Shorter observations, frameworks, and takeaways from my reading. Free to read—a window into the thinking behind the case studies.
Writing is a way to think better. It forces clarity in a way that reading alone does not.
Joe Studwell’s framework for understanding why some Asian economies succeeded and others didn’t—land reform, manufacturing discipline, and financial repression.
The market gives you a price; your job is to figure out what expectations are embedded in it and whether reality will differ.
Klein and Pettis argue trade imbalances are really about domestic income distribution. A framework for understanding global capital flows.
Hamilton Helmer’s framework for identifying the seven sources of durable competitive advantage. One of the most practical strategy books available.
The restaurant business is tough because of its economics, not because of bad management. Industry structure shapes the range of possible outcomes.
A collection of counterintuitive patterns in business: the features you’d want in a business are often in tension with each other.
Physical and digital goods have very different cost structures. That difference shapes strategy, pricing, and competitive dynamics.
What sunk costs are, why they matter, and why most people—and companies—get them wrong.