Juan Orbea

We can identify 3 phases in how human beings as individuals and groups operate together strategically.

Many folks would assume that companies, rational optimizers that they are, avoid spending much time on low-impact high-effort projects. Unfortunately that isn’t consistently the case. It’s surprisingly common for a new senior leader to join a company and immediately drive a strategy shift that fundamentally misunderstands the challenges at hand.... See more

This style of thinking is foreign to me, but I find it fascinating, and important. Stereotypical "wealthy white liberals" ignore this at their peril: these more "traditional" values are actually quite popular even among some ethnic minorities in the United States, and even more so in places like Africa and India, which is exactly where Balaji is... See more

That said, this is a mindset you want to encourage in all employees. One way to do this is emphasize values or impact outside of your job description as part of the performance review process. The importance is emphasizing something bigger than the individual, particularly in the most critical stages as a company scales from a few dozen people, to... See more

What is common about all of these examples is the value of having a physical region, at least of a few hectares, where the network state's unique rules are enforced. Sure, you could individually insist on only eating at healthy restaurants, and research each restaurant carefully before you go there. But it's just so much easier to have a defined... See more