{"id":79560,"date":"2026-05-01T12:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T17:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.project44.com\/?p=79560"},"modified":"2026-05-01T12:20:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T17:20:02","slug":"what-kevin-oleary-told-1000-supply-chain-leaders-at-decision44","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.project44.com\/zh-hans\/blog\/what-kevin-oleary-told-1000-supply-chain-leaders-at-decision44\/","title":{"rendered":"What Kevin O’Leary told 1,000 supply chain leaders at decision44"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Kevin O\u2019Leary agreed to speak at decision44 on one condition: no prep call, no topic list, no off-limits questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What followed on the afternoon of April 9 at decision44 Chicago was the kind of conversation that doesn\u2019t usually happen on a conference stage. Two operators who built companies from nothing, think in outcomes rather than optics, and have no patience for answers that sound good but do not hold up under pressure. In front of more than 1,000 supply chain leaders, they went after it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here is what the room walked away with.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The framework Steve Jobs gave Kevin O\u2019Leary<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
O\u2019Leary opened with a story about Steve Jobs, from a time when O\u2019Leary was building educational software for 110,000 school buildings across America and Jobs was the client. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every day, only a few things actually matter. Those are your signals. Everything else, the tangential conversation, the meeting that could be an email, the noise that fills a calendar, is exactly that: noise. The job is not just to identify the difference. It\u2019s to ruthlessly maintain an 80\/20 ratio in favor of signal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you can do that,\u201d he told the room, \u201cyou will outperform all of your peers. But there is a cost. Many people will not like you.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jett didn\u2019t need convincing. He has been making the same argument about supply chains for years, in different language. The teams that operate well in volatile environments are not the ones drowning in the most data. They\u2019re the ones who have figured out which data actually changes a decision and built systems around it. An alert that fires on everything is an alert for nothing. Context is what turns raw information into signal worth acting on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dead capital is the most underrated problem in supply chain<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
One of the sharpest exchanges came when Jett steered the conversation toward capital efficiency, and O’Leary pulled out his wine business as a case study. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before AI-powered demand sensing, he was stocking inventory based on regional averages and best guesses. Now, his team can identify, by state, which varietals specific customer segments are buying this quarter. Moscato is trending in southern Florida. Demand patterns in the Pacific Northwest look different. Inventory goes where it is needed, in the quantities that match real demand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result: a 20% reduction in capital expenditure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The best thing AI has provided,” he said, “is reducing CapEx by knowing exactly where your inventory is all the time. That is pure gold for equity shareholders.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jett connected this directly to what project44’s customers are doing. When you have trusted predictive ETAs, real-time inventory in transit, and AI that flags disruptions before they cascade, you can reduce safety stock. You can operate leaner. The supply chain stops being a liability on the balance sheet and becomes a source of competitive margin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One customer in the audience, Alcon, had done exactly this. Jett noted they had achieved a 3% reduction in CapEx by using project44’s platform to drive smarter inventory positioning. O’Leary’s response was immediate: “You know how valuable that is.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
AI is not a bubble. It\u2019s compounding. <\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
O’Leary admitted he used to think the current wave of AI investment looked like a bubble. He doesn\u2019t anymore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The change is grounded in what he is seeing across his private company portfolio. A watch insurance business that cut policy issuance from two weeks to nine seconds. A drone inspection company that replaced full-day manual roof surveys with a 28-minute autonomous process. AI is not generating hype in these businesses. It is generating margin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His S&P forecast for 2026 sits at roughly 9% returns, driven primarily by AI-enabled productivity and margin enhancement working its way through all 11 sectors of the economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is exactly what project44 is seeing at scale. The companies advancing fastest are not the ones who ran the most pilots. They are the ones who moved from pilot to production, embedded AI into real workflows, and built the feedback loops that make the system smarter over time. Context compounds. Data compounds. The advantage grows with every shipment tracked and every exception resolved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
O’Leary shared one of the more counterintuitive data points from 17 years of investment history. In his portfolio, companies run by women set growth targets roughly half those of their male counterparts: 17% annually versus 31%. But the women hit their targets 95% of the time. The men hit theirs 65% of the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When his team peeled back the data, the pattern was clear. Consistent target achievement creates culture. People do not leave winning teams. And when key employees stay, execution compounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Set targets with your teams that you can actually achieve,” he said. “And you will get a much better culture in terms of hitting those targets.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For supply chain leaders who spend significant energy building the business case for AI investment, this is a useful lens. The question is not what AI could theoretically do. The question is what it can reliably deliver, quarter after quarter, within your specific operational context. Ambitious pilots that cannot survive production are not a step forward. They are a distraction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The closing question<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Jett saved one of the sharpest questions for last. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You have just been named interim Chief Supply Chain Officer at a Global 2000 company. The board wants results in the first quarter. What do you do first? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
O\u2019Leary did not pause. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReduce CapEx by 3% in one year.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simple. Specific. And only achievable if you have the intelligence layer underneath it. You cannot take 3% out of CapEx on instinct alone. You can do it when you know where your inventory is, where your costs are leaking, and where AI can close the gaps your teams do not have the bandwidth to chase manually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is the platform project44 has spent a decade building. And for the supply chain leaders sitting in that room, hearing one of the most commercially minded investors in the world name the exact outcome their operations need to deliver, it was a useful gut check. The tools to get there exist. The customers already using them are seeing it in their numbers. And the roadmap project44 laid out that day in Chicago is built around closing that gap for everyone still working toward it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The sessions from decision44 are now on-demand<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The fireside chat between Jett and Kevin O’Leary was one session in a full day at decision44 Chicago. During those two days, we also revealed our AI agent portfolio covering every major job in shipper operations, from freight procurement and disruption response to carrier onboarding, exception management, and slot booking to some of the world’s largest brands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, all of it is available on-demand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If this conversation raised questions about what intelligent execution looks like inside your supply chain, the product innovation sessions are the place to start. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.project44.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/685_Project44_40926_websize.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.project44.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/638_Project44_40926_websize.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.project44.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/651_Project44_40926_websize.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.project44.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/662_Project44_40926_websize.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.project44.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Decision44_f122_1800x1012.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"