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Business Thinking

How do you get better at understanding — and therefore doing — business?

Feature image for Tycoon Skill: Holding on to Political Influence

Tycoon Skill: Holding on to Political Influence

Dhirubhai Ambani vs Nusli Wadia, as an example of holding on to political influence as a form of tycoon skill.

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What We Learnt From Speedrunning the Idea Maze

Our attempt at applying two theories of accelerated expertise to the first cohort of Speedrunning the Idea Maze.

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‘The Ultimate Business-Cycle Bottom Fisher’

How Kwek Leng Beng turned a regional business into a global hotel empire, trampling over a distressed Donald Trump in the process. Part of the Asian Conglomerate Series.

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The Shape of The Game We Play

The weird thing about learning business is that some things must be learnt through practice, but some things are best learnt through reading.

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What is a Tech Bubble Anyway?

What Data General and the minicomputer boom can tell us about our present moment.

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The Only Thing That Matters

Business skill as the ability to cut a messy business problem down to a single, most important thing.

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The Joy of Small Markets

If you want to get rich, the irony is that small markets are often better than large ones.

 Members only
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Chaos and Coherence in Business

Learning the right lessons from my old boss, in the wake of a successful acquisition.

Feature image for How to Run Smart Experiments When You Just Don’t Know

How to Run Smart Experiments When You Just Don’t Know

How all good entrepreneurs run experiments at the earliest stages of a business, and how you can use this approach for your own career.

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The Tatas: When Virtue Works

Why are the Tatas so much less corrupt than their contemporaries? How is their conglomerate still intact after five generations? The answer to an Asian conglomerate mystery, and Part 13 of the Asian conglomerate series.

 Members only