re docked in Saguenay, known as the Valley of Aluminum, since it’s where a good deal of the aluminum earmarked for the U.S. comes from. That’s right... just in time for tariffs! We’ll finish by heading up the St. Lawrence Waterway toward Quebec and Montreal - two cities oddly enough we’ve never visited. They’re at the tail-end of what has been quite a trip – the longest we’ve done on a ship, which at more than three weeks is likely the longest we will ever do. The friendliness of Newfoundland was the surprise. I’ll explain why in a moment, but first...
▶Better early than never at all... Obviously you can be too early, especially when you’re flying red flags. All of the signs can be there, but the timing can be off for any number of reasons, including a fad becoming more than fad or a narrative taking on a life of its own or simply... the business transcended the concerns. With Sweetgreen $SG, it was the former, with a fad that had a longer runway that would appear apparent. I was thinking about this when I saw a Business Insider story the other day about how consumers have finally said no mas to absurdly expensive salad (or fill-in-the-blank) bowls. That was the thesis behind a piece I wrote back in July 2023, when I quoted my pal and fellow San Diegan, restaurant analyst/consultant John Gordon of Pacific Management Consulting as saying, "$17 salads and negative EBITDA.” We had met at a nearby (and new) suburban Sweetgreen and our topic du jour was whether there were simply “too many seats chasing too few butts.” It didn’t matter because over the next year-and-a-half Sweetgreen roughly tripled to around $45... before doing a round-trip and then some. It now trades at less than $9, but as John said to me when I caught up with him the other day, “The $17 salad persists and the three young founders just can't/won't find a solution.” The negative Ebitda also persists, which shouldn’t be surprising considering how swiftly revenue growth – the red line in the chart below – has decelerated....
Source: Fiscal.ai
Finally, there’s this chart from the Cruise Line Industry Association’s latest annual report, which shows a deceleration in growth by 2028...
▶Moving on, let’s talk about job-hoppers – notably, me... I often joke that even I get exhausted looking at the job history I put up on LinkedIn. If I were somebody else, I’d say, “This guy can’t hold down a job.” Well, actually, I can... assuming I want to hold on to the jobs I’ve had. I’ve written about this in the past, but started thinking about it again after seeing stories about a memo to AT&T employees from CEO John Stankey implying that the company’s loyalty to employees is dead. In the memo, which went viral, Stankey said the company has “consciously shifted away from some of these elements and towards a more market-based culture.”
But the bigger question is... what took them so long? Loyalty to employees started dying decades ago... probably even before the granddaddy of employer loyalty – IBM, known for its “cradle to grave” culture – started going through a transformation that signaled the end of Big Blue, as we knew it. Then there’s Netflix, whose then-head of HR’s comments went viral in 2008 when she was quoted as saying that, as a company, “we’re not a family.”
Reality is, it cuts both ways, especially with opportunistically ambitious employees, who for whatever reason move on... as I did. I have always said that when you’re bored on a job – or offered an opportunity that’s simply too good not to take – it’s time to move on. I am not a risk taker exceptwhen it comes to jobs.
I grew up in the world of newspapers, starting from the smallest owned by what then was the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain. The only way to move up was to move. And move... and move again... and again. That I was eager to live in new cities didn’t hurt... from Miami to Boca Raton to Nashville to St. Paul to Chicago – to New York then to San Francisco for 10 years, then back to New York, then to San Diego for another 10. Then back to New York because I had a few screws loose and forgot what winter was like.. and finally (whew!) back to San Diego, where I’ve been ever since.
In between, I’ve done print, online, radio, TV, magazines, newsletters and also tried my hand at becoming an analyst at a risk arbitrage firm (not a good fit – saved by the 1987 stock market crash) and co-founded two short-biased research firms. In the process I’ve had a few flubs, but I’m also a big believer in rising to the level of your incompetence. I’ve done that... and then some! It can be humbling. Then again, you really only do live once. Onward...
▶Finally, a word about friendliness... This hit us when we were standing in front of the Kilometer Zero marker at St. John’s City Hall, where the Trans-Canada Highway begins/ends. It was drizzling. Nobody was around. And out of nowhere some guy walked up behind us and said, “Hello.” I turned around. He had a big smile on his face. He was wearing a tie, in shirt-sleeves. He was so friendly, my first reaction was, “Are you trying to sell us something?” “No – just trying to sell you on the friendliness of Newfoundland.” He went on to introduce himself as one of St. John’s Council members. He was just being friendly... imagine that! No motive. After he left, walking into city hall, my wife and I both had the same reaction – how pathetic it is that we’re conditioned to think anybody who is “nice” to us out of the blue on a city street is trying to sell you something, convert you or steal from you. It was a reflective and refreshing moment as we brace for a return to reality.
Sunrise over the St. Lawrence Seaway
DISCLAIMER: This is solely my opinion based on my observations and interpretations of events, based on published facts and filings, and should not be construed as personal investment advice. (Because it isn’t!) Subsequent to my original report I bought shares of Turning Point, and am under no obligation to disclose any future purchase or sale.
