Bill D'Alessandro

Here's my big personal news: Natural Dog Company has been acquired by FoodScience, a Morgan Stanley Capital Partners portfolio company! After 13 years, the journey that started with me quitting my job to go all-in on Elements Brands has officially come to an end. What started as one guy in a rented office turned into $200M+ of sales and something much bigger. We bought (and exited) 8 brands, from skincare to laundry detergent to pet wellness. We pioneered the "ecommerce aggregator" model long before that was even a thing. We built an incredible team with deep expertise across ecommerce, Amazon, retail, operations, and finance, all of whom are staying on to work on Natural Dog and FoodScience's other amazing brands. And I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying on as VP of Corporate Development for the combined platform, where I’ll be leading M&A - finding and acquiring the best pet brands in the world. If you know me, you know I love this stuff. I can't wait to keep doing it with the firepower of FoodScience and Morgan Stanley behind me. Huge thanks to everyone I've learned from here on Twitter/X, and especially the EcommerceFuel crew. Y'all have been my sounding board, my therapy sessions, and my second brain for the last decade. I've learned more from you than any MBA could've taught me. Thanks for being generous with your knowledge and support. If you're running a pet brand and thinking about an exit - or know someone who is - DM me. We’re buying. I'd love to help you write your next chapter. Press release is in the next tweet!

@slag_daddy Did you really just price a commodity in non-inflation adjusted dollars?

@BillDA It's just temporary folks

Ayatollah Khamenei brutalized his own people for 37 YEARS, exported terror globally, sanctioned the rape and murder of women, threatened nuclear war. Now he’s finally gone, and people don’t have the stomach for temporarily higher oil prices? Spare me.

Hmmm

If you are so hopelessly political that you cannot agree with the statement “Khamenei was evil and good riddance” please log off and go look in the mirror

@pcdocjim Are you implying that if you buy a hungry person a meal once, you become morally obligated to continue buying him every meal forever?

@BillDA Ya how is that more evil than stoping aid to hungry people?

@SamMendelsohnW6 Yes but a substantial portion of the value of “school” is outsourcing to a trained professional who shepherds your kid through it while you do other things (like work)

@BillDA You could get most of what kids need to learn critically off of kumon, Duolingo and online learning programs tbh

Lot of debate about whether private schools are worth it, especially with AI poised to revolutionize education Tell me - How far ahead of public schools will the private schools be in implementing effective AI assisted learning? Feel free to round to the nearest decade

@TaylorPearsonMe @Chrisgormley Agreed - if you had to put a label on what you describe, I’d call it a lot closer to “that’s a private school with a private pay model”, than a public school

@Chrisgormley @BillDA Agreed. I'm sympathetic to Nick's take. Giving kids laptops a decade sooner but still having the teacher lecturing to them on the same topics was a nothing burger. The potential is rethinking the whole pedagogy and structure from the ground up.

@sarah_cone 💯 The gap could get horrifyingly large if unions prevent public schools from implementing and iterating on AI learning

@BillDA Public schools are entirely captured by the teachers' unions, so my bet is never.

@dollarsanddata Absolutely How far ahead of public schools do you think private schools will be in implementing effective AI instruction? Round to the closest decade is fine

I didn't even address this, but with personalized AI-tutoring the entire education system is likely to be revolutionized over the next few decades. One teacher lecturing every student on the same material at the same pace has to be sub-optimal for aggregate learning

@TadEdge Give it a few more weeks

@BillDA Sure. Follow up Q: Who is now in charge in Iran? A: Ayatollah Khamenei 🤷‍♂️

@thogge Yes, but people vastly overestimate the difficulty of maintaining a brand moat over time There are so, so very few durable brand moats 99.9% of companies who think they have a brand moat, do not And you can only really tell decades in

@Stealx @AppJ1027 9/11 is an example of how allowing explicitly Anti-American regimes to foment, finance, and export terrorism can absolutely affect the United States

@BillDA @AppJ1027 You literally lose all credibility if you try to connect Iran to 9/11

@Teooooos I agree the stakes are high and the situation is fraught. I have just read so much “omg Hormuz” takes as though any temporary disruption to global energy trade is the absolute worst thing that could ever happen under the sun.

@BillDA Respectfully, this is a strawman. Fuck Khamenei & the entire regime, but the conflict carries serious risk & looks like we have no idea how to off-ramp or what the objective is. Voicing concern or worries about 2nd order effects isn't being political.

@BillDA And what does that have to do with America

@fortelabs How are you going to leave Grok off a 4-choice poll about AI model political alignment?

Which AI company do you feel most politically aligned with?

@JonMStoddard It’s in my home gym

@BillDA What did you do with your spin bike?

Guys, someone finally understands me

@nickbaum I definitely want one This may resolve the single largest fight in my marriage lol

@BillDA I kind of want one.

@paulhildebrandt This is a veteran move and I love it - definitely trying it

@BillDA Bill, I feel your pain. Something I discovered when my kids were young is that if you take clear packing tape and put it over the toys speaker, the kid still loves it and it cuts the volume down enough where it doesn’t bother the parent.

I have decided small government is overrated. Kids toys should be required by law to have a hidden switch inside the battery compartment to disable the all the 🚨🚨🚨 sounds.