Mark Rubin has seen the eCommerce meat grinder from the inside—and he isn’t buying the AI hype. Mark is the founder and CEO of Kasama and a veteran who’s seen the e-commerce agency cycle from every possible angle—from the early days of Demandware to the meat grinder of Private Equity. There’s a lot of noise right now about AI making agencies "infinitely profitable" and brands needing to torch their tech stacks to survive.

Mark isn't buying the hype, and honestly, neither am I. Here are the three biggest takeaways from our conversation that every brand leader and agency owner needs to hear.

Everyone is talking about how AI tools like code-assist make work faster. But here’s the catch: if you’re an agency getting paid for billable hours, AI is actually stripping away your "low-hanging fruit". The tedious work—such as building 'My Account' screens—that used to generate steady billable time is being automated.

The Shift: Clients now expect less waste, less churn, and zero "fat" in project quotes. If you rely on talent who "turns off their brain" and lets AI do the heavy lifting, you lose the ability to actually solve problems when the tools fail.

Mark has seen the Private Equity (PE) cycle up close. When an agency is rolled up into a holding company or a PE-backed firm, the culture inevitably shifts from "client satisfaction" to "milestone hunting".

The Reality: Once the PE investment comes in, you are on a ticking clock. Owners who used to incur the costs to keep a client happy may now prioritize hitting the next payment milestone over long-term satisfaction.

This is Mark’s most controversial take, but it’s grounded in reality. Salespeople will tell you a new platform is the "sexy" solution to your problems, but replatforming is a massive, painful distraction that often takes longer than the average CMO’s tenure.

Stop chasing silver bullets. Whether it’s assuming AI will fix your business model or thinking a new platform will magically boost your conversion, the "boring" work of maximizing what you already have is usually what actually wins.

The Money: M&A and Earnings

Different-Sized Drinks for Different Customers: Coca-Cola reported that higher prices and sales volumes lifted its fourth-quarter revenue to $11.8B, up 2% from the previous year. Operating income declined 32% for Q4 2025 and grew 38% for the full year 2025.

Stripe is back in the headlines with a potential tender offer valuing the payments giant at $140 billion. Let’s look at the math: that’s a 31% jump from last fall and nearly triple the $50 billion "trough" of 2023.

The immediate takeaway? Stripe is essentially building its own private stock market. By facilitating these frequent secondary sales, the Collison brothers are solving the "liquidity problem" for long-tenured employees without the headache of a S-1 filing or the quarterly circus of an earnings call. As John Collison recently noted, they are in "no rush" to go public.

Here’s my take: Stripe isn't just a payments company anymore—it’s the operating system for the internet economy. With $1.4T in volume, and an aggressive bet on stablecoins from their Bridge acquisition, Stripe is moving from "handling cards" to "moving value."

The risk? At $140B, you are priced for absolute perfection. They’ve achieved profitability, sure, but can they maintain these growth multiples while legacy banks and Adyen continue to nip at their heels? For now, Stripe is proving that if you own the pipes, you get to set the price.

An IPO seems off the table for 2026. Why deal with the public when your private valuation is already in the stratosphere?

Amazon is moving the goalposts, again.

According to a report from The Information, AWS is pitching a new "Model Data Marketplace." The goal? Creating a bridge where publishers can sell their content directly to firms building AI models.

For years, the tension between AI labs and publishers has been a "Wild West" of scraped data and lawsuits. Amazon is looking to professionalize that conflict by turning it into a transaction.

By grouping this marketplace with Bedrock and Amazon Q, AWS is sending a clear message: AI is no longer just about the plumbing (compute) or the models (LLMs). It’s about the data supply chain.

Why this matters:

Is this the olive branch publishers have been waiting for, or just a new way for Big Tech to tax the internet's knowledge? Publishers beware.