The CapabiliSense story is the one that should sit uncomfortably with anyone reading this. You built the honest version. It failed. Not because the market didn't understand what you were offering — your pilots ran, letters of intent were signed — but because being first to document your own gaps publicly is a different ask than buying a certificate nobody will examine. The market wasn't irrational. It was selecting for exactly what it wanted: deniability with paperwork attached.
That's the cult in its purest form. Not stupidity. Not even laziness. A rational preference for the artefact over the evidence, because the artefact closes the deal and the evidence opens an audit.
Which connects to something your previous piece didn't quite reach. The last mile problem and the compliance problem are the same problem in different clothes. Both are System 1 solutions to System 2 requirements. The Production Layer that never gets funded, the certificate that substitutes for the security report nobody reads — both are organizations doing the minimum legible thing instead of the actual thing. The appearance of governance rewarded as if it were governance itself.
The "show your work" convergence is the most interesting part of the piece — EU enforcement, BlackRock proxy guidelines, and Delve's exposure arriving in the same week from unconnected directions. That's a real signal. But your test at the end gives the market too much credit. "Watch if anyone gets punished" is still just a slower version of the same incuriosity. One liability case teaches 1,700 companies to be more careful about getting caught, not more careful about what they're buying. The cult doesn't require bad actors. It also doesn't require punishment to survive. It requires the next Delve to be slightly less traceable.
The Wayback Machine catch is the detail that will stay with me. Product page saying three months. Every case study saying days or weeks. Both live on the same website at the same time. That's not ambiguity. That's a market so incurious that nobody thought it worth hiding.
“The appearance of governance rewarded as if it were governance itself.” - you nailed it.
And yes, maybe I was too optimistic about the market.
After I published the article , I had a discussion with my co-founder and partner in crime. He poked me saying “see, they managed to sell their trick, and we, with our solution that would solve the internal transparency problems, we don’t”
It’s only a half joke, because it reflects what VCs and enterprise orgs are looking to pay for.
When I showed our MVP to another friend who led a technical BU in a major global call center org, he said “listen, your platform is too serious and too dangerous for companies, because it can show who is doing what and who is doing nothing at all within their orgs.”
Maybe it’s not the product that companies are looking for and what VCs are looking to invest to.
The CapabiliSense story is the one that should sit uncomfortably with anyone reading this. You built the honest version. It failed. Not because the market didn't understand what you were offering — your pilots ran, letters of intent were signed — but because being first to document your own gaps publicly is a different ask than buying a certificate nobody will examine. The market wasn't irrational. It was selecting for exactly what it wanted: deniability with paperwork attached.
That's the cult in its purest form. Not stupidity. Not even laziness. A rational preference for the artefact over the evidence, because the artefact closes the deal and the evidence opens an audit.
Which connects to something your previous piece didn't quite reach. The last mile problem and the compliance problem are the same problem in different clothes. Both are System 1 solutions to System 2 requirements. The Production Layer that never gets funded, the certificate that substitutes for the security report nobody reads — both are organizations doing the minimum legible thing instead of the actual thing. The appearance of governance rewarded as if it were governance itself.
The "show your work" convergence is the most interesting part of the piece — EU enforcement, BlackRock proxy guidelines, and Delve's exposure arriving in the same week from unconnected directions. That's a real signal. But your test at the end gives the market too much credit. "Watch if anyone gets punished" is still just a slower version of the same incuriosity. One liability case teaches 1,700 companies to be more careful about getting caught, not more careful about what they're buying. The cult doesn't require bad actors. It also doesn't require punishment to survive. It requires the next Delve to be slightly less traceable.
The Wayback Machine catch is the detail that will stay with me. Product page saying three months. Every case study saying days or weeks. Both live on the same website at the same time. That's not ambiguity. That's a market so incurious that nobody thought it worth hiding.
“The appearance of governance rewarded as if it were governance itself.” - you nailed it.
And yes, maybe I was too optimistic about the market.
After I published the article , I had a discussion with my co-founder and partner in crime. He poked me saying “see, they managed to sell their trick, and we, with our solution that would solve the internal transparency problems, we don’t”
It’s only a half joke, because it reflects what VCs and enterprise orgs are looking to pay for.
When I showed our MVP to another friend who led a technical BU in a major global call center org, he said “listen, your platform is too serious and too dangerous for companies, because it can show who is doing what and who is doing nothing at all within their orgs.”
Maybe it’s not the product that companies are looking for and what VCs are looking to invest to.
Well, you should have known the moment you can point the finger at someone who is doing their job and someone who isn’t, you are out.
They would kiss your (backside) for a tool like that on the lowest levels, but the higher up you go…