1 teardown of the decisions behind L'Oreal.
L'Oreal filed 725 patents in 2025 and called it a "beauty stimulus plan." Mondelez said AI cuts its reliance on single-source supply. Same week, same signal: two century-old moats getting reset OUT LOUD, on the incumbent's own timing. Elara Hunt unpacks the decision — why compressing your own moat before a challenger does is different from chasing productivity, and what it costs when the market re-rates "durable" as "variable."
