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Model independence is a maintenance obligation
Promising enterprise buyers that you abstract the model means owning every forced re-qualification. Contract for notice on both sides, then charge for the migration.
Writing
Essays and short responses on technology, investing, operations, and media.
Archive
Essays and responses since November 2025.
August 2026
Ask for the lost deals before the reference list
The first diligence list worth asking for contains the deals the company lost, plus the customers that renewed flat.
Underwrite the pro rata like a first check
A fully available pro rata can hide financing risk, so write the follow-on memo at the new price and set reserve policy outside a live round.
July 2026
Channel partnerships are decided in the comp plan
A reseller agreement sets margin and territory. Quota credit and billable hours decide whether the partner's sellers ever carry the product.
Write the earnout on what the acquired team still controls
Post-close pricing, staffing, and cost allocation can move an earnout. Tie the metric to work the acquired team still runs, then write the buyer's constraints into the contract.
A free pilot is research the seller pays for
Free enterprise pilots without a named deployment budget are seller-funded research. Keep them out of qualified pipeline until a recurring cost center has an owner.
AI can make the backlog worse
Cheap output moves the bottleneck to review, decisions, and integration. Hours saved mean little if the organization cannot absorb the work.
Generating the sports clip will be the cheap part
The defensible layer in sports video is the rights and delivery system around the clip, not the act of finding the moment.
June 2026
May 2026
Staying private can hide a weak operating cadence
Public readiness forces mature companies to explain their economics, close their books, and accept price discovery.
Enterprise AI should attack waiting, not headcount
The strongest enterprise use case is compressing handoffs, approvals, and queues instead of converting recovered minutes into a layoff model.
March 2026
February 2026
January 2026
December 2025
Your first U.S. hire should not be a salesperson
Complex companies entering America need a customer operator before a quota carrier because delivery creates the repeatable sales motion.
Open standards will erase most agent moats
As agent connectivity standardizes, connector counts lose value. The durable work moves to permissions, exceptions, and recovery.
November 2025
Private equity wants your 401(k)
Broader access to private markets may solve fund managers' distribution problem before it improves retirement portfolios.
Management latency breaks growing companies
Growing companies slow down when decision rights lag headcount. Tracking the delay exposes where authority stopped scaling.