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 25Q4-26Q2
The 2026 suite:
What to do when you don’t know what to do.
How to build a strategy that thrives in change. (Based on the new book by the same name.)
From last to first.
How to create peak performance in the world’s most competitive settings.
When the ground moves.
How to (actually) manage uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)
The volcano that birthed Frankenstein.
How contexts enable innovation — and how to take advantage.
Each may be tailored to fit the theme of the event. Completely conference specific keynotes are available at a premium.
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
The most common approaches with which decision-makers attempt to manage uncertainty — by collecting data and making models — break down in contexts where the future is unknowable.
John Kay and Mervyn King expand the lens by introducing radical uncertainty, but fail to acknowledge that there is a significant practical difference between that which is inconceivable and that which is unpredictable but anticipatable.
While Kauffman’s screwdriver proves radical uncertainty, new uses are not guaranteed to recombine. Possibility space reductions are thus possible.
New information may lead to a reduction, but also to an increase, of the uncertainty delta (ΔU).
Only a fourth, dynamic kind of uncertainty describes this ebb and flood.
Personal updates before we go-go
Ah, the first sore throat of the fall has arrived. Oh cold and head full of ungodly fluids, how I have not missed thee.
Listened to an interview with one of the foremost authorities in artificial intelligence. The reporter gasped in disbelief when they explained that the behaviors we are currently seeing are not programmed as such; the code provides principles and the system works off those principles to learn. Two points.
First, that is how the process of complex learning works.
Second, sweet Jesus Kenneth Christ on a unicycle juggling kittens, some people really need to look up the concept of emergence.
Congratulations to McLaren are in order: hell of a job winning the second constructor’s championship in a row. But I would expect Piastri to be, shall we say, a bit less of a team player going forward.
Moving on to markets.