Writing
Essays on where value goes in data businesses.
Working notes for operators, boards and investors who have to make the call before the dust has settled.
28 September 2026 · 4 min read
Foursquare did the work. The buyer's decision sat one link further on.
Foursquare did its own enrichment for a decade. The deal shows what that work was worth one step short of the buyer's decision.
the-callthe-five-decisionsunder-capture
16 September 2026 · 8 min read
The identifier on loan
Dun & Bradstreet's most valuable asset was a federal requirement it did not own. When the requirement went, three prices said what it had been worth.
rakeunder-extractionthe-boundary
16 May 2026 · 6 min read
The rake is decided before the negotiation begins
Where the enrichment work sits decides what the data business keeps. By the time the term sheet exists, the split is already fixed.
rake
25 February 2026 · 4 min read
Wrap is the architecture
Most data businesses are built around the part that can be sold off.
configuration
11 February 2026 · 3 min read
In advertising, wrap is the product
An advertising platform is not what most people think it is.
configuration
28 January 2026 · 6 min read
In products, to do more with less, do less with more
Product success is not about doing more. It is about doing less, and doing it extraordinarily well.
14 January 2026 · 5 min read
Embracing Serendipity: The Symbiosis of Personalization and Discovery in Consumer Experiences.
In an age of hyper-personalisation, the businesses that win are the ones that also know when to surprise.
10 December 2025 · 1 min read
You have an AI agent. Great. Does it have the data?
An AI agent is only as good as the data it can reach. Capability without connection produces frustration, not value.
5 November 2025 · 3 min read
Data and Analytics fueling United Healthcare Group’s Powerful Flywheel
UnitedHealth's insurance and services arms feed each other data. The flywheel, not the earnings miss, is the part worth studying.
8 October 2025 · 5 min read
Do not sell your data!
Selling raw data looks like the fastest route to value. It is usually the route that destroys the most of it.
10 September 2025 · 4 min read
The Unsexy yet Fundamental Part of AI Projects: Data
Acquisition, preparation and management take about 80% of the effort in most AI initiatives. The algorithms are not the hard part.
6 August 2025 · 4 min read
The Evolution of Product Leadership: From Features to Value Creation, and the AI revolution
Product leadership has moved from running a feature factory to orchestrating value creation. AI accelerates that shift rather than causing it.
16 July 2025 · 5 min read
Data Product Management: Features Don’t Drive Value. Insights Do.
A data product is not a traditional product with data attached. Features enable outcomes; in a data product the insight is the outcome.
25 June 2025 · 5 min read
What Happens When Content becomes Infinite and Free?
When the cost of generating content collapses, content stops being the scarce thing. Attention, curation and trust become the constraint.
11 June 2025 · 5 min read
The LLM lock-in: changing a model isn't that easy, after all
Swapping a large language model is not a matter of changing an API key. The switching costs sit in prompts, tokenisation and organisational knowledge.
4 June 2025 · 5 min read
Platform Economics: Three Waves of Value Creation
How platform value creation has evolved across three structural waves — and what each wave tells us about the next one.
14 May 2025 · 6 min read
SaaS vs Agentic AI: Rethinking the Future of Software
What changes for product, pricing and organisations as software shifts from features-on-demand to autonomous agents.
23 April 2025 · 6 min read
Data Monetisation: What’s Really Holding You Back?
Most data monetisation programmes stall for the same reasons. They're rarely technical.
9 April 2025 · 4 min read
Data monetisation: three routes to value creation
Three patterns for turning data into durable revenue — and the operating-model choices that determine whether organisations get there.
19 March 2025 · 4 min read
Understanding Digital Advertising Platforms and Data’s Role
What I learned launching some of the world's largest retail-media platforms — what works, what doesn't, and where the value is going.
5 March 2025 · 4 min read
What’s holding up data monetisation at many companies
Six structural blockers that show up in nearly every data monetisation programme — and how to recognise them early.
19 February 2025 · 3 min read
Triggering Platform Network Effects with Data
Network effects don't happen on their own. Data is the lever for engineering them deliberately.
5 February 2025 · 1 min read
3 Data Don’ts That Will Cost You
Three mistakes that keep recurring: mistaking volume for safety, tolerating bad data, and trying to fix quality after the fact.
22 January 2025 · 3 min read
Why Net Recurring Revenue (NRR) is a fundamental product KPI
Net Recurring Revenue reads product health in one number: whether the customers you kept are worth more than the ones you lost.
8 January 2025 · 2 min read
Understanding Customer Churn and How to Fight It
Churn is not only a metric. It reads the health of the product, the pricing and the promise — and it is measurable well before it is terminal.
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For operators, boards and investors who have to decide where value goes before the dust settles.