McDonald's CEO Ate a Burger Like He Was Defusing a Bomb

Phillip and Brian get deep on a week when everything felt a little unhinged: Shopify's AI sidekick started building custom apps, Iran allegedly took out AWS data centers mid-Claude-outage, and the McDonald's CEO went mega-viral just days after Phillip prophesied it. Underneath the chaos, a throughline emerges: the things we've used to measure value (view counts, credit card rewards, third-party apps, and AI contracts) are quietly expiring. Culture is first. Then comes commerce.

This SKU Is Delicious

Key takeaways:

• Shopify Sidekick can now build one-off apps on demand, raising real questions about the future of third-party SaaS.
• AI geopolitics is here: data centers are now strategic infrastructure, and the "human in the loop" question has military stakes.
• Meta's move to invoicing ends years of free credit card rewards for brands running paid social,  — and that party's been winding down anyway.
• MrBeast's long-form view counts are down 50% YoY, even with heavy paid promotion; the algorithm has shifted to interest-based, not subscriber-based.
• Media buyers optimizing for CPMs are chasing non-real traffic. — Rrecovering a sense of propriety is the only way back.

In-Show Mentions:

• How MrBeast Dominated 2025 Using Advertising
• Phillip’s Big Arch burger virality prediction
• Get on the list for the Future Commerce x Shoptalk After Party

Associated Links:

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

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