Yesterday, I crossed paths with stranger. She was sitting on the sidewalk. I asked her how I could help her. She said a few things. She was dying from cancer, but she was out there on a mission. I’ve had a mission myself. My blogs were part of that mission. Studying math was part of that mission as well. But, since I left Twitter, I’ve had no readers here, and only a few on my other blog. My goal was to evangelize the need for discontinuous innovation. Sadly, that is not happening. We are not putting people back to work. Without readers, I’m talking to the wall. So my missions have kept me alive, but it is time to find another mission. The woman I spoke to had a mission that kept her from being swallowed by he impending death. She looked forward to meeting God. She said she would be my guardian angel. Her mission will go with her beyond life.
That is a higher mission. I’ve been losing my purposes at every turn. I kept crossing paths with people that needed help. I could hardly offer any help. My inability to help sucked. So I finally asked one, the woman I met there on the sidewalk Thursday. It ripped me up.
Last year, when I first moved into my neighborhood, I picked up litter from dawn to well after sunset. I called the city to get things done. I had a purpose. My neighbors appreciated it. Some wanted to pay me, but I didn’t have the funds to create a non-profit, so I told them, “No thanks.” Some warned me. One gang member stole my litter tools. Actually, he directed a minor to do that. One pretend gang member tagged me twice. I quit. But it was good to do the impossible. Some wondered. They thought it was pointless. Yet, everyday there was less litter, and there was more time. The cleaned up area got larger. It was an all encompassing mission. I miss it.
I will miss this as well. But, I have to find an enduring mission. I’m not ill. I’ll live another thirty years, but with ageism, you don’t get to keep working. And, a mission that you share with others is far more meaningful than talking to the wall. I’m still asking, “How can I help?”
Strategy as Tires: Do you love yourself? Do you have a purpose that gets you out of bed each day? Do you share yourself with everyone crossing your path? Are you good at good? .
Strategy as Tires: Reading “Elliptic Tales” has led me towards potential solutions to regressions to tails. I have to follow up and read more on finite and infinite products.
Strategy as Tires: Taking VC money means that we will exit. Since we are in an infinite game, we cannot exit. That implies that we cannot take VC money. .
7:07 . . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Since we are in an infinite game, we don’t intend for our company to disappear after 17 and a half years, or after 50 years. The oldest companies known to exist have been around 300 years. Infinity is beyond that. How does one think on that scale? .
7:10 . . . .
Strategy as Tires: It was bound to happen. Intel fell from the market leader spot. The AMD marketers that always wanted to be the market leader finally got their way. .
7:12 . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: We discontinuously innovate all the time. We are constantly birthing new categories. We also exit categories that we birthed. Some other company gets to become the market leader after we leave. We deliberately leave categories. .
7:14 . . . .
Strategy as Tires: We bootstrap our client engagements. We don’t want to take money. We don’t want to be a public company. Not since being a public company subjects that company to activist investors that just want to cash out our economic wealth.
Strategy as Tires: Today is Valentine’s day. You know that, yes? Once you’ve dug yourself into your code, you might not that today is Valentine’s day. Your valentine will know. .
7:31 . . . . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Being in code is like being in a canoe. Once you are in a canoe, there is no swimming. If you end up in the water, get your feet downstream, face up, arms out, and wait for a pool of water, or an eddy. Wait for your party to rescue you. Do not swim. Do not stand up. Do not reach over, or out.
Do not canoe alone. .
7:34 .
Strategy as Tires: Are you coding alone? .
7:37 . . .
Strategy as Tires: Most valentines are found in November. Were you proactive enough this year? But, yeah, the pandemic messed that up. .
7:40 . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Once you are dug into your code, your batch, what do you do when one of your support people show up? Do you escalate a complaint to your bosses? Or, do you set up a regular appointment with that person?
Strategy as Tires: Is your system stochastic? It stops being stochastic when you date stamp anything. Who did you sell to today? Who inquired today? At what contact points did those that inquired today use? What populations got sampled today? .
6:26 . .
Strategy as Tires: Is wrestling with Grammarly why I exist? .
6:29 . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Sometimes, we use repeated addition instead of multiplication. That’s an additive process that hides the exponential version of the process. Did we do that to hide a regression to a tail event? .
6:32 . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Factoring can hide holes. These days students are asked to find those holes. We were never asked. A statistical factor might come through that hole. .
6:35 . .
Strategy as Tires: Does (x-1)(x-2)(x-3) look exponential? Does it look like a statistical factor analysis?
Strategy as Tires: When you birth a category, you or one of your competitors will become a near‑monopoly. If you won’t like that, don’t become the market leader. .
7:17 . . .
Strategy as Tires: When birthing a category, it is too early to buy market share, the market does not exist yet. .
7:18 . . .
Strategy as Tires: If you are trying to be the market leader, realize that the category must be led. You have taken on the responsibility of creating an industry. .
7:22 . . . .
Strategy as Tires: If you are trying to be the market leader, you will be the market leader for 50 years. That’s hard work given that companies are not expected to live more than 17 years. .
7:24 . .
Strategy as Tires: Most games are finite; few, infinite. Are you playing to extract a few dollars; or are you playing to play again?
Strategy As Tires 