Growth that destroys economics isn't growth.
Revenue alone is a poor operating system. I look at margin, cash, acquisition economics, retention and operating leverage together.
Heuristics
A few rules I use when things get complicated.
SIMPLIFY
“Simplicity is complexity resolved.”— Constantin Brâncuși
EXPLORE
“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”— Frank Zappa
ITERATE
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”— Samuel Beckett
Separate facts from assumptions before debating solutions.
Most executive teams do not suffer from a lack of ideas. They suffer from facts, hypotheses and opinions being discussed as if they were the same thing.
Technology is only interesting when it changes the economics.
I have worked through GSM payments, mobile entertainment, M2M, e-commerce, SaaS, data and AI. The technologies changed. The business question did not.
A transformation without an owner is a presentation.
Every important initiative needs a decision, an accountable owner, a number and a rhythm.
Local knowledge beats central elegance.
International operating models need enough common structure to create leverage — and enough local autonomy to remain intelligent.
Complexity is sometimes real. Complication is usually man-made.
The job is not to simplify reality until it becomes wrong. It is to identify the few decisions that actually change the outcome.
Turn the hat around. Become the customer.
I use the product and walk the journey myself. Not to catch people out, but to understand why something works — or why it does not.
AI amplifies the quality of the thinking you give it.
Better prompting helps. Better context, delegation, description and discernment matter more. I use AI less as a chatbot and more as an operating system for structuring knowledge, challenging assumptions and preparing decisions.