FedMart's first store did $3 million in sales in its first year — three times the $1 million wildest-dream expectation — validating Sol Price's for-profit version of the Fedco model.
Where this was said
At 24:57 · chapter starts 21:30
FedMart's formula proves immediately reproducible: Phoenix opens to lines half a mile long in the parking lot. The business goes public in 1959, raising $2 million to fund further expansion and product-line additions. First comes gasoline, priced a few cents below local competitors and used as a loss leader to drive store traffic — the direct ancestor of today's Costco gas lines. Then comes pharmacy, where the aggressive undercutting of fat industry margins generates literal death threats and a rock through the pharmacist's window — mafia-style retaliation for exposing artificially inflated drug prices. The protégé of that pharmacist later goes on to run Costco's pharmacy division. Sol also develops the FM house brand to capture margin on high-velocity products — a direct precursor to Kirkland Signature. Most importantly for the episode's through-line, Sol codifies FedMart's four management priorities in rank order: 1) best possible value to customers, 2) good wages and benefits to employees (including health insurance, radical for the 1950s), 3) honest business practices, 4) make money for investors. These priorities will reappear nearly verbatim in Costco's Code of Ethics decades later. And at some point in these years, Sol hires a young part-time bagger from San Diego City College named Jim Sinegal.
In the 1950s, US law allowed manufacturers to set minimum retail prices, making discounting illegal for retailers selling to the general public. Sol Price's FedMart skirted these laws by operating as a membership club — not open to the general public — which let it sell below manufacturer minimums. This legal workaround accidentally invented the membership retail model that Costco perfected.
Joel de la Garza noted that the CISO role is a relatively recent invention, with Steve Katz widely credited as the first-ever CISO.
Superficial adoption of electricity gave factories only 6% efficiency gains; fully redesigning factories around it delivered a 3x productivity improvement that powered 20th-century US growth.
Harold Ramis recounted that during Caddyshack filming, storms kept the cast cooped up in a Florida hotel for days, during which they partied and did drugs all day and night.
In the 1820s, China accounted for 25% of global economic output, making it the world's largest economic machine — a historical precedent for its current AI superpower ambitions.
66 Americans held hostage at the US Embassy in Iran were released after 444 days, within hours of Reagan's inauguration.
In the first round of the secret arms deal, 508 TOW missiles were transferred from Israel to Iran in exchange for hostage releases.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran across 8 separate shipments over just over a year.
Despite all the missile sales, only 3 of the 7 American hostages held by Lebanese terrorists were ultimately released.
The CIA supply plane that blew open the scandal was flying at only 2,500 feet in broad daylight when it was shot down on October 5, 1986.
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