Model: Innovation & Design

Aim for vertical progress—create something truly new (0 → 1), not just more of the same (1 → n). Win by building a monopoly on a focused niche and compounding from there.

Before building, map the space: the key forks, dead ends and dependencies—so you can choose a promising path and run smarter tests.

A product becomes more valuable as more participants join and interact. Design for liquidity and quality, not just user count.

Build the smallest thing that tests the riskiest assumption with real users, measure what matters, and decide to pivot, persist, or kill.

For non-perishable things (ideas, books, protocols), the older it is, the longer it’s likely to last.

Many interacting agents following simple rules create emergent behaviour.

Entrants start with cheaper, simpler offers for over-served or non-consumers, then move upmarket while incumbents ignore them.

Reduce a problem to its fundamental truths, then reason up from there—ignoring defaults, habits and analogy.

Order matters → permutations. Order doesn’t → combinations. Adjust for with/without replacement.

Improve fit to a changing environment by shortening feedback loops, trying small bets, and keeping options open.

Move work from mystery to heuristic to algorithm – start with a hunch, then simplify until the decision is repeatable and automatable.

Combine complementary capabilities or assets so the composite is stronger than the parts—materials science as a strategy metaphor.