Kantar's codebase was legacy old. The kind of technical debt that isn't a line item on a sprint board but a structural reality that shapes every decision the company makes. Rebuilding the architecture to support what I'd designed would have cost more than the organization was willing to invest, regardless of the Barilla deal sitting on the table.
When you work in the operating world, you are in the weeds of your business. For example, at SoFi I knew all the nuances of different types of student loan forbearance programs and at Brex I knew the minutiae of the Mastercard transaction chargeback rules. This contrasts with my experience as a private equity investor where I look at purchasing a business ranging from a chain of laundromats to Ancestry.com within the same month.
We live in a world where spending freely is often seen as a sign of success. Flash your credit card without checking the price tag, and you're "living your best life." But here's what I've learned after running my own businesses and studying consumer behavior: The shopping habits that look "cheap" are actually the ones that separate the financially intelligent from those drowning in debt. The truth? Those "cheap" behaviors are about discipline, long-term thinking, and understanding the real value of money.