1. The Power Law Isn't Just for Startups
Why a single operator should concentrate, not diversify — cut the long tail, back what's already working.
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How deals, capital, and risk actually work
Ten years of operating a real business, applied to the other side of the table — power law returns, leverage, dilution, and information asymmetry, with the formulas shown, not just asserted.
What's on this page: this isn't the general Articles feed. It's a set of frameworks on deals, capital, and risk, meant to be read in the order below — each piece builds on the one before it.
Frameworks
Read in order — start here if you're new to this thread.
2. Power Law Doesn't Mean Cut the 80% — It Means Tier It
The correction that piece needed: the long tail isn't waste, it's where tomorrow's top 20% comes from.
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3. Newcomb's Paradox and Business Risk
Why the "safe" move of always hedging is quietly read as a pattern by lenders, landlords, and employees — and priced accordingly.
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4. Power Law Investing: Maximum Seed Breadth
The same law that tells an operator to concentrate tells a seed investor to do the opposite. The formula for how much breadth a fund can actually afford.
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5. If I Were Starting a VC
Real information edge versus adverse selection — and how genuine domain expertise changes the breadth formula's math.
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6. When Should a Founder Take Investment?
The investor's math, mirrored from the founder's side: the dilution breakeven formula for when raising capital actually makes your smaller slice worth more.
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7. How to Build an LBO Model That Actually Works
Sources and uses, the debt schedule circularity that breaks most first attempts, exit assumptions, and the return math.
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8. LBO Sensitivity Analysis
A single-scenario model isn't a model. Building the downside case, and where it turns from "worse" into "the equity is at risk."
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9. How Leverage Turns Business Risk Into Equity Risk
The mechanism named directly: leverage amplifies outcomes symmetrically, which is why it only makes sense across a portfolio — closing the loop back to power law thinking.
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Deal Reviews
Would I actually buy this?
A series walking through real business-for-sale listings and asking one honest question: would I actually buy this? Working through the numbers, the risks, and the red flags in public.
Coming soonDeal Tool
Explore what a deal could look like
A free tool for owners and sellers thinking through their options — not for soliciting investment.
In development