01
AI & intelligent systems
The strategic question is not whether AI matters. It is where performance and economics are sufficient to redesign the workflow - and where human judgement must remain accountable.
Patterns we recognise
→︎Demonstrations that do not survive deployment
→︎Productivity claims omitting integration and supervision
→︎Visible use cases chosen ahead of valuable ones
→︎Governance designed apart from actual system behaviour
Decisions we resolve
→︎Which workflows justify investment
→︎Where AI creates defensible advantage
→︎Build, buy or partner
→︎Which decision rights stay human
Proof in the record
Agents in production in client work · six LLM/agent configurations in daily use · c.250 senior hours saved in a quarter · 3,000+ commits
02
Digital assets & financial infrastructure
Software infrastructure, market microstructure, incentive design and regulation meet in one asset class. Similar-looking businesses can carry radically different liquidity, governance and revenue risk.
Patterns we recognise
→︎Temporary market structure mistaken for durable revenue
→︎Liquidity mistaken for demand
→︎Token incentives hiding weak underlying economics
→︎Regulation treated as external rather than strategic
Decisions we resolve
→︎Where new rails are economically superior
→︎Which revenue persists across cycles
→︎How control and counterparty risk change the case
→︎Enter, invest, partner or wait
Proof in the record
Personal capital held since 2017 · MiCA, GENIUS Act and FCA working literacy · digital-marketplace network effects quantified · 30-market payments precedent
03
Consumer, commerce & payments
The data can be abundant while the demand logic is wrong. The answer often sits one segmentation below the category the industry uses - and one channel beyond the economics it reports.
Patterns we recognise
→︎Growth purchased after it stopped creating value
→︎Aggregation mistaken for a network effect
→︎Structural change extrapolated from historic behaviour
→︎Volume used as a proxy for customer value
Decisions we resolve
→︎Which customers and propositions deserve investment
→︎Where growth is genuinely incremental
→︎Whether a marketplace has durable network effects
→︎What scale and model the evidence supports
Proof in the record
From a 15-shop portfolio to a 6,400-city demand map · c.€1.7tn payments headroom · 1m+ marketplace rows · c.£880m consumer-health screen
04
Infrastructure, cities & development
Large developments acquire momentum before demand, capacity and sequence have been independently established. The central risk is building the wrong asset at the wrong scale.
Patterns we recognise
→︎Demand inferred from the proposed capacity
→︎Prestige overriding commercial evidence
→︎Central cases tested harder than downside
→︎Full scale presented as the only viable option
Decisions we resolve
→︎Demand independent of the proposal
→︎Capacity the market can support
→︎Components that create value
→︎Proceed, resize, resequence or stop
Proof in the record
c.US$1bn stadium district · 2,000-city airport model · 20km² masterplan · 12-programme national strategy