Essays and case studies on building durable companies — surviving downturns, consumer hardware in the AI era, and what it takes for Nordic companies to establish themselves in the US.
Survival in a downturn is decided by three variables, and none of them is product quality. What Creditland, Boundless and Gembah taught me across four cycles.
A correction in a sector you’ve never sold to can put you in serious trouble eighteen months later, without one customer leaving. It travels through the balance sheet.
AI is eating product design from the bottom up. What survives is the judgment layer — and it's more specific than most people realize. Why the next decade of consumer hardware winners will be founded with a design co-founder, not an engineering-first team.
In 2014, the founders of Oura couldn’t make payroll. Ten years later, their company is worth $11 billion. The worked example of the design-as-cofounder thesis.
How long do builders of defensible hardware have before AI compression catches up? About one fund cycle. Here’s why that’s the right unit of analysis.