Ryan Cohen: From Chewy to GameStop

Article Author:Thejaswini M A Article Compiler：Block unicorn

Foreword

Ryan Cohen did it again. He acted silently without making any explanation or asking for permission.  

On a Tuesday in May 2025, a GameStop Form 8-K was sandwiched among SEC filings with just four words: “Purchased 4,710 Bitcoins.” 

The CEO who had turned a nearly bankrupt video game retailer around had just plowed more than $500 million of the company’s cash into Bitcoin. No press conference. No investor call. Just the minimum disclosure required by law. 

When BTC Inc’s David Bailey finally asked the question in person, Cohen’s answer defied months of speculation.  

“Did GameStop buy Bitcoin?” 

“We did. We currently own 4,710 Bitcoins.” 

That’s it. Cohen built GameStop into the 14th largest Bitcoin holder with the same ease and efficiency he brought to Chewy from scratch for $3.35 billion.

For those who have been following him, this move is not surprising. This is the man whose involvement inspired millions of retail investors to bet against some of Wall Street’s most sophisticated hedge funds. He took a company that experts thought was doomed to fail and turned it into a company that upended all traditional valuation models.

Cohen’s journey, from a college dropout selling pet food online to the architect of a new kind of corporate strategy, began as a Florida teenager who understood that the best opportunities were hidden where everyone else was overlooking them.  

The Apprenticeship Begins

Ryan Cohen’s entrepreneurial education began long before he could legally drive.  

Born in Montreal in 1986, Cohen’s mother was a schoolteacher and his father, Ted Cohen, ran a glassware importing company. His family moved to Coral Springs, Florida, when he was young. By age 15, Cohen had started his own business, collecting referral fees from various e-commerce sites.  

By age 16, he had expanded into a more structured e-commerce operation, learning the basics of online commerce at a time when most people thought the Internet was just a passing fad.  

His father, Ted, became his most important mentor, teaching him the importance of delayed gratification, work ethic, and viewing business relationships as long-term partnerships rather than one-time transactions.  

Ryan decided to drop out of the University of Florida to devote himself full-time to his business venture. He had already proven that he could generate revenue and acquire customers. Going to college felt like a deviation from his original career direction.

The Pet Food Revolution  

In 2011, the e-commerce space was dominated by Amazon, which seemed unrivaled in every category. Most entrepreneurs avoid competing directly with Jeff Bezos’ empire.

But 25-year-old Cohen decided to fight by not competing directly.  

Instead of trying to beat Amazon on product selection or logistics, he chose a sector where customer relationships mattered more than operational efficiency: pet supplies. Pet owners care about their families, not just products. They need advice, empathy, and someone who understands that a sick dog is more than an inconvenience; it’s a crisis.  

Chewy was founded on a simple idea: combine the logistics of Amazon with the customer service ethos of Zappos, then tailor it specifically for pet owners. The company would sell pet supplies online, but more importantly, it would build connections with customers that went beyond personal transactions.

The early execution was methodical and customer-focused. Chewy’s customer service team doesn’t just process orders; they send handwritten holiday cards, create custom pet portraits for loyal customers, and deliver flowers when a beloved pet passes away. These moves are expensive and hard to scale. Here’s the tweet that sparked the discussion: But building an emotional connection didn’t pay the bills, and in the first two years, Cohen faced a problem that would kill most startups: No one wanted to invest in a pet food company that competed with Amazon. Hundreds of No’s Investor meetings became a kind of entrepreneurial torture. Between 2011 and 2013, Cohen approached more than 100 venture capital firms, explaining why pet supplies were a huge opportunity for a customer-centric company. Most VCs saw what they saw: a college dropout with no traditional business credentials trying to carve out a niche in a small market dominated by unbeatable competitors. In 2013, Volition Capital finally delivered a breakthrough: a $15 million Series A round. The endorsement allowed Cohen to scale Chewy’s operations while maintaining its customer-centric culture. By 2016, the company attracted additional investments from BlackRock and T. Rowe Price and hit $900 million in annual sales.

Chewy’s customer retention rate was extremely high, average order value continued to grow, and most importantly, customers became brand evangelists, recommending the service to other pet owners.  

By 2018, Chewy was generating $3.5 billion in annual revenue and preparing for an IPO. That’s when PetSmart made an offer: to buy the entire company for $3.35 billion, the largest e-commerce acquisition in history at the time.  

At 31, Cohen was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He could have chosen to retire, invest in startups, or create new companies in other industries.  

But he chose to leave Chewy to focus on his family.  

Family Interlude 

In 2018, at the height of his career, Ryan Cohen made a decision that baffled the business world.  

He stepped down as CEO of Chewy to be with his pregnant wife and prepare for fatherhood, completely leaving the company he had spent seven years building. Cohen had achieved financial freedom, and he decided to use that freedom to experience the most important moments in his personal life.  

He sold the majority of his Chewy shares to focus on being a husband and a father. For someone who had been focused on growth and competition since his teenage years, the shift to family life might have felt abrupt. Yet Cohen fully embraced the transition.  

Even during this family-centric time, he remained an active investor. His portfolio includes Apple (his 1.55 million shares make him one of the largest individual shareholders), Wells Fargo, and other blue-chip companies.  

The family foundation he founded with his wife, Stephanie, supports education, animal welfare, and other charitable causes.  

The break lasted three years. Then he discovered GameStop.  

GameStop's Strategy

September 2020. While most investors viewed GameStop as a brick-and-mortar retailer being killed by digital downloads and streaming services, Ryan Cohen saw something different: a company with strong brand recognition and a loyal customer base, but management had no idea how to leverage those assets.  

Cohen’s investment firm RC Ventures disclosed that he holds a nearly 10% stake in the troubled video game retailer, becoming the company’s largest individual shareholder. The move puzzled Wall Street analysts, who couldn’t understand why someone with Cohen’s extensive experience would invest in an “outdated” retail business.

Cohen’s views are as unconventional as ever. GameStop is more than just a retail chain, it is a cultural icon in the gaming community. The company has built a relationship with customers who love gaming culture, collectibles, and the social experience of video games. These passionate enthusiasts are willing to pay a premium for products related to their interests.  

The problem is that management views the company as a traditional retailer rather than a community-driven platform.  

In January 2021, Cohen joined the GameStop board, a move that sparked a buying frenzy among retail investors who knew him from Chewy’s success story. In two weeks, GameStop’s stock price soared 1,500%, creating one of the most famous short squeezes in market history.  

While the financial media focused on the “meme stock” phenomenon and the battle between retail investors and hedge funds, Cohen focused on more fundamental change.

Transformation 

Cohen rebuilt GameStop the same way he built Chewy.  

When he took over, “the company was a mess and losing a lot of money.”

He started by making drastic changes to the leadership team. Ten board members left, replaced by executives from Amazon and Chewy who really understood e-commerce. If you want to compete in the digital space, you need experienced people.

Then came the cost-cutting. Cohen eliminated all inefficiencies: redundant jobs, underperforming stores, expensive consultants, but kept all the parts that mattered to customers. The goal was to remain profitable even if sales fell.

Here are the numbers: 2020 (before Cohen joined) vs. 2024 (after Cohen joined).  

Revenue & Profitability: 

• Revenue: $5.1 billion (2020) → $3.8 billion (2024) = down 25% 

• Gross Profit: $1.26 billion (2020) → $1.11 billion (2024) = stable despite revenue decline 

• Gross Margin: 24.7% (2020) → 29.1% (2024) = up 440 basis points 

Operating Performance: 

• Operating Income (EBIT): -$237.8M loss (2020) → -$26.2M loss (2024) = 89% improvement

• EBITDA: -$254.7M (2020) → -$16.5M (2024) = 93% improvement

• Net Profit (PAT): -$215.3M loss (2020) → $131.3M profit (2024) = $346.6M turnaround

Cohen took over a company with $5.1B in revenue that was losing more than $200M a year. After three years of systematic restructuring, he led GameStop to its first profit in five years in 2023-2024. Despite shrinking revenue by 25% through store closures, he improved gross margins by 440 basis points, turning a $215 million annual loss into a $131 million profit—proving that smaller companies can be remarkably profitable.

His bet is on digital transformation. Brick-and-mortar stores will continue to exist, but only the best ones will survive. GameStop's future is online, serving game enthusiasts who want not just video games but also collectibles, trading cards, merchandise, and anything related to gaming culture. Cohen also hoarded cash and gained access to make strategic investments. On September 28, 2023, he became CEO while retaining his chairmanship. His salary: zero. His compensation is tied entirely to the stock price, meaning he gets paid only if shareholders make money.  

Then came the cryptocurrency bet.  

GameStop’s first foray into digital assets reflects both the potential and the risks of adopting emerging technologies.  

In July 2022, the company launched an NFT marketplace focused on gaming-related digital collectibles. Initial results looked promising: more than $3.5 million in trading volume in the first 48 hours after launch, suggesting that there was real demand for gaming NFTs.  

But the NFT market’s crash was swift and brutal. Digital asset sales plummeted from $77.4 million in 2022 to $2.8 million in 2023. GameStop discontinued its crypto wallet service in November 2023 and shut down its NFT trading feature in February 2024, citing “regulatory uncertainty in the crypto space.”  

This failure could have ended GameStop's foray into cryptocurrency entirely. However, Cohen learned from it and developed a more mature digital asset strategy.  

Bitcoin Bet 

May 28, 2025. While the market was focused on Fed policy, GameStop quietly purchased 4,710 bitcoins for $513 million.  

Cohen’s reasons are as typical as ever: 

“If this argument is correct, then Bitcoin and gold can serve as a hedge against global currency debasement and systemic risk. Bitcoin has some unique advantages over gold - it is portable and can be transferred around the world instantly, while gold is bulky and expensive to transport. Bitcoin’s authenticity can be instantly verified through the blockchain. You can easily store Bitcoin in your wallet, while gold requires insurance and is expensive. In addition, Bitcoin is scarce - the supply of Bitcoin is fixed, while the supply of gold remains uncertain due to certain technological advances.” 

This move makes GameStop the 14th largest corporate Bitcoin holder.  

The company funded its bitcoin purchases with convertible bonds rather than core capital, while still maintaining ample cash reserves of more than $4 billion. The strategy reflects diversification and caution rather than all-inclusiveness - positioning bitcoin as a supplementary investment rather than a core business necessity.  

"GameStop follows GameStop's strategy. We don't follow anyone's strategy." 

The stock price fell after the news was announced. Cohen didn't seem to care. He never optimized for quarterly reactions.

On June 25, GameStop raised an additional $450 million by exercising its over-allotment option, bringing its total convertible bond offering to $2.7 billion.

The over-allotment option (or greenshoe option) is a provision in the offering agreement that allows underwriters to sell up to an additional 15% of shares if demand is high. Exercising this option gives companies the opportunity to raise more money while helping to stabilize the share price after the offering. In GameStop’s case, that meant issuing more convertible bonds to increase total funds.  

The funds will be used for “general corporate purposes and investments in accordance with GameStop’s investment policy,” which explicitly includes Bitcoin as a reserve asset.  

Cohen has an “army of apes.” The most unusual part of Cohen’s GameStop story is the millions of retail investors who refused to sell.

They call themselves "APES," and they don't behave like regular shareholders. They don't trade based on earnings reports or analyst ratings. They hold shares because they believe in Cohen's vision and want to see what happens next.  

This creates a level of "patient capital" that is almost unheard of in the public markets. Cohen can focus on long-term strategy without worrying about quarterly volatility because his core group of investors won't leave easily.  

Our Take 

Will Bitcoin create value for GameStop shareholders, or will the cryptocurrency's volatility wipe out any gains? Cohen's rigorous approach shows he understands the risks, but no one can predict Bitcoin's future.  

GameStop bought 4,710 bitcoins at an average price of $108,837, and with bitcoin currently trading near $107,200, the position is almost flat with the original cost, highlighting how unpredictable the future of bitcoin remains.

Can the army of retail investors that drove GameStop's transformation remain enthusiastic as the company becomes more traditional? Keeping grassroots employees enthusiastic while executing institutional strategies is a trick that few CEOs have mastered.

How will traditional investors value a company that is half retail, half investment vehicle? GameStop's hybrid model could create valuation issues and limit access to certain types of capital.

Ryan Cohen has built his career on spotting opportunities that others overlooked. At 15, he saw the potential of e-commerce. At 25, he discovered that pet supplies were Amazon's blind spot. At 35, he realized that GameStop’s community was more valuable than its stores. Each step built on the previous while expanding into new areas. GameStop’s transformation may be his most important achievement, not because of the financial returns, but because it proved that a dedicated community can support a business model that traditional finance can’t understand. Cohen showed that customer obsession, operational discipline, and strategic patience can create value in unexpected places. Properly incentivized retail investors can provide patient capital for long-term thinking. Companies can evolve beyond their original business models while maintaining their core identities. At 39, Cohen is sitting on billions of dollars in cash, has a stellar track record, and is uniquely positioned at the intersection of retail and digital innovation. The college dropout who learned customer service from pet owners may have found the formula for building a lasting business: combining operational excellence with community engagement, staying open to new opportunities while maintaining financial discipline.  

Whether this formula can transform GameStop into something extraordinary remains to be seen. But watching Cohen tackle these challenges will be rewarding.