karjaluoto: I will happily read the rest of the chapters you've got up there, as I quite like your writing style. Though, as I said above, I do think that some

karjaluoto: I will happily read the rest of the chapters you've got up there, as I quite like your writing style. Though, as I said above, I do think that some of the overall conclusions you've drawn might end up finding lessons and principles in models that are too complex—if not chaotic—to bear them, I like much of the pragmatic advice you gave. Elements like opportunity cost and brand continuity are always good things to reason from, even if there might not necessarily be a 'And THAT'S why MacDonald's doesn't sell pizza' Just-So bow on the top. As far as what I might offer as an alternative to the specific Macdonalds pizza lesson we're discussing here, I might say that what it really comes down to is knowing WHAT you're doing, and WHY. I really do think that being prudent and judicious with the directions you take your business is very important, just as I think it's very important to continually innovate and reevaluate the market, its technologies, and its material resources. The key is that if you chase after new opportunities just because they're there, you're just as sunk as if you continually 'double down' (as they odiously say) on the same form you've already built just because it's worked in the past and it's what the subhead on your stationery says. Both of these tactics will be necessary. And maybe even still when you're young and agile. The most important thing is understanding what factors in your market will encourage one approach, and what factors will encourage the other, and to be able to explain to your team and your customers (and yourself) why a certain course is best. Mindfulness and all that. I think a lot of the industrial companies of the 19th and 20th centuries are interesting in this regard. You could take someone who made a fortune on rubber boots for 40 years. If you ask his customers what his brand stands for, they'll say it's boots. Thus making a whole new product, like tank treads, looks like trying to install a pizza oven in a burger joint. But if the Great War comes, you're gonna have a very new and very big market in rubber treads. And it turns out that a boot company making tires is more like a burger joint selling coffee: the products use a lot of the same techniques to produce and sell and it turns out that your core competency isn't boots at all, but rubber manufacturing. Of course as noted , the ability to see the commonalities between burgers and coffee or boots and tank treads is maybe irreducible.