When large incumbents face startup competition, their best strategy is to 'run upstairs' (be very aggressive in the small market the incumbent is not defending) rather than try to match the competitor's velocity; incumbents are slow and will exhaust themselves trying to keep up.
normativepending
Speaker
Unidentified Speaker — A Conversation with Robinhood co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev [0jbbinhLAlw]Evidence Quote
“if you're you don't have the resources maybe as like American Express... you want to run upstairs cuz they're like fat and happy and so it's going to suck to run upstairs but they can't chase you because uh it's going to be they're going to be out of breath.”
Created: 8/10/2026, 11:02:14 PM
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