What Walmart was like in the 60s

A lesson on Corporate Success pre-internet and AI

On this day, today Sam Walton opened the first Walmart location in the world in the small town of Rogers, Arkansas. After years and decades it still is one of the most profitable corporations in the world and in fact, simply looking at where a Walmart is built tends to be a good real estate acquisition strategy.

The reason I’m focused on Walmart today is because they didn’t have AI, fancy algorithms or the internet in 1962, yet they managed to completely revolutionize the Big Box Retail Store.

So what made them succeed? I’ll name a few…

• Centralized Distribution — Walmart had a few big warehouses (called distribution centers) that served many stores, instead of every store managing its own stock independently.

• “Real-Time” Distribution Data — even before the barcode, Walmart was way ahead of its time, counting stock on hand and having standardized product codes which were sent to their Distribution Centers to maintain “Real-Time Inventory”

• Started in a small town with little to no competition

What interests me about Walmart particularly is their accurate use of data; often in 2025, it feels like we have too much data and useless metrics. We have computers generating >90% of all of the digital data in human history in just these 3-4 short years.

That seems like a lot of wastage to me. Not the high efficiency route like Walmart was back in the day. In this day and age, we’ve all become data hoarders — endless saved videos from our socials, thousands of photos, overloaded laptops with softwares and files we never use, notes app overcrowded with more data, Youtube subscriptions to pages we don’t even like anymore…

And, here truly comes the “catch 22” of living in a world of abundance; it’s like a disease that slowly 'obesifies you’.

I remember in 2020, I deleted every single photo off my iPhone. In 2025, I cleared my Macbook of much of its files (and created an Archive folder for the redundant stuff I may need later). I sorted through my bookmarks on my web browser, and I even cleared away and donated much of my clothes and possessions.

To truly speak clearly to the MUSE, and build something groundbreaking (and profitable), I’m of the opinion that space must be created. It’s by-far the most important thing. Without empty space, nothing is able to manifest.

People these days always feel the need to do and have more. But, simply focusing on fewer things, making less redundant decisions (like the CEOs you know of that wear a T-shirt everyday or a turtleneck) to keep their mind focused on the bigger picture.

Look my friend, you CAN have anything you want in life, but you can’t have everything (and neither should you). We are limited by our own knowledge of our mortality to know that the clock is ticking and this life will end — there is only so much we can do with ONE life in one lifetime…

And, that requires subtraction.

Every bit of data you save about yourself is like a tiny energy siphon. Every unfinished thought occupying your mind takes up space that could be better used by higher faculties. The body holds memory just as much if not more than the mind (that’s why we have ‘muscle’ memory).

I’ve been getting more into esoteric books, and the foundation is almost always the same — this talk of remembrance, RETURNING to who you were before you came here. “Being yourself”.

The premise is true across multiple religions, faculties, and locations/cultures —- you have to clear. You have to ground. You can’t be swept so much by the day to day that you forget why you are here.

And digital data has become a huge hoarding problem. We are hitting trajectories to some real hard limits on how much data we can store before we run out, our computer processors are no longer keeping up with the exponentially growing demands we are creating for them…

And, pretty soon — efficiency will be more important than “Rapid Expansion”.

We are already seeing problems and cracks from NFTs crashing to the WeWork fiasco for misrepresented company valuations that can’t turn a profit.

And, above all this — we are seeing an internet more and more overcrowded by parasitic AI media instead of real human connections. Even my aunt uses AI to reply to emails…

The veil of authenticity is fading. Human identity is question and confused, the media machine never turns off and is slowly embedding itself and filling the space of higher consciousness with lower thoughts occupying our minds.

Find space. Create space. Ground. Empty Yourself. Get rid of stuff.

You will feel a physical weight off your shoulders by recognizing WHAT data is worth looking at, and what can be ignored.

In a world that is hungry for more data, be the one that reads ACCURATE data and discards IRRELEVANT data.

You must become a great filter for what you let enter your mind — and surprise, most things (and people) aren’t worth a second of conscious thought.

Spend more time alone today — clear your digital space or ground yourself.