Keyana Sapp

Pursuing tangible competence in a disposable world.

Philosophy • Quality • Meaning • Risk

Investigating who ruined the brands you trusted 👇

[Keyana Sapp @keyanasapp]

https://t.co/22xKbXWLgG

[Keyana Sapp @keyanasapp]

@ricksapp @LadyInLeopard11 Love Bierstadt. First came across his work at Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, AR

[Francis Davidson @FDavidsonT]

I've spent my entire adult life thinking about travel. Built Sonder from the ground up as a college student to a $600M a year business in under 10 years.

For the last six months I've been obsessing over how AI will change travel. TLDR: it will change everything.

I've put together a stellar team and next week we're launching a preview of what we've built.

It's been a game changer for early testers.

Comment below for early access.

[Keyana Sapp @keyanasapp]

@MalekaMomand @ScottSchwabKS Incredible!!

[Maleka Momand @MalekaMomand]

It’s true, I do love liberty ❤️🗽

Thanks @JTLonsdale for the shoutout and sharing the work Esper does to modernize antiquated regulations across the U.S. 🇺🇸

[Keyana Sapp @keyanasapp]

@AbuZeenah_ Michael Owen

[Keyana Sapp @keyanasapp]

@mrrasmulan Twist off bottle caps

[Keyana Sapp @keyanasapp]

@UranG9630 I have not, but I will look into that! Thanks!

[Keyana Sapp @keyanasapp]

I write a newsletter investigating how this happens - who buys the brand, who guts it, and how the money moves.

Tools is just one of many examples. Not running out of industries anytime soon.

Sub if interested 👇

https://t.co/S0FQN5sVPC

[Keyana Sapp @keyanasapp]

Two companies bought every tool brand on the shelf. One invested $626 million and built an empire.

The other spent $900 million and couldn't stamp its own name on a socket.

Techtronic Industries bought Milwaukee and left it alone. Kept R&D in Wisconsin. Dumped $206 million into product development in a single year. M12, M18, FUEL, PACKOUT, MX FUEL — all came after the acquisition. Revenue hit $8 billion. Wisconsin headcount went from 300 to 5,900. Net debt: $44 million.

Stanley Black & Decker bought everything else. DeWalt, Craftsman, Irwin, Lenox, Porter-Cable, Bostitch, MAC Tools. Over $6 billion in acquisitions. So many brands they were cannibalizing themselves on the same store shelves.

Then they started cutting.

$2 billion cost reduction program. 7,000 jobs eliminated. Plants closed in South Carolina and Texas. The CEO who ordered all of it stepped aside in October 2025 with the stock down 50% from its peak. They're carrying $6.1 billion in long-term debt.

The Craftsman factory in Fort Worth was supposed to be the comeback story. $90 million. 500 jobs. Ratchets came out of the press misshapen. Sockets went through heat treating without the brand name stamped on them. Retailers canceled orders. The executive who launched it left. Got replaced by four people in four years. They shut it down in 2023 with 175 workers. The socket sets that factory produced are now collectors' items on eBay. Collectible because of how awful they are.

Porter-Cable is worse. Founded in 1906. Invented the portable belt sander. The Smithsonian collected their history as part of the American manufacturing record. SBD bought them in 2004 and started cheapening internals immediately. Service centers closed within six months. The reps who built the brand got fired. Router line discontinued. Social media went dark for years. A 118-year-old company reduced to clearance bin filler.

Every industry I look at, the story is the same. A private equity firm or a conglomerate acquires a brand people trust, strips out the thing that made it worth trusting, and sells you the corpse at the same price. Nobody tells you it happened. You just notice your stuff doesn't last as long as it used to and assume you're imagining it.

You're not imagining it. It got worse on purpose.

[Keyana Sapp @keyanasapp]

Every couple of weeks I tear apart another industry to show you which conglomorates/PE plays made your stuff worse on purpose.

First issue is live. Link in bio 👀

[Keyana Sapp @keyanasapp]

In 1986, a corporation that made women's lingerie bought every backpack brand you've ever trusted.

Here's the full timeline of how one company quietly cornered 55% of the US backpack market. 🧵

[Keyana Sapp @keyanasapp]

The pattern:

Acquisition → Cost optimization → Quality decline → Warranty narrowing → Brand equity extraction ��� Divestiture

This same playbook is running right now in basically every product category.

Enshittifying everything.