The one on Amazon
The good, the bad, and the ugly of perpetual experimentation
Friends,
I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.
Now accepting keynotes for 25Q3-25Q4
The 2025 lineup:
What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do: How to create a sustainable competitive advantage through superior adaptability. (Based on the new book by the same name.)
Strategy in Times of Uncertainty: How to steer an organization through a sea of change.
Retail 3.0: How to build a profitable retail business in the modern marketplace. (Based on the 2025 follow-up to the 2022 smash hit white paper The Gravity of e-Commerce.)
Succeed Big, Fail Small. How to drive efficiency and effectiveness of innovation at scale.
If you want to book me for your event, corporate speaking slot, or workshop, merely send me an email. To make sure I am available, please do so at your earliest convenience; my availability is limited and the schedule tends to fill up fast. More information may be found here.
The TL;DR
Another week, another round of tariff mayhem. This week, things took a turn for the better - until they shifted back as analysts realized that many companies (not least Apple) still rely on China for both manufacturing and sales.
Of course, some firms actually benefit from the present chaos. Context matters.
The way that most companies handle the uncertainty is by fleeing to the perceived safety of conventional approaches. As it turns out, they might just be steering off a cliff.
OpenAI’s latest funding round is historically bonkers.
Amazon is perhaps the best (and most famous) example of a business applying adaptive strategic principles. However, while the benefits are there for everyone to see, there is a significantly darker side that illustrates the potential risks involved in relentless experimentation.
Personal updates before we go-go
I am currently negotiating to do three more keynotes before I head off on summer vacation in July, but there is still room for one more in May. There are also a few slots remaining between September and December. Thus, if you want to bring me in for a presentation or workshop, do let me know. Ideally sooner rather than later.
So it turned out that the wisdom tooth that I had to get surgically removed was causing a stir because of an inflammation, and although removing it was the correct long-term solution, the short-term consequences have been.. ..notable. A week on, I (as someone with a notoriously high pain threshold) am still on pain killers 24/7.
Meanwhile, my eldest daughter came home with the fever that is currently sweeping the nation. Fortunately, she did not have it too bad, but it still made her immensely sensitive to, well, everything. For three days, all it took for her to go off was a fly farting in the neighbor’s yard. As my wife said, “PMS ain’t got nothin’ on this”.
Speaking of the love of my life, the daughter’s illness then jumped onto her.
So, as you can imagine, trying to get work done has been a bit of a challenge this week. Such is life, though. No use complaining; one just has to get on with it. And at any rate, if what does not kill you makes you stronger, I will be a fucking Marvel superhero by month’s end.
Given the circumstances, I have to take the wins that I can get. A couple of days ago, I overheard the wife saying to the seven-month-old “say mommy” - to which the seven-month-old replied “daddy”.
SCOOOOOOOOORE, DAD. 1-0!
Ahem. Where was I? Oh. Right.
Moving on to the markets.