Divinations

Get smarter about business strategy.

Oct 5, 2021

What is “Intrinsic” Value?

And does it matter?

Apr 10, 2020

Notion’s $2b Valuation is Sensible, Probably

Three Shorts: Notion, Roam, and “Time Preference”

Sep 4, 2020

Strategy Smells

Hints that your strategy isn't working

Jul 3, 2020

Product Case Study: HEY

A radical new take on email

Feb 20, 2021

Why I like Dispo

David Dobrik’s new photo-sharing app just might be a winner.

Nov 12, 2021

The two biggest critiques of web3, analyzed

With a little help from Clay Christensen, strategy legend

Feb 5, 2020

How Clay Christensen’s failure helped me process my own

A eulogy for a larger-than-life thinker

Nov 18, 2021

Notes on ConstitutionDAO

A few quick observations

Aug 17, 2022

How Every Executes: two tweaks that generated ~54% more paid subscribers

Real data from our business showing how execution is exponential

Jul 16, 2020

Means of Creation #2: Greg Isenberg

On the unbundling of Reddit into vertical communities

Feb 19, 2020

Great strategies depend on great inputs — here’s how to find them.

Hiten Shah on why “garbage in, garbage out” applies to strategy, too.

Dec 15, 2019

Strategy Drunk

A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing;Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,And drinking

Oct 11, 2020

Why winners sometimes take all, and sometimes don’t

Lessons from ecology’s “competitive exclusion principle”

Aug 3, 2022

How Power Works in the Writing Industry

A market analysis, Divinations-style

Jan 30, 2020

The Five Forces—video edition!

Trying something new - what do you think?

Nov 25, 2020

Three Shorts: Snap, Apple, Vox

On Snap's take on TikTok, Apple's developer fee reduction, and Vox's talent attrition.

May 20, 2020

PepsiCo goes DTC

One new strategy. Two new websites.

Apr 7, 2022

Friendly Competition and Subtle Defection

My wife and I recently bought our first home and we’re expecting our first child soon, so, as you can imagine, we’ve been doing a lot of wor

Sep 1, 2020

Disrupting Disruption: Helmer’s Razor

Can disruption be simplified?

May 20, 2022

Mastering the Market Cycle, by Howard Marks

My chapter-by-chapter summary, with notes and reactions

May 31, 2020

Kernel Strategies

Six attributes of high-traction startups

Jun 13, 2020

Why I wouldn’t invest in consumer health hardware

(Ceci n’est pas investment advice.)

Jan 20, 2020

Brianne Kimmel’s Momentum Investing

How the founder of WorkLife Ventures built one of Silicon Valley’s most sought after emerging funds from scratch.

Sep 29, 2020

Intangible Returns

How strict prioritization processes cause malaise, and why you should take gut instinct more seriously in your planning process.