Garmin holds the kill switch - $GRMN vs Strava The biggest risk facing Strava and Runna right now isn’t competition. It’s Garmin deciding one day to flip the API off and walk away If that happens, every Strava and Runna user with a Garmin device becomes worthless overnight. Somewhere between 40-80% of Strava/Runna's user base would lose syncing. This is an existential risk disguised as a partnership. Garmin doesn’t need Strava to survive. Strava needs Garmin to exist. This is a value risk to the Strava IPO (VC bagholder dumping event) and why Strava dropped the lawsuit, abiding by Garmin's demands. If you’re a VC bagholding Strava equity, your best move is to pray for a good IPO and find a greater fool (retail) before Garmin decides it’s done feeding data to a rival. It’s wild how much exposure Strava’s execs have created by poking the one company that made them who they are. Why would Garmin ever pull the plug? Because they can. Business is war, and if there's any risk of Strava trying to come for Garmin's market share later, that would be bad for Garmin and its investors. I’m sure smarter people can break down the numbers better than me, but it’s hard to see how Strava is worth billions. If you’re a Garmin shareholder, advisor, or exec, the real alpha play isn’t partnership, it’s forward-looking risk analysis and predation. You don’t hedge against disruption by collaborating with it. You study it, outbuild it, and quietly position to kill it. You don’t protect the moat by renting it out. You deepen it. Garmin should be thinking about strangling Strava’s dependency and owning the full ecosystem (think Apple): data, training, hardware, and AI. That’s how you dominate the next decades. Runna is an AI wrapper with some specialist data. Strava is a wrapper for Garmin data. Garmin could build both in a quarter, ship it to hundreds of millions of users, and call it a day while printing new profit. If Garmin believes Strava might go shopping after its IPO by buying a wearables company, building hardware, or acquiring startups that could eat into its moat, it has every reason to shut down that cash grab before it begins. Garmin did $6.3 billion in revenue last year. If it added a premium version of Garmin Connect for $5-$10 a month, it could spin up a new billion-dollar line overnight and never need Strava again (if successful user adoption). The play in theory. Garmin builds or acquires its own “Strava/Runna.” Garmin kills the API. Garmin owns the data, the users, and the moat....