Most businesses are copied, not reasoned.
They were imitated into existence — assembled by analogy from the visible success of peers, never reasoned from first principles. Strip the inherited forms away and commerce is something small and universal: an exchange, a give and take. The patterns that govern that exchange are the subject here. Business Topologies is the search for how commerce actually works — tested in public against real companies.
Three ways in
Not every reader enters from the same door. Three paths into the same room.
How business actually works
Essays on organizational structure, product, and the operating logic of firms — for the reader who builds.
Read the essays II.What I'm reading
Book reactions and source connections. Short, honest, useful to anyone thinking in nearby territory.
Open the reading log III.The experiment
Simple Product Feeds and Business Topologies blueprints — the framework, tested against reality.
See the workRecent essays
All essays →The Manager Never Asks Why
If someone in a project status meeting raised their hand and asked what metaphysics the meeting was operating under, everyone would laugh. The laughter is the tell.
The Starting Point Fallacy
The most influential thought experiment in Western philosophy asks you to imagine an inquirer who begins with nothing — no memory, no tradition, no prior knowledge. The experiment is useful. As a starting point for actual inquiry, it is a fantasy.
Most of this site is the research, freely readable. If you own a business and want that research pointed at it, here's how I work with owners →