The Move You Don’t Make
There’s a moment on every climb where the obvious hold leads nowhere. Anthropic built the most capable AI in history — and didn’t release it. Red lines aren’t weaknesses. They’re the route.
Pull on. Figure it out on the wall.
New quarter. New altitude. On rock, I know my grade. In business and leadership, I’m setting myself two grades higher. That gap between where I am and where I’m reaching is where the real work lives.
Week 13 — The Signal
Advising scales. Building doesn’t. In Week 13 I’m wrestling with the shift from fractional advisor to committed builder — and what Anthropic’s $400M Coefficient Bio acquisition tells us about why people and integration are the only moat that matters.
Monday Momentum: What You Don’t See
A dense week spanning Venice, Valtellina, Scandinavia, and UK. Many parallel initiatives, but real value lies in invisible preparation. Like climbing, what you see is not the grade. This week is the moment to make governance products visible and move agreements toward operational reality.
Base Camp Consolidation
Monday Momentum – Week 11 of 12 – Q1 2026 Four choices this week. Not tasks — choices. They come from a single observation that surfaced at the crag on Saturday: when you love what you’re doing, rational analysis isn’t enough to make the hard calls. You need a tool and an attitude. The tool … Read More
The Kit Is Getting Lighter. The Terrain Is Getting Real.
The kit is lighter. The terrain is real. And after a weekend adapting to different rhythms, limits and needs — on the slopes, in conversation with new friends — the lesson lands again: a framework only becomes real when tested with another person. The compromise isn’t the cost. It’s the method. Everyone gets better.
A gang isn’t built — it’s earned
I didn’t always hold the line — sometimes I moved with the room, called it pragmatism. The ethical line isn’t abstract; it’s heavy. And it teaches you one thing the easy choices never do: how to see it before you’re standing on it.
The Only Test Worth Trusting
Not the whiteboard. Not the slide deck. Not the notebook where the ideas have been living for months. The moment it works out on the hill with someone else — that’s the only test worth trusting.
Eyes Up, Ridge Ahead
One tiny adjustment — a slight turn of the knee — and you’re not falling, you’re sending the line. Not breaking, but completing the turn perfectly.
That’s the NED role. Not taking over the descent. Being alongside someone at the right moment, with the one thing that changes everything.
Cut the Weight
Weight is no good in the mountains. You don’t go far and you don’t climb hard carrying too much.
This week I cut — commitments, projects, maybes. The skill isn’t accumulating. It’s editing. Pochi ma buoni. Few but good. In partnerships, in projects, in where I put my time.
The valley of despair is real. The only way out is through.