Episode summary
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen’s $56B Plan to Take Over eBay
All-In Podcast
· · 1 hr 3 min · Hosts: David Friedberg · Guests: Ryan Cohen
Summary
Ryan Cohen lays out how he built Chewy into a $3.35 billion sale by focusing on a recurring, low-margin category, ruthless supply-chain execution, and unusually intense customer service. He says the key was not trying to be “nice” to suppliers or management, but to operate with discipline, negotiate hard, and obsess over every number.
He then explains how his post-Chewy investing evolved into activism and eventually into GameStop, where he first bought a passive stake based on a console-cycle thesis and the idea that the market had over-pessimistically priced the business. Once he crossed 5%, he says he chose to engage with management, joined the board, and later became CEO after concluding the company needed a different operating approach.
Cohen argues GameStop’s turnaround came from aggressive cost cutting, tighter focus on the pre-owned and collectibles businesses, and a more efficient retail model. He says the business now has significant cash, better margins, and a stronger collectibles mix, but that his bigger idea is eBay: a company he believes is underperforming because of weak execution, unhappy sellers, and bloated expenses. His proposed plan is threefold—cut costs, build live commerce, and create a digital marketplace for in-game items and collectibles—while insisting the combination of GameStop and eBay would be a powerful fit.
Key takeaways
- Ryan Cohen says Chewy won because it treated pet food as a recurring purchase business and executed obsessively on supply chain, pricing, and customer service.
- Cohen says his original GameStop thesis was a console-cycle trade, but the company’s turnaround required a much more aggressive cost-cutting and retail-focus strategy once he became CEO.
- Cohen argues eBay is underperforming because sellers are frustrated, costs are too high, and management has not translated the marketplace moat into growth.
- His proposed eBay plan is to pull $2 billion of costs, scale live commerce, and build a digital collectibles marketplace for in-game items.
- Cohen says the strategic logic for eBay is strongest in secondhand goods, collectibles, refurbished tech, and other categories where marketplace liquidity matters most.
Notable quotes
“the vision was to replicate the same experience that I had at the neighborhood pet store, but do it online and do it at scale”
“it took me about I don't know maybe just over a year to realize that was really really stupid”
“there are three areas. Number one is on immediately improving earnings through cutting costs and pulling $2 billion of costs out of the business”
How the episode opens
Everyone hates GameStop and it seems like everyone in the media basically wants us to fail and wants them to succeed and you've got a board that's making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. They don't buy stock with their own money. They end up showing up to a handful of board meetings and they're making a fortune.
You've got a management team that is grossly overpaid. There's nothing more American than basically risking your own capital. So why does everyone want us to fail?
Apploven started with an $8 domain and no VC funding. They built anyway and became one of the largest ad platforms in the world. Now they're bringing that same engine to e-commerce through AppLoving Ads.
Your ads run inside mobile games, reaching over a billion people with full screen distraction-free attention. The platform finds buyers and optimizes for profit. You set the target, it does the rest.
A cookware brand doing $4 million tried AppLovven ads, hit 16 million, turned profitable, and they're on pace for $80 million this year. Visit apploven.com/allin to launch your first campaign today.
Ryan Cohen, welcome to the All-In Interview. Thanks for being here. — Thank you for having me.
I think it's been like a decade, which is crazy how old we get since you and I last had dinner in New York. This was before several chapters of your life unfolded. And it's great to be talking with you today.
You're doing something really interesting right now, trying to acquire and run eBay, which obviously is a big story right now that takes us back 25, 30 years to the start of the internet. But I want to talk a little bit about your story first, if that's okay. And I'd love for folks that are watching this or listening to this to to learn a little bit about you and the journey you've been on that brings you to this moment.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- gamestop ceo ebay acquisition
- e-commerce competition
- activist investing
- ebay cost cutting
- live commerce and digital collectibles
Companies and tickers mentioned
- GME
- EBAY
- CHWY
- AMZN
- GameStop
- eBay
- Chewy
- Amazon
Watch the episode
Watch “GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen’s $56B Plan to Take Over eBay” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
More from All-In Podcast
-
Jensen OUT as Nvidia CEO: "Spy" Scandal, Export Restrictions, Market Impact -
Freedom vs. Safety: Axon CEO Rick Smith on the Future of Policing -
Midterm Blood Bath, $4T AI Sell Off, Data Center Freeze, What’s Next for Trump -
All-In Podcast REACTS to Democrat Sweep! -
Anthropic S-1 Shocker, Greatest Business Ever? Google’s $500B Wipeout, Midterm Predictions -
WHOOP CEO, Will Ahmed: 50B Hours of Health Data, a 4 Million Member Data Moat, & the FDA Fight
All-In Podcast, this episode and its artwork belong to All-In Podcast, LLC. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
