Not every brick and mortar retail chain selling goods that people can get more easily — even instantly — online gets the GameStop treatment. Some of them (most of them) just quietly fade. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t loved.

Younger generations might wonder why so many old farts are moaning about Fry’s Electronics shuttering. Isn’t it outdated? Hasn’t it been dying a slow death for a while? And the answer to such (snotty, if you ask me) questions is: Yes, of course!

Fry’s was built for a world that no longer exists. We live in a world where Amazon’s revenues ballooned 38% to $386 billion in the middle of the worst health crisis. We live in a world where stock markets value a food delivery company at roughly $55 billion. The elders are lamenting not the death of a store but the slow fading of Silicon Valley itself. 

“It looks like Fry’s is going the way of Netscape, SGI, and Sun Microsystems, and I for one, am pretty bummed,” wrote Mike Cassidy, about the slowly withering retail pioneer. “In fact, in many ways, it is more representative of the valley than any of the region’s famous start-ups.”

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First, a bit of history!

In 1985, three Fry brothers, John, Randy, Dave, and Kathy Kolder, opened the first store in Sunnyvale, California. Retailing was in the Frys’ blood. Their dad, Charles, started Fry Food Stores. He sold the company for $14 million in 1972. He gave his boys a million (Read more...)