# Circudyne > Strategy for brands in the Circular Century: Circudynamics, the five-domain circular economy discipline, and The Circudyne Letter, published every Monday. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### Privacy Policy URL: https://www.circudyne.com/privacy/ Last updated: 2025-05-26T13:53:15.000Z We value your privacy. This website and newsletter are hosted on [Ghost Pro](https://ghost.org/?ref=circudyne.com), a secure, privacy-focused publishing platform. 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Commercial reuse requires permission. --- ## Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC 4.0) All original content published on this site and in the Letter is licensed under the [Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/?ref=circudyne.com). This includes content behind the member paywall. ### ✅ You May - **Share** — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format - **Adapt** — remix, transform, and build upon the material - As long as you: - Give **appropriate credit** - Do **not** use it for **commercial purposes** ### ❌ You May Not - Republish this work in **commercial newsletters**, books, or training programs - Use it in **client-facing consulting deliverables** or as part of a paid service - Include content in **products or courses** offered for sale ### ⚖️ Attribution Guidelines When sharing or adapting this content, please include: > Originally published by Christian D. 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URL: https://www.circudyne.com/people-cant-desire-what-they-cant-see/ Last updated: 2025-07-28T19:16:49.000Z The circular economy is the ideal organizing principle for future-proofing businesses—a systematic competitive advantage that will propel tomorrow's market leaders beyond the linear status quo. Yet somehow, we're backsliding. Sustainability theater has collapsed. Most circular initiatives fail to achieve meaningful scale. But the challenge isn't commitment—it's methodology. Circular transformation requires transdisciplinary integration across the entire enterprise and its ecosystem. That's why we help *visionary leaders* build circular futures that make planned obsolescence obsolete—through synthesis that makes transformation feel delightful, not dutiful. > **Sound like you?** ### The Circudyne Letter URL: https://www.circudyne.com/blog/ Last updated: 2025-07-07T13:18:30.000Z _This page is for subscribers only._ ### Transform Your Business Through Circudynamics URL: https://www.circudyne.com/studio/ Last updated: 2025-07-07T19:43:49.000Z ## The art and science of circular transformation for visionary leaders Companies struggle with circular economy transformation when they treat it as a single-discipline problem. Strategy teams create plans. Sustainability teams implement programs. Marketing teams communicate benefits. Each working in isolation. Circudyne Studio integrates all five essential domains: → Horizons - Strategic pathways that create competitive advantage → Living Futures - Experiences that make circular abundance irresistible → Catalysts - Technology convergence that enables transformation → Connection - Cultural resonance that drives authentic adoption → Craft - Brand integration that makes everything beautifully coherent Whether you need strategic clarity on your transformation pathway, immersive experiences that build stakeholder commitment, or complete five-domain integration across your organization—Circudyne Studio tailors our methodology to your transformation readiness. We work with visionary leaders, wherever they are on their journey, who understand that the companies mastering circular transformation today will become tomorrow's defining brands. This isn't traditional consulting. This is transformation architecture—systematic competitive advantage that makes planned obsolescence obsolete. Just like Carrier, GM, and GE became household names by building the 1939 World's Fair future, the brands mastering circular transformation today will define the next era. Ready to build the future your customers can't imagine living without? [🗓️ Schedule a Transformation Discussion today](https://fantastical.app/circudyne/introduction?ref=circudyne.com). ### It's time to make planned obsolescence obsolete. URL: https://www.circudyne.com/manifesto/ Last updated: 2025-07-07T19:58:31.000Z ## Circular transformation has a synthesis problem. People seek meaning beyond mere possession. Current solutions fail because they treat circularity as a sustainability project rather than fundamental transformation. True circular solutions require systematic integration—five domains working together across the entire organization. Circudynamics provides this integration. Strategy, worldbuilding, technology, culture, and brand unified into transformation architecture. It starts with worldbuilding because you cannot understand circular outcomes without first experiencing them. Lean transformed production through systematic waste elimination. Circularity transforms entire organizations through systematic removal of ALL waste. Because waste is waste—whether in production processes or business models that create planned obsolescence. Organizations that master this don't merely participate in the circular economy. They define it. They achieve extraordinary competitive advantages and gains in enterprise value. They create solutions so compelling that circular living becomes what people desire. This is how we build prosperity without depleting nature. The road to the circular economy runs through brands like yours. ### About URL: https://www.circudyne.com/about/ Last updated: 2026-03-25T20:58:21.000Z Hello. I'm Christian Rishel. I help brands build circular business models that make planned obsolescence obsolete. Philosophy taught me first-principles thinking. Diplomacy school taught me to design win-win outcomes. Business school taught me to escape commodity traps. Those instincts guided me through marketing, strategy, and leadership roles at Airbus, JetBlue, Google, McKinsey, and a string of startups. I kept landing in situations where conventional thinking created unnecessary trade-offs — and where someone willing to question the premise could find a way through. While working as a strategy consultant, I watched Lean transform every company that took it seriously. Not incremental improvement — fundamental reorganization around systematic waste elimination. Toyota didn't just improve, they changed the game. The companies that followed won. The companies that waited spent decades catching up. When I first encountered circular economy thinking, I recognized the same pattern. Same systems logic, but broader scope. Not just waste in production — waste in the entire business model. Products designed to fail. Customers treated as transactions. Value extracted rather than created. Because waste is waste, whether in a factory process or a planned obsolescence strategy. But circularity has a demand problem. Unlike Lean, there is no canonical success story. And customers can't ask for what they've never experienced. That's the gap. People can't desire what they can't see. The 1939 World's Fair showed how to close it. Forty-four million people moved through immersive environments — GM's Futurama, Westinghouse's House of Tomorrow — where they didn't just learn about the future. They inhabited it together. Families left making plans for highways and appliances that didn't yet exist. The shared experience turned individual curiosity into collective expectation, and the brands that built those experiences — Carrier, General Motors, General Electric — became the defining companies of the American Century. We need that approach again. Not to re-create the suburban dream, but to build the Circular Century. First principles like these inform Circudynamics: the art and science of circular transformation. A methodology that integrates five domains — strategy, worldbuilding, technology, culture, and brand — so organizations don't just adopt circular principles. They become fundamentally different entities. Built for circularity. **The Circudyne Letter** develops this thinking weekly, published under a Creative Commons license. **For brands** ready to make this their competitive advantage, I work directly with a select number of visionary leaders. [Book a conversation](https://fantastical.app/circudyne/introduction?ref=circudyne.com) if that sounds like you. --- 📬 [info@circudyne.com](mailto:info@circudyne.com) · 🗓️ [Book an introduction](https://fantastical.app/circudyne/introduction?ref=circudyne.com) ### Our Circular Economy Moment URL: https://www.circudyne.com/moment/ Last updated: 2025-07-07T20:01:26.000Z ## Why *Now*. Circularity is the only systemic approach to aligning and rationalizing the balance between production and consumption. It starts with the idea that abundance can flow from limited resources used wisely. And it makes planned obsolescence obsolete. This isn't incremental improvement or sustainability theater. It's fundamental reorientation of how value gets created—from extraction to regeneration, from ownership to access, from waste to resource. Linear business models have reached their limits. Resource volatility, supply chain fragility, and customer rejection of throwaway culture signal the end of an era. Circular systems offer systematic advantages: cost reduction through resource efficiency, revenue growth through service models, customer loyalty through meaningful relationships, and enterprise value gains through operational excellence. The question isn't whether this transformation will happen. The question is which brands will lead it. --- Brands—not governments, not consumers alone—will lead the circular transformation. Governments react to problems. Consumers respond to options. But visionary brands create new realities. They have the unique power to imagine futures, build the infrastructure to deliver them, and shape culture around new possibilities. History proves this pattern. Brands that defined the suburban era—Carrier, General Motors, General Electric—stepped up at the 1939 World's Fair to build and showcase the future people came to depend on. They made this investment during the Depression, confident that they could play their part to change things for the better. In return, they were rewarded with respect, prosperity, and market dominance for decades. Today's circular economy transformation offers the same opportunity. The brands that master systematic circular transformation won't just participate in the new economy—they'll define it. They'll become the iconic companies of the next era, earning customer loyalty, competitive advantages, and enterprise value that linear competitors can't match. But this window won't stay open forever. --- People have deep, underserved needs that linear business models are fundamentally ill-suited to satisfy. Needs for meaning beyond consumption. Connection beyond transactions. Quality that endures rather than disappoints. Customers can't articulate these desires because they've never experienced the alternative. As Steve Jobs understood, people "can't want what they can't see." Circular solutions naturally address these unspoken longings. Service relationships create ongoing connection. Intentional design honors customer investment by striking the right balance between purpose, life cycle, and profitability. The first brands to reveal these latent needs—to make the invisible visible through experiential prototyping—will capture customer loyalty that transcends price competition. Because once people experience circular abundance, linear scarcity feels obsolete. This is why worldbuilding matters. You can't stimulate demand for futures people haven't experienced. But you can create experiences that make circular solutions feel inevitable rather than imposed. --- Early adopters of circular transformation create collaborative ecosystems that benefit all participants—including customers. They develop circular supply chains, service partnerships, shared infrastructure, and deeper customer relationships that make circular solutions more accessible and valuable for everyone. These aren't extractive platforms designed for lock-in. They're collaborative networks where success compounds through genuine value creation. Suppliers learn circular design principles. Service partners develop new capabilities. Customers experience ongoing relationships rather than one-time transactions. Each participant strengthens the whole ecosystem. Late adopters gain access to mature systems that early builders developed through investment and partnership. But early adopters earn first-mover advantages: deeper supplier relationships, refined service capabilities, stronger customer connections, and operational excellence that comes from systematic practice. Most importantly, early adopters build capacity for listening—between brands and customers, suppliers and partners, all members of the circular ecosystem. This listening capacity becomes the foundation for continuous improvement, genuine innovation, and relationships that create value for everyone involved. --- Technology now makes ecosystem-wide listening not just possible, but economically advantageous. IoT sensors track product usage and lifecycle performance, revealing optimization opportunities that benefit manufacturers and customers alike. AI analyzes these patterns to predict service needs and prevent failures before they occur. Blockchain creates transparent supply chains that build trust across the entire ecosystem. Digital platforms enable service-based business models that were economically impossible just a decade ago. Products-as-services, usage-based pricing, and collaborative consumption all depend on technological infrastructure that's now mature and accessible. Automation transforms what's economically viable, reviving service concepts once thought obsolete. The next milkman might be a robot. Returnables can be tracked and managed unit-by-unit through automated reverse logistics. Refillable containers, repairable products, and reusable packaging become practical at scale when automation handles the complexity. Material science advances support circular design at scale—bio-based materials, molecular recycling, and design for disassembly that maintains material quality through multiple lifecycles. But technology alone doesn't create circular transformation. It amplifies the listening capacity, service relationships, and collaborative networks that forward-thinking brands build with intention and good taste. The convergence of these technologies doesn't just make circular systems possible—it makes them economically superior to linear alternatives. Smart brands recognize this convergence as their competitive advantage window. --- There's a growing gap between how people live and how they want to live. Planned obsolescence has run its course. People are tired of being forced to live in ways that serve *brands'* compulsive need to create wasteful material surplus rather than their *own* limited needs. This tension between the failing ideology of forced consumption and people's desire for intentional living creates what Douglas Holt calls a "myth market"—a cultural competition where brands can achieve iconic status by resolving deep societal contradictions. People want products that align with their values, last as long as they need them to, and create genuine relationships rather than concatenated transactions. They're hungry for abundance narratives that replace scarcity messaging. The cultural conversation is shifting from guilt-based sustainability to joy-based circular living. Status consumption is giving way to meaning-seeking. Trust is migrating toward brands that demonstrate authentic values through their business models, not merely their marketing. Historically, brands that identify and fill cultural gaps during ideological transitions have been rewarded with iconic status. They become cultural leaders by providing compelling myths that help people navigate change. Tomorrow's brands that apply circular principles to closing this gap—helping people live more in tune with their true needs—will achieve the same iconic status. This isn't mere market opportunity. It's myth market opportunity. The brands that master circular transformation will do more than succeed—they'll become the defining icons of the next era. People are waiting for brands brave enough to show them what authentic circular living looks like. --- Linear business models are failing on multiple fronts, creating systemic vulnerabilities that circular models systematically address. Resource volatility exposes the fragility of extraction-dependent supply chains. When materials become scarce or expensive, linear models have no backup plan. Circular models diversify risk through regenerative supply networks and resource recovery systems. The backlash against planned obsolescence is accelerating. Customers increasingly reject products designed to fail, seeking brands that honor their investment with intentional design. The "right to repair" movement gains momentum as people demand products that serve *their* needs, not sloppy corporate material surplus. Customer dissatisfaction with wasteful brands is becoming measurable. People actively avoid companies whose business models conflict with their values. Social media amplifies stories of corporate waste, creating reputational risks that compound over time. Big shifts in consumer sentiment are increasingly common and volatile. The only way to hedge against them is to adhere to principles and missions worth believing in and standing by. Linear models built on opportunistic market exploitation rather than authentic values offer no protection against cultural turbulence. Linear models trap companies in a vicious cycle: higher material costs, increasing customer resistance, tortured value propositions, and vulnerability to sentiment shifts that drain resources without creating lasting value. Meanwhile, the infrastructure supporting linear consumption—from retail footprints to logistics networks—becomes increasingly expensive to maintain as customer behavior shifts toward service relationships and access models. Companies still optimizing linear operations are perfecting yesterday's competitive advantages while tomorrow's advantages emerge in circular ecosystems. It’s elegant decline at best. And it isn’t a gradual decline. Linear model vulnerabilities are accelerating, creating urgent need for systematic transformation. --- This moment parallels the Lean revolution of the 1980s-1990s, when systematic thinking separated market leaders from laggards for decades. Toyota improved quality and efficiency by reorganizing around fundamentally different principles of value creation. Lean succeeded across industries: service companies, financial institutions, healthcare organizations. Any business that mastered systematic waste elimination and value optimization achieved sustained competitive advantages. Those that waited struggled to catch up, even with access to the same tools and training. We're at the same place for circular transformation. The next 5–10 years will determine which brands master systematic circular principles and which remain trapped in linear thinking. Early adopters will build the circular ecosystems, develop the transdisciplinary capabilities, and create the customer relationships that define the new economy. They'll establish network effects, capture myth market leadership, and achieve enterprise value gains that late adopters cannot replicate. The convergence of technology, cultural readiness, customer need discovery, and linear model breakdown creates a transformation window that won't stay open forever. Just as Lean became table stakes for competing in global markets, circular mastery will become essential for business survival. But the systematic advantages go to those who lead the transformation, not those who follow. The brands that act now—that invest in Circudynamics and commit to all-of-organization transformation—will become the iconic companies of the circular economy era. The question isn't whether this transformation will happen. The question is whether your brand will lead it. This is your moment. This is why **now**. ### 🖖 The Future We Were Promised URL: https://www.circudyne.com/p1/ Last updated: 2025-09-05T19:51:14.000Z They said the Communicator was science fiction. Now flip phones are antiques. The replicator is based on the principles of circularity. **Shouldn’t we have that by now?** **Circular transformation** is how we build a Star Trek–style future—by making planned obsolescence obsolete. **Circudyne** helps brands close the gap between the world we have—and the future we were promised. --- ## Why Circularity Matters > “You notice there's no sharps collection point in Six-Bay, you know? Like, they don't use anything that's single use anymore in the future.” > \- Benjamin Ahr Harrison, Greatest Trek: Science Can Get This, Everything Else Cannot (SNW S3E8), Aug 29, 2025 Most sustainability efforts are built on subtraction: less waste, less carbon, less damage. **Circularity** is built on *design*. It's about creating systems that work better—where materials, value, and meaning flow continuously. It’s not about reducing harm. It’s about **designing for renewal**. The future doesn’t have to be grim. It can be **abundant, aspirational, and intelligent**—but only if we build for it on purpose. --- ## What Is Circudynamics? **Circudynamics** is our name for the *strategic choreography* required to build circular systems that actually scale. It's not just about materials. It’s about behavior, belief, and business models. We help brands align not only with sustainability targets—but with culture, imagination, and economic sense. --- ## The Five Domains of Circudynamics To transform successfully, organizations must navigate five interdependent domains: ### 🧭 [Horizons](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horizons/) Strategy that honors both data and imagination. Uses the logic of *“What would have to be true?”* to explore viable futures. ### 🏙️ [Living Futures](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/living-futures/) Worldbuilding for change. Making circular futures tangible, desirable, and actionable—like a World’s Fair that recruits your next customer. ### ⚡️ [Catalysts](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/catalysts/) The enabling technologies and convergences—AI, biofabrication, clean energy—that make circular systems possible now. ### 🧬 [Connection](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/connection/) Social and cultural capital: making circular living aspirational through design, narrative, and belonging. ### 🛠️ [Craft](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/craft/) Operational architecture that aligns values with value. Everything a brand does *is* its brand. --- [The Technology of MatterFinite materials can create infinite value when orchestrated as renewable technology rather than depleted as resource. The circular abundance paradox solved.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250308c-1.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/the-technology-of-matter/) ## Want to Build the Future? Join us. **→ Subscribe to** [***The Circudyne Letter***](https://www.circudyne.com/blog/) Insights on circular transformation, design intelligence, and cultural strategy—delivered weekly. **→** [**Contact The Circudyne Studio**](https://circudyne.com/contact?ref=circudyne.com) Let’s close the mythology gap together. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/08/Captains-Chair-1.png) ## Join the builders of our circular tomorrow Circudynamics integrates strategy, worldbuilding, technology, culture, and brand. Subscribe to The Circudyne Letter. Make It So Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ## Posts ### Understanding Media URL: https://www.circudyne.com/understanding-media/ Last updated: 2026-09-08T12:06:16.000Z One of my foundational beliefs in starting Circudyne was: circularity needs more Cannes than Davos. More creativity than policy. Imagining more things people want than mandating stuff they're told they need. To support this claim, this week I'm covering *Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man* by [Marshall McLuhan](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/marshall-mcluhan/). [Understanding Media: The Extensions of ManUnderstanding Media: The Extensions of Man - Kindle edition by McLuhan, Marshall. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/faviconV2-4c70e15a-ca3d-4169-9898-804f907c2ec5)AmazonMarshall McLuhan (Author) Format: Kindle Edition![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/81IPFOVw-WL._SL1500_-b52d69ae-ace4-4fcd-b68b-cd26fd68d166.jpg)](https://a.co/d/0f7MS5ZB?ref=circudyne.com) The book has thirty-three chapters. The last thirty-one are case studies, taken one medium at a time. The first two chapters are the theory, and the theory is where I'll focus. ## The book in brief McLuhan was a Canadian professor of English who, in the early 1960s, became one of the most famous public intellectuals in the world. He has a fantastic cameo in *Annie Hall*. He is remembered for the phrase, "the medium is the message." The argument behind the catch phrase is what survives scrutiny sixty years on. The argument goes like this. A medium is any extension of ourselves (hence the subtitle *The Extensions of Man*). The wheel extends the foot. Clothing extends the skin. Writing extends the eye and money extends the hand. Electricity extends the central nervous system. Every one of these prostheses changes the scale, the pace, or the pattern of human affairs, and that change, not whatever the medium happens to carry, is its message. The content of a medium, he says, "is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind." By that definition, gunpowder is a medium. Napoleon "understood the grammar of gunpowder," and McLuhan means it literally. Money is a medium. The electric light is a medium with no content at all, which is why nobody regards it as one. And a television network is a medium regardless of what it broadcasts, which is where McLuhan picks a fight. General David Sarnoff of RCA had said that the products of science are neither good nor bad in themselves; it's how they're used that counts. McLuhan calls that "the voice of the current somnambulism," and rewrites the sentence with firearms in place of television to show it doesn't work. A technology never simply adds itself to what we already are. It rearranges us. ## A word that shrank We use the word "media" now to mean the content business. McLuhan specifically delineated the two. But we ignore the distinction constantly, because we are drowning in content. Content is king. The extensions of man have multiplied so fast that they demand more content than any previous generation could produce. But the misnomer has shrunk our understanding. When we say media we mean channels and feeds and the people who fill them. McLuhan meant the prosthesis itself. *Everything a brand does is media*, [Lee Clow](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/lee-clow/) said, and the line only works in McLuhan's sense: the packaging, the retail architecture, the product design are all extensions of the brand into the customer's life. Their message is what they do to the scale and pace and pattern of that life, whatever the campaign says. [The Element of Integration: Crafting Circular AdvantageIn which we use Apple as a lens to understand the power of treating brand, strategy, and organization as a single unit. Circular business models require this same unified approach to succeed—tomorrow’s integrated firms will represent an evolutionary step beyond today’s models.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-3a44703a-9e63-4e04-bec1-fbbbd4063556.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/apple-park-a-circular-building-for-a-functional-organization-2e94c102-0f1c-4645-9296-8da665db42de.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-of-integration/) Once we restore McLuhan's meaning of the word, three things come into focus: AI, mythology, and strategy. ## A medium we can only see as a technology McLuhan closes his introduction with a prediction. After the mechanical age extended our bodies in space and the electric age extended our nervous system around the planet, "we approach the final phase of the extensions of man," which he calls "the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society." He wrote that in 1964\. It is an uncanny one-sentence description of artificial intelligence written as media theory, not computer science. We talk about AI as a technology and as an economic force. We rarely talk about it as a medium, which is the thing it most obviously is: an extension of thought, which will change the scale, pace, and pattern of everything it touches, regardless of what anyone uses it for. Scale, pace, and pattern are his words. He would probably say that the content — the chatbots and the images and the code — is the meat for the watchdog. For our purposes, AI is a component of the [Three Dynamos](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/three-dynamos/), the enabling technologies that converge to make the [Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/) possible: [Ambient Intelligence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/ambient-intelligence/), [Distributed Power](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/distributed-power/), and [Recombinant Matter](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/recombinant-matter/). Reading McLuhan encourages me to think about all three as media. Each is a prosthesis. Each will rearrange us. The question is what discipline arrays them. ## We are as gods Four years after McLuhan wrote *Understanding Media*, [Stewart Brand](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/stewart-brand/) opened the *Whole Earth Catalog* with "We are as gods and might as well get good at it." I think these are related ideas. The extensions of man confer powers that every earlier civilization reserved for the gods. That is why the oldest stories we have are about mortals mingling with gods, borrowing their powers, cheating them, paying for it, and coming home. Stephen Fry, introducing his *Odyssey*, notes that the Trojan War was "a mortal enterprise," suffered and endured by ordinary people with the gods intruding at the edges, and that the *Odyssey* begins where the war ends: a profoundly human story with gods and monsters playing their part. That blending of the earthly and the heavenly is what ancient and modern audiences alike want from myth. It's clear why. A myth is a case study in successful passage from one world to another. *We did it before; we can do it again.* That is the *regenerative* power [George Lucas](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/george-lucas/) reached for when he decided, after making two angry films, that pessimism only makes people accept the conditions that prevail, and that what the country needed was to "regenerate optimism." He read Campbell, saw what needed doing, and did it, without a commission, as an artist. McLuhan says the serious artist is the only person who can encounter new technology with impunity, because the artist is the expert in changes of sense perception. In McLuhan's sense, Lucas is a serious artist. [Douglas Holt](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/douglas-holt/) has shown that brands become icons by siding with a cultural longing and giving it a voice; I've called the distance between how people live and how they want to live the [Mythology Gap](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/mythology-gap/). Holt's diagnosis and Lucas' prescription are possible because of McLuhan's diagnosis. The media people are reaching for right now, like an *Odyssey* in theaters, are the tribal, oral, participatory forms that predate Plato. People are not looking for better arguments. They are looking for a formative myth to carry them from this world to the next. The brands that supply one will extend themselves into the future as icons. [Closing the Mythology GapWhen change outpaces our stories, organizations lose coherence. Here we explore how cultural renewal shapes fitness for the Circular Century.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-92262b3e-483f-403c-8c29-8bf7d167fc00.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250409-1-c3ed656d-b657-4c1f-a8ee-269a2e70096d.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/closing-the-mythology-gap/) --- ## What McLuhan means by a media strategy Every brand is doing media already, in the full sense. The strategy question is whether it is doing it on purpose. McLuhan's metaphor for that question is temperature. A *hot* medium is high definition, filled in for you, and asks little: print, radio, film, the lecture. A *cool* medium is low definition and has to be completed by its audience: the telephone, the seminar, the cartoon, the television of his day. Hot media are low in participation. Cool media are high in participation. He also observed that the mechanical age was fragmentary and centralist while the electric age is "integral and decentralist in depth," and that the electric acceleration, unlike every specialist technology before it, retribalizes. Put those together and a pattern appears that fits the Circular Century almost too well. *Decentralized is cool is participatory is tribal*. A power plant five states away is hot; the solar panel you own is cool. A fast food drive-through is hot; the neighborhood kitchen is cool. A subscription that [enshittifies](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/enshittification/) on schedule is hot; the repairable durable good you maintain is cool, and the community it engenders looks a lot like a tribe forming around order. [Clayton Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/) would recognize the same pattern as disruption from the low end, closer to the user, good enough, and growing. This is why circularity transformation needs a media strategy. The Three Dynamos make the tribe materially possible. What the tribe lacks is the formative myth to rally around. That myth has to arrive first, as [perception](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/systemic-perception/), before the demand is measurable. I argued several seasons ago that [the funnel starts earlier than awareness](https://www.circudyne.com/mcluhan-perception-and-the-role-of-brands-today/), and that if we want different outcomes we have to intervene earlier, at the level of experience. McLuhan explains why. "Everybody experiences far more than he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behavior, especially in collective matters of media and technology, where the individual is almost inevitably unaware of their effect upon him." Most brands today *receive* perception. They measure the demand that already exists because it can be sized, and they arrive too late in the funnel to affect anything. The alternative is to *shape* it, which means participating in the myth rather than responding to it. [Disney](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/walt-disney/) understood this when he built on fairy tales. [Apple](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/apple/) understood it when it planted itself at the crossroads of technology and the liberal arts. *Everything a brand does is media.* ## Discipline, not destination Circudyne promotes "a world without waste," and it would be easy to mistake that for the goal. It isn't. Elimination of waste was never [Toyota](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/toyota/)'s purpose either. [Taiichi Ohno](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/taiichi-ohno/)'s book is explicit that higher imperatives came from the Toyoda family: raise the originality and consciousness of Japanese industry, catch up with America in three years, develop human ability to its fullest capacity. Waste elimination was the organizing principle that arrayed the tools toward those ends. Circularity plays the same role. It is the discipline by which we point the prostheses at goals worth having, and the goal at the top of the list, as I've argued before, is [joy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/joy/), which among other things offers a gracious exit from the hedonic treadmill. McLuhan would ask whether any discipline can hold a medium to a purpose, since media rearrange us while we use them. I don't have a theory of progress to offer against that. I have the observation that Toyota is still *muda*\-free decades after Ohno, that [Disney](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/disney/) and Apple still embody their founders' values imperfectly enough that people keep asking what Walt or [Steve](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/steve-jobs/) would do, and that progress has never been a steady state anyway. What we can expect of ourselves is the initiative to start the project in earnest. We'll be lucky to have McLuhan's problem one day. It will mean the transformation is under way. --- *McLuhan would say the rest of this letter is a cool medium: it needs you to complete it. Dynamo members, the people building plenty with us, read on. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats are reserved.* [Join the Dynamos](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup). --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### A Pattern Language URL: https://www.circudyne.com/a-pattern-language/ Last updated: 2026-08-31T12:03:47.000Z [‎A Pattern Language‎Arts & Entertainment · 2018![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/favicon-books-48-a8eb8171a8d912ed29d99e7a134953d3-239ac2fb-0f7a-449b-9119-8cf16ce1bad6.png)Apple BooksChristopher Alexander![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wz-bb96d444-66db-4cc9-b94c-9138c045458e.png)](https://books.apple.com/us/book/a-pattern-language/id1438115479?ref=circudyne.com) A logical consequence of living in a world where things are disposable is that the cost of ugliness goes down. If an object fails to please the eye or otherwise delight the senses, you can just wait to replace it. As objects become more durable — fixtures in our lives — that cost goes up. So good design matters in the [Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/). I’ve always been struck by Jony Ive's frequent use of the word "intention." He speaks often of designing with intent. I wanted to see where the language of intent comes from. So this week I read one of his influences, *A Pattern Language* by Christopher Alexander. It provided an interesting counterpart to [last week’s](https://www.circudyne.com/toyota-production-system/) book: *Toyota Production System* by [Taiichi Ohno](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/taiichi-ohno/). Ohno’s book is about building abundance in a context of scarcity by using systems. This one is too. ## The book in brief *A Pattern Language* was published in 1977 by Alexander and his colleagues at Berkeley. It is one half of a single work; *The Timeless Way of Building* is the theory, and *A Pattern Language* is the practice. The practice is 253 patterns, arranged from the scale of regions down to decor. Each pattern names a problem that recurs in our environment, then gives the core of its solution — stated, in the book's words, "in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice." The patterns form a network. Each one is completed by the larger patterns above it and completes the smaller ones below it. Alexander draws the consequence in a sentence I marked as the essence of the book: when you build a thing, "you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole." Two pieces of the machinery matter most for our purposes. First, every pattern is offered as a hypothesis. Alexander marks each with asterisks that "represent our degree of faith." Two asterisks claim an “invariant” — a property of every well-formed solution to that problem, expected to endure for 500 years. One asterisk claims progress toward understanding. No asterisk is an open admission: we have not solved this one. And a rule of use follows: when in doubt about a pattern, leave it out. Second, the language can be spoken as prose or as poetry. Compress many patterns into one dense place and you get "the most ordinary economy of space" — and, Alexander says, the only way to make "buildings which are poems." Economy and beauty are one act. Ohno would have understood. ## A language I recognized Regular readers know that we maintain a canon. One entry is [Systemic Beauty](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/systemic-beauty/): the design discipline that makes a circular system worth living with across decades. It has three elements. [Compositional Logic](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/compositional-logic/) — the parts compose in space. [Instructional Design](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/instructional-design/) — the system teaches itself to its user. [Timelessness](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/timelessness/) — the parts compose in time, so old elements give continuity while new ones add capability. I assembled that trio to apply to products in the context of circularity: products as services, products that last a long time, products built for loving maintenance. Reading Alexander, I found a counterpart, written half a century earlier, derived from buildings. Alexander’s rule Structure Follows Social Spaces (205) is compositional logic for place-making. The pattern format itself — problem, evidence, instruction — is instructional design; the book teaches the reader to build without gatekeepers. The two-asterisk invariants are the essence of timelessness. I want to be careful about what this convergence means. Alexander did not anticipate our framework, and we did not borrow his. He wrote for place-makers. We write for object-makers. He could distill his patterns from 10,000 years of places that already work. Our exemplars do not exist yet, so we must reverse-engineer them from the future — asking, with Roger Martin, [what would have to be true](https://www.circudyne.com/what-would-have-to-be-true/). Two pattern languages, built from different disciplines, with similar grammar. ## Confidence pips The asterisks deserve special attention, because they solve a problem afflicting strategists looking towards an uncertain future — which means pretty much all of us. Martin borrows two of [Aristotle](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/aristotle/)'s intellectual virtues: *episteme*, the systematic knowledge that can be taught and replicated, and *phronesis*, the practical wisdom required where precedent does not apply. The boundary dictates the approach. Before acting on any analysis, ask whether you are willing to assume the future will be identical to the past. If yes, follow the analysis. If no, do not use it. 📐 Data-centered decision-making carries a strong bias against decisions that require hard-to-acquire data. And there is no data from the future. So the future gets discounted. Alexander's asterisks embody epistemic degrees of confidence. Two asterisks mark the places where the past is deep enough to trust — where the whole history of human dwelling offers proof of concept. The unstarred patterns hand the problem back to your judgment, and say, *Go*. The modern enterprise has organized itself around the opposite habit. Data-centered decision-making carries a strong bias against decisions that require hard-to-acquire data. And there is no data from the future. So the future gets discounted. The longer horizon becomes less knowable, so the shorter one wins by default. Our built world shows the results: places built down to a budget rather than up to a purpose. Alexander offers the alternative: heuristics, expressed as such, ranked by declared faith, open to improvement by anyone. A system for industrializing the creation of beautiful work — and for justifying humanistic service at scale. (He expresses confidence in terms of faith, which is kind of interesting. That’s given me something to think about.) ## What the book means to me Alexander built his language for towns facing economic ruin. Ohno built his system in a country recovering from obliteration. Circularity answers imperatives of its own. The revealed pattern: constraint is the parent of the beautiful outcome, not its enemy. That is why the argument in favor of circularity should not be one of denial. Circularity decouples value creation from resource extraction by daring to imagine the alternative, and the abundance it creates is a clear-eyed embrace of a finite planet. The Earthrise photograph and Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot soliloquy are celebrations, not lamentations, of finiteness. The beauty of our home, seen at any scale, is a function of its fragility. To make a durable, lovely home here — at once in defiance of that fragility and in harmony with it — is the fullest expression of consciousness I can conceive. The point is not to survive, but to live. Not just as individuals; as a planet full of different forms of sentient beings. We should not sacrifice that potential to the exigencies of the workweek and the pull of the lowest common denominator. The resignation to take what comes is a disease. Books like *A Pattern Language* are part of the cure. Alexander wrote it, he says, "as a first step in the society-wide process by which people will gradually become conscious of their own pattern languages, and work to improve them." That is as fine a description of this letter's ambition as I could write myself. --- ## The long lead time The Towns patterns are where the book's critics wince. World government of independent regions. Farmland open to all. Scattered work. It is easy to file this under 1970s Berkeley and move on. I think that understanding is a mistake — and the mistake is instructive. These patterns (to which Alexander assigned numbers, see below) did not fail on the merits. They failed on timing. The centralizing technologies of the twentieth century — steel and stamping, then chip fabrication — undermined Scattered Work (9). Big box retailers overtook Individually Owned Shops (87). Platform enshittification replaced Small Services Without Red Tape (81). The economics of the era ran against the grain of the patterns, and the incumbents those economics created have concentrated resources to prolong their moment. But the pendulum has reached its apogee. The enabling technologies of the Circular Century — [Distributed Power](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/distributed-power/), [Ambient Intelligence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/ambient-intelligence/), [Recombinant Matter](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/recombinant-matter/) — are *de*centralizers, just as the grid, the automobile, and mass production were centralizers a century ago. Read Alexander's Towns section again with that lens, and it stops being a utopian artifact. It becomes a catalog of what is about to become buildable. The forces of decentralization are arrayed in favor of order now; it is the incumbents who deal in chaos. [Are You a Punk?When institutions produce the chaos, order becomes the rebellion. The punks of 2026 don’t sneer. They say “no thank you” and build something without you.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-b5822be7-202b-43c6-88c7-4e4378234959.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/1280px-Jean-Fran--ois_Millet_-_Gleaners_-_Google_Art_Project_2-97e03d88-5954-40e3-83ee-afdc80e59cf5.jpg)](https://www.circudyne.com/20260109-are-you-a-punk/) --- *Alexander says no pattern can live in isolation — and neither can this letter. The rest is for Dynamo members, the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats are reserved.* [Join the Dynamos](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup). _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Toyota Production System URL: https://www.circudyne.com/toyota-production-system/ Last updated: 2026-08-24T12:03:57.000Z [‎Toyota Production System‎Business & Personal Finance · 2019![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/favicon-books-48-a8eb8171a8d912ed29d99e7a134953d3-33d8b006-eb8c-4bea-98d8-cbac23da91cc.png)Apple BooksTaiichi Ohno![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wz-b1842fa1-48ac-4367-8ef2-a4268e7895ca.png)](https://books.apple.com/us/book/toyota-production-system/id1565204888?ref=circudyne.com) My first impression of circularity, when I encountered it, [was how much it resembled Lean](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/). I had done Lean engagements as a consultant earlier in my career, and by then the firm I worked for was promoting [Lean](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/lean/) well beyond its original reputation as a cost-reduction method. Lean had come to be understood as a path to organizational health, and organizational health correlates with enterprise value. Firms seeking higher enterprise value were advised to try Lean if they hadn't already, in the hope of earning a higher multiple. Sustainability, meanwhile, was a cost center. As I saw the practice in those days, it was oriented toward mitigating bad behavior rather than creating new kinds of beneficial value, and I doubted its long-term prospects inside any profit-oriented organization for exactly that reason. So when I found that circularity achieved sustainability goals while closely resembling the method that led to organizational health and enterprise value, I sensed an undiscovered concatenation. My training confirmed the prior: I had been taught to begin Lean engagements with value chain analysis, and that is precisely where my circularity training began too. Ever since, I have written about, spoken about, and tested the proposition that circularity is the logical extension of Lean — what I call [Lean 2.0](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/lean-2-0/). This week I went to the source and read what is arguably the Old Testament of Lean: Taiichi Ohno's *Toyota Production System*. The book confirmed the thesis more literally than I expected. ## The book in brief Ohno wrote the book in 1978, and it offers far more historical context than I anticipated. He was conscious of lineage. He spends a good part of the book on Henry Ford and the Ford process, and on Alfred Sloan and the way General Motors bent the automobile business away from Ford's original principles. Ohno placed Toyota in that sequence: [Ford](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/ford/), then General Motors, then Toyota. The cultural context matters just as much. In August 1945, Toyoda Kiichirō, then president of Toyota, declared that the company must catch up with America in three years or Japan's automobile industry would not survive. The productivity gap was said to be nine to one. Ohno asked the obvious question: could an American really exert nine times the physical effort? Surely the Japanese were wasting something — and if the waste could be eliminated, productivity should rise by a factor of ten. That question was the spark of the Toyota Production System (TPS). It was postwar national pride put to productive purpose, and it was born of necessity rather than abundance. The other thing Ohno was reckoning with was the world of 1978 itself. The book returns again and again to the "low growth" period — the oil crisis had ended the era when any manufacturer could lower unit costs through mere volume. Fordism ran on pure economies of scale: big lots, standardized product, wringing the most out of every die change. Ohno argued that TPS was uniquely suited to a world where that logic was too rigid to adjust to a low-growth environment. A system built for an age of constraint is precisely what an age of constraint calls for. ## An effect mistaken for a cause The famous numbers in the book concern tool changes. In Detroit, switching dies on a press could take the better part of a shift, which placed a premium on standardization and big lots. Toyota drove the same changeover down to as little as three minutes. That opened the line to different models and variants interspersed with one another, and to the load balancing at the core of how TPS works. But Ohno is clear that quick changeovers were an effect of the system rather than its cause. Toyota's sales process was far more tightly integrated with production than Detroit's, so Toyota could see that every car is sold one at a time, to one buyer, who regards it as an individual product. Production had to respect that. The system followed from the demand, and the demand was for variety, of kind and in volume. ## The two pillars TPS rests on two pillars. The first, "autonomation" — distinct from automation — is a clever blending of human and machine. Ohno's machines stop themselves the moment they detect an abnormality, which means a worker no longer stands watch over one machine but moves among many. Detroit made people behave more like machines; Ohno's arrangement made people more powerful, more flexible, and more multi-skilled. The dexterity of the worker and the intelligence of the machine reinforce each other. The second pillar is kanban. Ohno's kanban is distinct from the chart the contemporary lexicon has named after it. In Ohno's meaning, it was a slip of paper in a vinyl envelope that traveled with every part — carrying what the part is, where it came from, where it goes, how many are needed. What struck me is that kanban is metadata for things in the real world. It reminded me of YAML frontmatter in a Markdown document: the object carries its own description and intent. And the discipline had inbuilt limits. Nothing moves without its kanban, defective parts must never be passed to the next station, and the autonomous machines stop on any fault. The effect is that the line has its own reflex — that's the "autono-" in autonomation. The legend that any Toyota worker can stop the line understates the fact — the system stops itself, without requiring judgment or courage at the moment of failure. ## Looking backwards up the line It was Ohno's unique perspective that gave me the book's biggest thrill: a foreshadowing of the reverse logistics that power the [Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/). Ohno tells us he has "always tried to view things upside down," and the invention of just-in-time is his masterpiece of inversion. In his *status quo ante*, the flow supplied materials from an earlier process to a later one. Ohno reversed it: the later process goes to the earlier process and withdraws only what it needs, when it needs it, in the quantity it needs — and the earlier process makes only what was withdrawn. The kanban provides the communication channel. The whole system, from finished car back to raw material, is pulled from the end rather than pushed from the beginning. Ohno used reverse-logistics thinking to solve for efficiency in forward production. The founding gesture of Lean was to make the factory think backwards — to let the downstream state command the upstream flow. Circularity applies the identical logic one step further: the disposed product, moving back against the current, commanding what gets made, remade, and recovered. That loop was always present, if latently so, in Lean's DNA. It was simply cut short at the loading dock, where the value chain stopped, and where responsibility was handed to the customer and the landfill. This is why I no longer present Lean 2.0 as an analogy. It is a continuation. The most celebrated efficiency revolution in business history was, at its origin, a circular one. There is a second inversion worth mentioning. Ohno read Ford's legacy as something to embrace and extend, not subvert. He admired Ford's "brilliant inverse conceptions" — Ford asking whether cotton was really the best material for the job when flax was a locally sourced and better-suited material. Readers of [Playing to Win](https://www.circudyne.com/playing-to-win/) will recognize the perspective. Ohno, and Ford, posed a variation of what [Roger Martin](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/) refers to as [the most important question in strategy](https://www.circudyne.com/what-would-have-to-be-true/): [what would have to be true?](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wwhtbt/) It is also the reasoning posture [Horizons](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horizons/) asks of every circularity strategist. ## A revolution in consciousness Ohno offers a curious phrase to describe a sine qua non for implementing TPS: "a revolution in consciousness." Holding inventory was once wisdom — a hedge, a granary. He declares the hoarding instinct obsolete: industrial society must develop the courage, or rather the common sense, to procure only what is needed, when it is needed, in the amount needed. Almost half a century later, I cannot improve on that sentence as a statement of circularity principle. He also saw that waste compounds — excess workers, equipment, and product generate secondary waste, the cost of managing what should never have existed. We would call these externalities. And notably, when Toyota's method reached its suppliers, Ohno's people went and taught them. Contrast that with the current fashion of burdening suppliers with scope 2 and 3 targets and calling it engagement. The transformation Ohno demanded was a change of attitude before it was a change of tooling — which is, as it happens, the position this letter has argued from [its first issue](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-and-science-of-circular-transformation/). We've often lamented that the circularity transformation lacks its Toyota — its emblematic proof of concept. In providing this authoritative portrait of Lean's, we can better understand the standard that circularity's exemplar has to reach. --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Innovator's Dilemma URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-innovators-dilemma/ Last updated: 2026-08-17T12:03:07.000Z Regular readers of this letter will be familiar with the name Clayton Christensen. He has been [mentioned](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/) here 23 times, more than almost anybody else. There are two reasons for his prominence. First, his various theories are critical enablers for our circularity transformation architecture. But perhaps more importantly, his insight helps make sense of a world that is growing ever more complex and stupefying. *The Innovator’s Dilemma* came out the year I started business school. It was more than required reading: it was what everyone was reading. It entered our collective bloodstream. But strong as that memory remains, a stronger one is a lecture of his at a conference a couple of decades later. [‎The Innovator’s Dilemma, with a New Foreword‎Business & Personal Finance · 2024![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/favicon-books-48-a8eb8171a8d912ed29d99e7a134953d3-28ea94c9-741e-4dbe-b9e5-3939d53b1078.png)Apple BooksClayton M. Christensen![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wz-3f9d487b-aaa4-4b3e-9766-df7553e48b5a.png)](https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-innovators-dilemma-with-a-new-foreword/id6450714439?ref=circudyne.com) Still recovering from a stroke, he gave the lecture sitting down. His voice was subdued and he sometimes struggled to find the right word. It was a powerful moment. I came away from the experience quite in awe, because even though the messenger was weak, the message was strong. Its striking theme: bad management doesn’t kill great companies. Good management in the wrong circumstances does. ## **The book in brief** To define the circumstances, Christensen distinguishes sustaining technology from disruptive. A **sustaining** technology improves a product along the dimensions that current customers already value. It is serious work, in a known direction. Established firms win these contests almost every time. A **disruptive** technology performs worse on the usual scale. It may be cheaper, smaller, simpler, or more convenient, and its market is unknown. But it contains the seed of new growth, and a small number of unusual customers value it at the start. Established firms lose these contests almost every time. The disruptive innovation scenario is Christensen’s area of interest. An established firm sits inside what he calls a value network: the system of suppliers, customers, and end users the firm operates within. It sets expectations on product qualities and profit margins. That inflects the firm’s perspective. A proposal that serves the existing value network tends to look sensible. A proposal that serves a different one looks risky at best. The firm does not reject a disruptive proposal because the firm is foolish. The firm rejects it if it violates the firm's theory of success. ## **Market and technology measures** Re-reading *Innovator’s Dilemma* after almost thirty years resolved a mistake I’ve been making about innovation strategy theory. Before this week I treated "radical" and "disruptive" as synonymous. They are not that. They come from two different theories and measure two different things. According to Christensen (and my friend Professor Raja Roy), Rebecca Henderson and Kim Clark’s theory classifies **technology**. An innovation is incremental or radical depending on how far it departs from what came before. Christensen’s theory classifies the **market**. An innovation is sustaining or disruptive depending on whether it serves the existing value network or a new one. The two measures are independent. Put them on separate axes and you get four categories. 1. **Incremental and sustaining**. Routine improvement. The next model year. Established firms win. 2. **Radical and sustaining**. A step change in technology that serves the existing value network. Established firms also win here. Gasoline power replaced steam power in excavators. 23 of the 25 largest steam shovel manufacturers survived the transition. 3. **Incremental and disruptive**. Simple technology and a new value network. This is where established firms die. Hydraulic excavators used off-the-shelf parts. Minimills melted scrap. 4. **Radical and disruptive**. Both at once. This is difficult for everybody. I have two somewhat provocative examples. [Ford](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/ford/)'s universal EV platform is radical and disruptive. Its “assembly tree” production process is a step change. The downmarket, car-like Fathom truck built on the platform also implies different customers, a different cost structure, and a different definition of the product. Developed by a skunkworks. Christensen refers to this approach as matching the size of the organization to the size of the market. In the way that most large organizations are deploying them, frontier AI models are radical and sustaining — not disruptive. The technology is a step change. The deployment is not. There is no hesitation by established firms to invest in the technology to serve existing customers in familiar use cases. That’s how you know it’s sustaining. It does not mean that artificial intelligence cannot be disruptive: local models promise to offer acceptable performance for an underserved market as frontier models overshoot on performance — a hallmark of vulnerable established firms. ### **Where circularity sits** Now let’s apply the matrix to circularity transformation. The average circularity play these days is usually **incremental and disruptive**. That is a dangerous category for established firms, the worst of both worlds: marginal benefit, high risk. Consider what a circular business model requires. Repair, remanufacturing, and the sale of performance instead of product are not step changes in technology. The engineering is well understood in most cases. The value network is the problem. A circular model serves partly different customers. It earns revenue on a different timeframe. It accepts margins the established firm has adapted to refuse. It measures success against priorities the established firm does not value and finds hard to measure. So the established firm looks at circularity and sees a bad investment. It’s not wrong. The assessment is correct inside its value network. This is what I really value about Christensen. He found a way to remove blame from the diagnosis. The client who declines a circular proposal is not a cynic and is not asleep. The client is applying sound management to a situation where sound management gives the wrong answer, at least as circularity’s benefits are concerned. ### **The three questions** In the summary of his second chapter, Christensen gives us a test to determine an innovation’s category. 1. Will the value network the firm already serves value the performance attributes of this innovation? 2. Must other value networks be addressed or a new one created for the innovation to produce value? 3. Will the market trajectory and the technology trajectory eventually intersect? Let’s measure circularity against these questions candidly. The answer to the first is usually no. This goes to the heart of the [say-do gap](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/say-do-gap/). Consequently, the answer to the second is usually yes; a new value network is required. The answer to the third depends on regulation, material cost, and demand rather than on engineering. As long as this is unknown, it breaks the tie on the other two. And because it is unknowable (as the answer lies in the future except in the case of compulsory regulation), it is usually determinative. We have our work cut out for us. We have to map the circular value network archetypes. We have to chart new archetypes a practitioner could apply. We have to imagine a breed of new solutions that are good enough today to accelerate the transition to circularity tomorrow. ### **The way forward** For established firms intent on circularity transformation, Christensen’s best prescription is a change of organization. You cannot win this fight inside the established organization. The resource allocation process will defeat you. It is designed to kill proposals that current customers do not want and it performs that function well. (A former colleague and co-founder called this “the immune response.”) The remedy is the skunkworks. Build a separate unit sized to the market it serves. Christensen's rules are: 1. Give the project to an organization whose customers need the innovation. Resources then flow toward it without a fight. 2. Make the organization small enough to be excited by small wins. 3. Plan to fail early and cheaply. Treat the first attempts as learning and not as execution. 4. Use the technology as it is. Do not hold it in the laboratory until it satisfies the mainstream market. The most colorful example of this approach in the book was Quantum. It financed a separate company to build the next category of product, kept 80 percent ownership, and housed it offsite. When it succeeded, the parent company replaced its leadership with the skunkworks’. ### **Patient for growth, impatient for profit** A new circular venture should be required to become profitable quickly at small scale. It should not be required to become large quickly. That's the antithesis of the value network of venture capital. Risk capital prioritizes growth. A venture-backed entrant is patient for profit and impatient for growth. That approach is correct for a fund that needs one holding in twenty to return the whole portfolio. It is wrong for a circular venture inside an established firm. (This is another indicator that frontier AI models are not disruptive in Christensen's sense of the word.) I recall a line from Christensen’s lecture, which went something like: “the established firm has a brand, a process, a value network, and capital. The only thing an entrant has is a clean sheet of paper. And that’s usually enough to beat the established firm.” The trick is enforcing that clean sheet of paper, and sizing the skunkworks organization such that it will thrive by serving an emerging market. ### **What Clayton Christensen means to me** Christensen’s lecture at the conference was followed by Scott Galloway, who was in a particularly rock-and-roll mood that day. In the feedback to the conference organizer, I remember writing, “I feel like I just saw a double billing of Mr. Rogers and the Sex Pistols.” I think the similarity between Fred Rogers and Clay Christensen has only grown for me since then. They both taught us to see what’s right with the world, and how to make us make our way through it without losing our sense of wonder. Like every other epochal socioeconomic shift, the Circular Century requires disruption. The old world must make way for the new. *The Innovator’s Dilemma* is not just a strategy compass. It’s a moral one too. --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Playing to Win URL: https://www.circudyne.com/playing-to-win/ Last updated: 2026-08-10T12:03:44.000Z [This season's](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/summer-reading-2026/) [Roger Martin](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/) appreciation theme culminates with *Playing to Win* (2013), the eponymous volume based on the strategy framework copiously cited in these letters and relied upon in our transformation architecture. Credited both to A.G. Lafley and Martin, the book is a memoir as much as a manual: the story of P&G's choices between 2000 and 2009, told by the chief executive who led it and the strategist he called his "alter ego and partner." [‎Playing to Win, Expanded with Bonus HBR Articles‎Business & Personal Finance · 2025![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/favicon-books-48-a8eb8171a8d912ed29d99e7a134953d3-146c15a6-bc64-45a2-ad41-ab4c97f4a7db.png)Apple BooksA.G. Lafley![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wz-de8e9b03-970c-475a-adc2-7ca4bf379566.png)](https://books.apple.com/us/book/playing-to-win-expanded-with-bonus-hbr-articles/id6743630827?ref=circudyne.com) I am a regular and, obviously, ardent reader of Martin's [practitioner essays](https://rogerlmartin.substack.com/), so much of the book was as expected. But there were at least a couple of enlightening surprises: an origin story, which I will cover below; and a realization about what kind of object this book is. It is a realized artifact of strategy. And it was refreshing to dive back into the world of P&G in its heyday. There was also one major unexpected synthesis about moments of truth that is of particular relevance to the task of circularity transformation. ## Five choices — and a product Strategy, the authors insist, is [a dynamic concatenation](https://rogerlmartin.substack.com/p/2021-02-22%5Fthe-motivation-for-strategy-d0396049487fhtml?r=wild&utm%5Fcampaign=post-expanded-share&utm%5Fmedium=web) of questions to be answered: [What is your winning aspiration](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/winning-aspiration/)? [Where will you play](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/where-to-play/)? [How will you win](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/how-to-win/)? [What capabilities must be in place](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/must-have-capabilities/)? [What management systems are required](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/enabling-management-systems/)? The middle pair — where to play, how to win — is the heart, and the five form a [cascade](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/strategy-choice-cascade/) in which choices at the top set context for the ones below, while the ones below reach back up and revise the top. As innovation, *Playing to Win* is sustaining. It presents itself as an agile synthesis of prior work: it cites Michael Porter's five forces and activity system, the fork between cost leadership and differentiation. The book is dedicated to Peter Drucker, whose immortal lesson is translated into P&G's house dialect: the consumer is boss. The cases are lively and relatable — Olay rebuilt to serve a new segment, Gillette learning India by shaving alongside its customers, a diaper priced for parity with an egg. The remarkable thing about this book is that it exemplifies its method. It is a product, not a treatise. Lafley's objective was to make strategy accessible across an organization, easier to communicate, repeatable at every level, from the company to the category to the function. Both authors praise the approach in terms you would use for a well-designed good. P&G codified its brand-building craft as a framework called BBF 1.0 and shipped upgrades through 4.0, the way it shipped Tide improvements — or software updates. For Lafley and Martin, the practitioner is their consumer. Their prescription fits a credible diagnosis. It is accessible, without sacrificing depth. ## Ego is the enemy (of strategy) The most delightful part for me was learning the origin story of a keystone concept. Early in his career, Martin sat with a mining company facing a brutal choice: shut the operation down, or invest to save it. He had a strong view about which option was best. He had just dealt with a client who fatefully and catastrophically ignored his advice in a comparable situation; that experience weighed heavily and he wondered if the cycle was about to repeat. It stressed him out. Then came his career-making realization. It did not matter "a whit" what he thought. The people around the table — the mine managers on one side, head office managers on the other — were the ones who would have to act. His opinion, however good, could not do the acting for them. His job was to serve them. Out of that diminution of ego came the "most important question in strategy": [what would have to be true](https://www.circudyne.com/what-would-have-to-be-true/)? Not *what do I believe*. Not *who is right*. For each option on the table: what would have to be true — about customers, about capabilities, about costs — for this possibility to be a great choice? The question removes the self from the argument so the argument can work. In the process the book builds around it, skeptics are asked to name the exact source of their skepticism instead of denouncing the idea. No one owns a possibility, so no one has to die on a hill for one. Opinions about whether the conditions are true are, in the authors' word, counterproductive; the work is identifying the conditions and testing the shakiest one. [Last week](https://www.circudyne.com/the-logic-of-scientific-revolutions/) I called Martin a philosopher's strategist, or a strategist's philosopher. He lives up to that again this week. The fact that the Playing to Win approach to strategy came from an act of ego destruction comes as no surprise. The philosophy and the strategy are the same move. The story provides an unexpected coda for last week's letter. A [Popperian](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/karl-popper/) conscience is hard for humans because refutation feels personal; what-would-have-to-be-true is falsification with the self taken out. And notice what the question can do that its complement can't: *what is true* can only contemplate things that already exist. *What would have to be true* can contemplate things that do not exist yet. There is no data from the future. But there are conditions, and conditions can be tested. ## The edge of the map By its authors' own designation, PTW is a strategy machine rather than an innovation machine. Lafley kept innovation with separate advisors — the book credits [Clayton Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/) and Innosight on disruption, and Connect + Develop for open innovation — and the strategy choice cascade is quieter about what to do when the playing field itself must be invented. There is an interesting point of entry for radical innovation, though. In the discussion of segmentation, the authors observe that the accepted industry maps are imperfect — like the old maps of a flat world, with edges you could sail off — and they instruct the reader to explore segments that do not currently exist. That is the framework's one door out of its own remit. That's the portal for circularity transformation. At scale, incumbents today are behaving well according to the linear industry map, and they are being rewarded for it. The problem is the map. It is past its expiration date. When Crest expanded from toothpaste to a full oral-care regimen, that was a border adjustment — smart, incremental, and entirely inside the old projection. A circular industry map is a change of projection. A category difference in segments, success criteria, and shape. The proof of the old map's obsolescence is the new territory beyond its borders: the [conscious non-consumers](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/conscious-non-consumer/) who communicate through absence, [economic dark matter for linear brands](https://www.circudyne.com/20260109-are-you-a-punk/). They live past the edge of the incumbent's map, out where the old cartographers wrote their warning. Here be dragons. To brands transformed for circularity, they appear as an underserved segment with potent cultural power. How this extension sits with Martin, I honestly do not know. I hope to ask him one day. ## The Last Moment of Truth Among the tools P&G has wielded to good effect is a pair of moments of truth: the first, when a consumer encounters the product on the shelf; the second, when she first uses it at home. A former colleague of mine at Google, Jim Lecinski, wrote [*ZMOT*](https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/%5Fqs/documents/673/2011-winning-zmot-ebook%5Fresearch-studies.pdf?ref=circudyne.com) and defined the Zero Moment of Truth — the research a shopper now does before ever reaching the shelf. P&G later added a third, when a delighted consumer becomes an advocate. Notice where every one of these moments lives: at the beginning of a product's life. That is the linear economy's field of vision. It sees the courtship and the wedding, and nothing after. Circularity's moment arrives at the other end. Call it the **Last Moment of Truth**: the moment when a product's first life ends and something must happen next. The repair. The refill. The return. The resale. The name works on three levels. [Marie Kondo](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/marie-kondo/) has written a liturgy for the last moment you are with the product: thanking the object for its service, [a parting with intention and grace](https://www.circudyne.com/sparking-joy-the-secret-ingredient-of-the-circular-century/). Circularity as the transformation after which no further transformation is needed. And closing the loop — the final stage in a process. In a circular economy, the Last Moment of Truth is not terminal. One person's last moment restarts the sequence for someone else — and it can restart anywhere: at the listing, on the [atelier](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/atelier/) shelf, or straight into a new home. The returned coat becomes a discovery; the refurbished phone becomes an unboxing. What linear thinking treats as an ending, circular thinking treats as a handoff. And where the linear funnel has one entrance, the loop has many. Last week's letter called for a vision worth choosing and a theory honest enough to avoid becoming dogma. PTW is the machine that builds both. And the Last Moment of Truth is where a circular strategist should point it first. *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats are reserved.* [*Join the Dynamos*](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup)*.* --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Logic of Scientific Revolutions URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-logic-of-scientific-revolutions/ Last updated: 2026-08-03T16:09:13.000Z When compiling this list of summer reading, I knew it had to include two books that [Roger Martin](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/) calls “[required reading if you want to be a great strategist](https://rogerlmartin.substack.com/p/strategy-anomalies-and-scientific)”: Karl Popper's *The Logic of Scientific Discovery* (1959) and Thomas Kuhn's *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions* (1962). I read Popper in college. Kuhn was new to me. [‎The Logic of Scientific Discovery‎Nonfiction · 2005![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/favicon-books-48-a8eb8171a8d912ed29d99e7a134953d3-c5e687bc-41cb-4363-b2df-3979e4f09d78.png)Apple BooksKarl Popper![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wz-3876cd7c-e872-47d9-9192-34116cc09bf2.png)](https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-logic-of-scientific-discovery/id478530042?ref=circudyne.com) [‎The Structure of Scientific Revolutions‎Science & Nature · 2012![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/favicon-books-48-a8eb8171a8d912ed29d99e7a134953d3-2d4f52bf-da08-4459-accc-dd0c23fa5a24.png)Apple BooksThomas S. Kuhn![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wz-088f3629-62af-4f70-ab61-677ef3733724.png)](https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-structure-of-scientific-revolutions/id6445208518?ref=circudyne.com) I have made no secret of my debt to Martin’s leadership and ideas. That he considered these books compulsory reading was good enough for me. But the genius was in pairing the two. The books are important, but the dialectic between them is essential. Martin is a philosopher's strategist, or a strategist's philosopher; that is why I have found him good company on my particular journey. He flies at the right altitude for the question that nags our enterprise: why the [Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/) we can already imagine is taking so long to get here. The debate between Popper and Kuhn, literal and figurative, provides philosophical and historical perspective. **A dialectic on the nature of progress** Popper was a philosopher, and his objective was finding truth. You can think of his book as a defense — and radicalization — of the principle underlying Sherlock Holmes’ famous line about deduction: that when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth. Except for Popper, the process of elimination never ends. He established an exclusive definition of science, embodying a strict standard of testability. No number of confirming observations can prove something is true. No number of white swans establishes the claim that all swans are white, while a single black swan refutes it. Proof of fact being off the table, what science can do is falsify the unfactual. A theory becomes scientific only by sticking its neck out, and the scientist's job is to expose the best available theory to what Popper called the fiercest struggle for survival. It never ends. Whoever decides that a statement is settled and needs no further test, he wrote, needs to retire from the game. Kuhn was a historian, and his objective was solving problems. Science is organized around paradigms, inside the boundaries of which the role of the scientist is to “solve puzzles.” Paradigms contain worlds, comprised of four kinds of commitments: conceptual, theoretical, instrumental, and methodological. It’s a profoundly inductive approach. He emphasized the role that textbooks play in establishing a paradigm’s governing narrative. Most science is what he called "normal science" — refining the paradigm, and pruning observations that won’t fit. The misfits that survive this pruning process accumulate as anomalies. A small number of anomalies are tolerated as exceptions that prove the rule. A large number of anomalies breeds crisis. After that, rarely, a revolution: a rival paradigm that explains the old anomalies, and a community that converts to it. The function that tips the conversion to a new paradigm is a social choice, not a logical one. Persuasion plays its part. The account of their debate at a colloquium in London in 1965 covers this dynamic of paradigm shift. Popper thought normal science was science's failure mode — puzzle-solvers trained out of the critical attitude. Kuhn thought falsification described an ideal of science that has never prevailed; if every misfit killed a theory, all theories would die at birth. That was when I realized Martin slipped something sneaky into his prescription for reading these two books. Once I perceived Popper and Kuhn’s quarrel, I expected to have to choose a side. But what I left with was a cleaner way to understand the space between. Both men believed in solving problems. They disagreed about what the solving answers to. Popper's scientist answers to reality: solve the problem to get nearer to the truth. Kuhn's answers to the community: solve the puzzle to extend the paradigm, and when the paradigm fails, win the revolution by conversion — because proof alone is not sufficient for change. Truth on one side. Working agreement on the other. The two sides of progress. **A movement before its paradigm** Kuhn offers a diagnostic for telling where a discipline stands. Before its paradigm arrives, he says, you find deep and recurring debates over legitimate methods, problems, and standards of solution — debates that define schools rather than produce agreement. If you have spent time in the circular economy literature, you may feel a shock of recognition. Metrics that disagree, frameworks that multiply, subscale experiments that peter out when the community loses interest. Kuhn would regard this disarray sympathetically: as the signature of a discipline whose paradigm has not yet been founded. What is missing is the founding achievement itself — the demonstration unprecedented enough to pull adherents away from competing approaches and open-ended enough to hand them a generation of work. I have written before that [circularity is Lean 2.0](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/), but the circular Toyota has not yet emerged. Kuhn gives us the reason why that absence matters so much. Until the exemplar exists, there is nothing to inspire conversion. **The double stall** Meanwhile the incumbent paradigm behaves exactly as Kuhn says paradigms behave. The linear economy's anomalies are hardly hidden — the [say-do gap](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/say-do-gap/) between what people profess to want and what the market gives them to buy, the externalities that squirrel costs under somebody else's carpet, the resource scarcity choices that evade ratification. Each is perceived as an exception, a cost of doing business, a problem for a later quarter. Popper saw this kind of maneuver for what it was: whenever the classical system of the day is threatened, the system will appear unshaken to the "conventionalist," who explains the inconsistencies away. > A paradigm that does not yet exist cannot be verified into existence The challengers make the opposite error. We keep trying to win by verification — searching for the settled proof, the definitive case study, a metric that ends the argument. But there is no data from the future. A paradigm that does not yet exist cannot be verified into existence, and Kuhn is blunt about why: paradigm debates concern which candidate should guide work on problems neither side can yet claim to solve. Demanding proof before commitment gets the logic exactly backwards. So the transition stalls twice over. An old paradigm defends itself the way paradigms always do, and a successor has not yet learned that it cannot win by proof. As Gramsci put it, the old is dying and the new cannot be born. The choice between Popper and Kuhn looks, on its face, like a dilemma. But it behaves like a set of instructions. Like [a certain binary](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clarkes-binary/) I [wrote about in June](https://www.circudyne.com/the-circular-century-so-what/), it disallows indifference — and whichever side you choose, the work turns out to be the same. Posit your theory honestly. Hunt the anomalies. Build the thing a community can convert to. That is the position Martin stakes out between the two philosophers, and it is why he recommends strategists read both books. One's strategy, he writes, is in essence a paradigm — a theory of winning, never the truth, only the best construction available at the moment. You hold it with a Popperian conscience: watch for the anomalies, and keep asking [what would have to be true](https://www.circudyne.com/what-would-have-to-be-true/) for a theory that makes them expected. And you advance it by Kuhnian means, because markets, boards, and organizations are communities, and communities are converted rather than compelled. Circudyne's project is to carry that lesson one step past strategy — to point it at circularity transformation, where the paradigm waiting to be founded is larger than any one firm. A vision of a better future and a theory of success are the chicken and the egg. **Golden ages are chosen** [Carlota Perez](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/carlota-perez/) mapped how technological ages turn over: each great surge installs its technologies first, and only afterward — sometimes long afterward — opens into the broad prosperity she calls a golden age. The turn is conditional. The installed technologies can become a golden age if we aim them at something worth having. I [wrote about her pattern in June](https://www.circudyne.com/coping-with-abundance/), and the line I keep returning to is the one that assigns us the work: golden ages are chosen, not delivered. The infrastructure points the way. It does not walk the road. Popper and Kuhn, read together, explain why our time for choosing is past due. The choice is a paradigm shift. And a paradigm shift requires exactly that pairing: a vision compelling enough that a community converts to it, and a theory of success honest enough to keep the new paradigm from settling into the next dogma. A Kuhnian act, performed with a Popperian conscience. That is why this moment calls for philosophy and strategy at once — and why, midway through a summer of reading, a report on two philosophers of science belongs in a story about economic and cultural transformation. There is a pair of first principles to consider. Science reconciles us to what is true. Strategy commits us to what we choose. The Circular Century will be founded by people who can do both at once. *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats are reserved.* [*Join the Dynamos*](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup)*.* --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Industrial Dynamics URL: https://www.circudyne.com/industrial-dynamics/ Last updated: 2026-07-27T12:03:30.000Z The term “scientific management” is at once widely accepted and vaguely mysterious. The pervasive need for more data, for the creation and following of more metrics, the proliferation of colorful dashboards and experiments all point to the business world borrowing the methods of the physical sciences. But where does this come from? What is the origin of this perspective? The subject of this *Letter,* the latest in our [summer reading series](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/summer-reading-2026/), is thematically related to the others in two ways. [*Industrial Dynamics*](https://a.co/d/02LqZ6Qi?ref=circudyne.com) and its author, Jay Wright Forrester, are cited by [Donella Meadows](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/donella-meadows/) as formative for her work. She studied under Forrester at MIT, and later cited *Industrial Dynamics*, the book and the discipline, as the basis for her work in systems theory. We read her [*Thinking in Systems*](https://www.circudyne.com/thinking-in-systems/) last week. [Industrial dynamics : Forrester, Jay Wright : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive464 pages : 27 cm![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/glogo-ed1926a1-b980-43e3-b00d-24f9ff3833a5.jpg)Internet ArchiveForrester, Jay Wright![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/industrialdynami0000forr-c0e881d6-7a64-4837-94d1-c4125c95eae4)](https://archive.org/details/industrialdynami0000forr/page/n5/mode/2up) But there is another connection. I have found [Roger Martin](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/)’s application of [Aristotle](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/aristotle/)’s philosophy to strategy as a useful lens for probing what is missing in the advancement of circularity. He has referred to the single-minded application of scientific management techniques as [“the pervasive analytical blunder of strategists](https://rogermartin.medium.com/overcoming-the-pervasive-analytical-blunder-of-strategists-a5a4c52289b4?ref=circudyne.com).” So this week our reading serves two purposes. We continue our exploration of the intellectual origins of circularity. We also examine the “blunder of strategists” charge against a capable defendant. On the latter purpose, it feels fair to spoil the ending up front. It is the same conclusion we have drawn elsewhere in this series: scientific management is necessary. It is not sufficient. We know this because the people who built it told us so: - [In his introductory guide to the circular economy](https://www.circudyne.com/the-circular-economy-a-users-guide/), [Walter Stahel](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/walter-stahel/) lamented in his closing pages that the supply-side logic of circularity was not enough to create a longing for it. - Donella Meadows codified the analytical toolkit of circularity, then made the appeal to something beyond for its fulfillment: a future “envisioned and brought lovingly into being.” In her TED talk, Ellen MacArthur puts the system itself at the center — not the production or consumption *per se,* but the operating system underneath. Systems thinking as circularity practices it was codified by Meadows. Meadows learned it inside the group Jay Forrester founded at MIT. Four steps back from that TED talk is a book from 1961, written by an engineer who spent the war building weapons. Consider the mood in America in those days. Two years before Forrester published *Industrial Dynamics,* the Ford and Sloane Foundations decided America's business schools were not scientific enough. That they could learn from the war effort. Forrester’s work at MIT was funded by the Ford Foundation in support of that mood. It’s a surprising wellspring for the circularity movement. It deserves our understanding. ## An unexpected debt It turns out, I owe much of my own thinking to Forrester. I named this practice Circudyne (for “circular dynamics”) before knowing there was a book called *Industrial Dynamics,* or that a discipline by that name had been taught for fifty years. I’m no more immune to the power of his message than anyone else, I guess. There's more. Forrester opens his book by defining and delineating art from science. "We succeed before we understand why," he writes. Every worthwhile human endeavor begins as an art, practiced on judgment and experience, and the underlying science arrives later, out of a need to understand the foundation the art was already standing on. The first letter I published here was called [*the Art and Science of Circular Transformation*](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-and-science-of-circular-transformation/)*.* [The Art and Science of Circular TransformationIntroducing Circudynamics: systematic integration of strategy, worldbuilding, technology, culture & brand for circular transformation advantage.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-95f6e1c3-a5f2-4708-9d09-4eb22c4b2902.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/circudynamics-a9921182-2794-44f9-a0fb-b4941a3974fc.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-and-science-of-circular-transformation/) His purpose rhymes too. He says at the outset that industrial dynamics offers a single framework for integrating the separate functions of management, and that the point of the framework is to *design* better industrial and economic systems. That is what I am after in arguing that circularity should be promoted from a sustainability tactic [to a transformation strategy](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/). One frame across the functions, aimed at design. [Circularity is Lean 2.0: Business Case for TransformationCircular transformation follows Toyota’s Lean playbook: systematic waste elimination creates sustained competitive advantage beyond operational gains.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-b3782495-d2bf-4ef3-a9e9-c637e95e963c.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250302-key-art-23f25544-a052-45e0-897b-b8b6683d2fff.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/) So: I declare the debt. My nomenclature, much of my aesthetic, and some of my intellectual furniture are from Forrester's generation. His legacy is prodigious. His central tenet was “the information-feedback system.” This was the engineering principle first developed at Bell Labs that led the way to weapons in WWII that could aim themselves. Information-feedback as a progenitor technology is recognizable in many modern vocabularies. Engineers call it control theory. Management calls it systems thinking. Every cloud platform runs on what its builders call a reconciliation loop. Machine learning calls it the agent and its environment. Executives call it a flywheel. Climate scientists just say feedback loops. Supply chain gave his discovery a name of its own, the bullwhip effect, and then later named it after him. [You can look it up](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullwhip%5Feffect?ref=circudyne.com). ## War was Forrester’s disruptor Forrester cited four foundations: - The theory of information feedback, worked out in weapons development, where the problem was computing an automatic firing solution against a moving airplane and correcting it as fresh radar returns arrived. - A new account of how decisions actually get made, out of military doctrine. Quickening the cadence of battle meant shifting attention from tactics to strategy, and that required writing the tactics down to make them repeatable. - The experimental approach to systems analysis, which we would now call simulation and scenario planning. Also a war product. - The digital computer, an accelerant for the other three. Notice what the war is in that account. It is the source of the tools. It is also, to him, the supreme disruption — something so violent and so poorly damped that he made a career *and* a science out of the study of modulation. Consider that against our own moment. We are *enchanted* by disruption. The prevailing attitude in technology is “move fast and break things.” Forrester would find that anathema. To his generation disruption was the pathology, the thing a well-designed system mitigates. The subject of [Clayton Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/)'s study would have struck them as a category error. (We’ll cover Christensen in a few weeks.) That might partially explain how Digital Equipment Corporation was disrupted by the PC while Forrester sat on its board. Forrester also published a scorecard, calling it “the challenge to management.” It laid out the three main practical benefits he predicted would accrue from the careful application of industrial dynamics. - “International economic development” — by which he meant building firms that could serve a global market. **Check**. Globalization happened, and partly by these methods. - “Middle management and technical effectiveness” — **Check**. We got Six Sigma, we got OKRs, we got a KPI for everything. - “Long-range planning” — **not so much**. I think we can say without argument that modern management has failed to fulfill this possibility. Instead there was a migration toward metrics that drove short-termism. Models run on data, and bigger models need more data. This led to a managerial bias towards activities that produce data, and away from intangible goods; away from the future, from which there is no data. This failed prediction explains why circular economy strategies, if you can call them that, have remained steadfastly technocratic and immune to broader appeal. ## Defending the source of growth In a 1968 paper, he struck a note that might surprise readers of his protégé Meadows, and the degrowth crowd. Nearly the entire literature on feedback, he says, concerns what she called “the balancing loop” — the thermostat, the correction, the return to a setpoint. Almost none of it addresses the “reinforcing loop.” And every source of growth in a system is a reinforcing loop. He felt the discipline had lost its sense of balance. That matters because of the next link in the chain to circularity. *The Limits to Growth* arrived in 1972 out of his own group at MIT, arguing that growth meets limits: overshoot, ceiling, constraint. A great and necessary book, it set the tone for fifty years of environmental thought. Then Ellen MacArthur reached back to the precursor of *Limits to Growth:* Forrester. In her account, she describes learning about finite materials and responding the way a thoughtful person responds in the face of it — traveling less, doing less, using less. Then she says that made her feel uneasy. It felt like buying time. Even if everybody did it, the problem would remain, because the system would remain. That is the half everybody quotes. But the essence of her vision is incomplete without the other half. She put the question to system analysts: could a circular economy "decouple growth from resource constraints"? Forrester's descendants said yes. Restraint is insufficient. Growth is not the enemy. What has to change is the relationship between them. And Forrester was all about the relationship between elements in a system. MacArthur spent three months alone at sea, where everything she had is what she carried aboard. She says no experience could have taught her the meaning of the word finite so well. A boat is a closed system with a person living inside it, which is a scenario Forrester would have recognized. She also says she had to understand the system in order to win. Not to survive. Not to balance. Win. Circularity's leading light is growth-positive. But the community that answered her call is drawn mainly to the balancing loop. Forrester cautioned against that system bias 58 years ago. That is why many in the circular movement can discuss restraint fluently but not the desire for growth. Forrester is aware of prevalent human and system imperfection. In the beginning of the book he lists the evidence that we are not yet good enough at designing social systems: labor turmoil, bankruptcy, inflation, economic collapse, political unrest, revolution, war. Every item is a disturbance to be damped. The man defending growth also treats change itself as a problem and stability as the goal. Both are true of him. ## A propagation error In his 1968 self-assessment, seven years after the book’s publication, Forrester assessed his own progress and found a bottleneck he was unable to resolve: that the science as he codified it was inaccessible to all but the most trained systems engineers. There was no reliable route to competence except apprenticeship. His book, he warned, reads as though it can be understood without specialized training, which makes it misleading: a reader finishes it feeling instructed, turns to the world, and cannot do the work. The only people likely to succeed were those who had studied feedback dynamics in an engineering curriculum first. This failure has not yet been fully resolved. The progress of circularity has suffered because of it. In *Industrial Dynamics* he acknowledged the problem, and gave management science twenty-five years to deliver a new dimension of management effectiveness. From 1961, that clock ran out in 1986. In 1989 he addressed a banquet in Stuttgart and described what had happened instead. The early work ran in what he called consultant mode: study a company, go away, build the model, return with recommendations. The recommendations were accepted. People agreed with the logic. And then, under the pressure of daily operations, they went back to doing what they had done before. Changing how decisions get made, he said, is far harder than they had realized. Mental models do not yield to logical argument alone. Industrial dynamics was not a failure. Two of his three challenges were met, and the apparatus he built remains foundational to our economy’s operating system. It is a partial victory, and the missing part is specific: technocratic quicksand. Forrester critiqued the perceived shortcomings of the Harvard case method, for its dependence on intuition over formula. He attacked liberal arts education for the same reason. He was right about the question of transferability. But the thing he needed in 1989 — the ability to transcend logic to persuade — is precisely what the liberal arts are for. This is precisely the reason [Martin prescribes Aristotle's *Rhetoric*](https://hbr.org/2017/09/management-is-much-more-than-a-science?ref=circudyne.com). ## Something that does not yet exist emits no signal You might suppose the trouble is a boundary problem; that circularity's error is drawing its system too small, leaving the customer on the outside. Forrester's own rule permits that possibility. A variable belongs outside your boundary only if nothing inside affects it. And he applies the rule to demand himself. In his model of a new product there is a loop where orders lengthen the backlog, the backlog lengthens the delivery delay, and the delay makes the product less attractive to the customer, which lowers the order rate. Customer desire sits inside the system as a quantity, moved by the factory's own performance. But look at what kind of desire that is. It responds. It is modulated by delivery times. He labels the loop negative, meaning self-correcting, aimed at a market that already exists. We have a phrase for it now: product-market fit. For something new to the world, the limit is not where the boundary sits. A feedback system requires a signal, and a thing that does not yet exist emits none. It’s a logical error. Draw the boundary as wide as you like. There is nothing on the far side to observe. The method needs a history, and novelty by definition has none. Which is where Aristotle turns up. He divided the world in two: part of it *cannot* be other than it is; drop a ball and it falls, and a sample of the past predicts the future exactly. The rest *can* be otherwise, because it involves people. Analysis for the first part, invention and persuasion for the second. Business education ignored that line, which is Martin's lament. The prevailing wisdom of circularity ignores it too. And circularity lives entirely on the other side of the boundary. It asks people to own differently, buy differently, want differently. No amount of past consumer data will tell you whether they will. Here is the sharpest way I can put it in systems terms. Product-market fit is a goal-seeking loop with the existing market as its goal. On Meadows' ranking of [places to intervene in a system](https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/?ref=circudyne.com), that sits near the bottom, among parameters and buffers, the weakest places to push. Moving the goal is her third-strongest lever, because a system's behavior is acutely sensitive to what its loops are aiming at. The disruptive innovators of today move the goal. The systems tradition provides the logic, but not the argument. Perhaps that’s why they are so keen to break things. None of which makes the systems apparatus wrong. It is sound but incomplete. It has no organ for generating a premise. Ask what [would have to be true](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wwhtbt/) and you produce conditions; a model consumes conditions. Imagination supplies the premise, simulation stress-tests it, the prototype makes the data. Only one of them can go first. ## Art, then science, then art I mentioned at the top that Forrester had something to say about art and science: that art develops through experience and then plateaus, because its knowledge is disorganized. That science arises to explain and compress that experience. That the science then becomes a new foundation from which the art further evolves. Think about where the circular economy transition sits on that curve: plateaued on disorganized knowledge — special cases, poor transfer, every firm convinced its situation is unique. That is Forrester's description of a stalled art, and it is the state description of our movement today. But his analysis offers hope. Art, then science, then art again: a ratchet that turns. *Industrial Dynamics* was an historic advance in Aristotle's first kind of knowledge. But Aristotle showed us the other kind, too. Two sorts of knowledge, permanently distinct, neither reducible to the other. The first letter I published here was called *the Art and Science of Circular Transformation.* The conjunction in that title is the argument. --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Thinking in Systems URL: https://www.circudyne.com/thinking-in-systems/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T12:03:04.000Z > Systems thinking makes clear even to the most committed technocrat that getting along in this world of complex systems requires more than technocracy. > — Donella Meadows, *Thinking in Systems* --- [Summer reading](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/summer-reading-2026/) continues! In [last week's *Letter*](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-summer-camp/), we read the trio of founding texts that inform the substance of circularity: [*Biomimicry*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/biomimicry/), [*Cradle to Cradle*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/cradle-to-cradle/), and [*the Performance Economy*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/performance-economy/). This week we pick up the book that gave us its mindset. *Thinking in Systems* by Donella Meadows provides a shared vocabulary for everyone interested in circularity: stocks, flows, feedback loops, leverage points. [‎Thinking in Systems‎Business & Personal Finance · 2008![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/favicon-books-48-a8eb8171a8d912ed29d99e7a134953d3-25984824-bb93-4425-9544-a1e22af0fcba.png)Apple BooksDonella Meadows![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wz-9f1b5b6a-2b0b-4336-b4d3-1af594612625.png)](https://books.apple.com/us/book/thinking-in-systems/id6744044771?ref=circudyne.com) I finished it this week and found something new. The book ends, compellingly, with the message that the toolkit is necessary, but not sufficient, for making change. ## A toolkit that works Meadows diagrams capital stock as two loops in tension. Investment feeds the stock and compounds — a reinforcing loop. Depreciation drains it — a balancing loop. Whichever loop dominates decides whether the system climbs exponentially (and crashes when resources run out) or reaches equilibrium. Obsolescence is a peer to depreciation. You raise a stock by slowing its outflow as surely as by speeding its inflow. That statement is [Stahel](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/walter-stahel/)'s "[era of R](https://www.circudyne.com/the-circular-economy-a-users-guide/)" in systems vocabulary. Service-life extension *is* outflow reduction. Repair, remanufacture, upgrade — every one of them slows the discharge. Now consider our status quo. [Planned obsolescence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/planned-obsolescence/) speeds the outflow on purpose. Accelerated depreciation does the same thing on the balance sheet. Two faces of one coin, both shortening the working life of the stock. Meadows describes the balancing loops of a house, a furnace, and a thermostat. The furnace runs according to the weather outside. Make it artificially colder and the furnace runs harder. The harder it runs, the earlier it meets its "breakdown point." That describes the linear economy's relationship with everything it builds. We manufacture a hostile climate for our own capital stock and act puzzled when nothing lasts. Premature breakdown points proliferate. As Dark Helmet exclaims in [*Spaceballs*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/mel-brooks/): "...even in the future, nothing works!" Meadows strikes a subversive note. She ranks the interest rate among humanity's worst ideas, because it biases financial analysis against the long view. [Manufactured dependence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/manufactured-dependence/) does the same thing. ## System understanding does not confer control Her concluding message in the book is a confession of sorts, about her own failures to influence systems under her direct control. She (and her colleagues) lectured on the structure of addiction and could not quit coffee. They mapped the trap of eroding goals and watched their own routines erode. They taught the dynamics of escalation, then built escalation into their marriages. The substance underneath that revelation is pertinent to all who would apply system analysis to the real world. Self-organizing, nonlinear, feedback systems are unpredictable. They cannot be controlled. Any objective worth pursuing is complex enough to defy predictive analysis. We cannot optimize because we don't know what variable to optimize, or even which direction to move it. Then she takes this observation to its logical endpoint. *Understanding* a system and *managing* one is a category difference. Analysis can only take you so far. This is a rather important point that you seldom see in the literature of the circular economy. ## Aristotle figured it out a while ago Regular readers will know how much I have come to admire and depend on [Roger Martin](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/) and his work. He has [an essay](https://rogermartin.medium.com/overcoming-the-pervasive-analytical-blunder-of-strategists-a5a4c52289b4?ref=circudyne.com) I keep returning to, about epistemology and its application to strategy. Its memorable takeaway: "There is no data about the future — ever." Martin cites [Aristotle](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/aristotle/)'s two kinds of knowledge. - Part of the world where things *cannot* be other than they are. Drop a ball and it falls. It will fall the same way tomorrow, so a sample from the past represents the future perfectly. Analysis works beautifully there. - The rest of the world is where things *can* be other than expected, because it involves people, and people change. A survey about smartphone use in 1999 tells you nothing about what will happen in 2020, since in 1999 nobody knew what a smartphone was. Martin's lament is that business education in its current state trains people to apply Aristotle's first method to the second world. Look at Meadows through that lens and the two perspectives lock together. Her definition of a system — self-organizing, nonlinear, unpredictable — *is* Aristotle's second category. They mapped the same boundary from opposite directions. Martin found it through strategy. Meadows found it through ecosystems. The road to the [Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/) runs through far side of that line. It offers opportunities for people to own different, buy different, want different. No amount of past consumer data will tell you how that is going to work out. "The Circular Century offers opportunities for people to own different, buy different, want different." ## Both of them prescribe imagination Martin invokes Aristotle's remedy. Imagine the possibilities, then choose the one you can argue for most compellingly. After that, prototype: build a small version and turn the future into the past, so that at last you have data about it. Meadows lands in a similar place. The future cannot be predicted. It can be envisioned, and brought into being with care. Her conclusion waxes lyrical: > Systems thinking... says that there is plenty to do, of a different sort of “doing.” The future can’t be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. I think she uses that word "lovingly" with a rigorous intention. Which raises a stubborn objection. So let's talk about it. Imagination without discipline is daydreaming. What separates the two is judgment, theory, and the scientific method. Finding truth starts with a hypothesis. Building a better future starts with a dream. Envisioning a future we would choose to live in wastes nobody's time. It is the first step of progress. Circularity owns a surplus of models and runs a deficit of dreams. Meadows told us which one was missing. More of us should read this book to the end. *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people reading along with us. If you're here as a guest, you're welcome at the table. The marginalia is reserved.* [*Join the Dynamos*](https://www.circudyne.com/#/portal/signup)*.* --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Circularity Summer Camp URL: https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-summer-camp/ Last updated: 2026-07-13T12:03:27.000Z We started our [summer reading](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/summer-reading-2026/) last week at the beginning with [Walter Stahel's *Circular Economy: A User's Guide*](https://www.circudyne.com/the-circular-economy-a-users-guide/). A masterwork of supply-side economic theory, it admittedly falls short of its intended demand-side goal: "to build a ship… you must first make men long for the sea." Still, we had to admire the balanced synthesis of its inputs. This week we investigate those inputs. Three books: Janine Benyus's [*Biomimicry*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/biomimicry/), William McDonough and Michael Braungart's [*Cradle to Cradle*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/cradle-to-cradle/), and Stahel's own [*The Performance Economy*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/performance-economy/). The founding texts of the circularity movement. [‎Biomimicry‎Science & Nature · 2009![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/favicon-books-48-a8eb8171a8d912ed29d99e7a134953d3-4baf7d17-fbc7-4d26-b69d-1d03281f3542.png)Apple BooksJanine M Benyus![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wz-0ce5f466-ad92-46c5-a633-048eb0a93c68.png)](https://books.apple.com/us/book/biomimicry/id360635459?ref=circudyne.com) [‎Cradle to Cradle‎Science & Nature · 2010![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/favicon-books-48-a8eb8171a8d912ed29d99e7a134953d3-3abb0b4b-2109-46a5-bca7-c060bf92eca3.png)Apple BooksWilliam McDonough![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wz-192c7927-5617-4cd4-b0f8-f6ca48cd063c.png)](https://books.apple.com/us/book/cradle-to-cradle/id375140683?ref=circudyne.com) [The Performance EconomyThis updated and revised edition outlines strategies and models for how to use technology and knowledge to improve performance, create jobs and increase income. It shows what skills will be required to produce, sell and manage performance over time, and how manual jobs can contribute to reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Palgrave Macmillan UKWalter R. Stahel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/9780230274907-1a442055-cc6e-46fc-8ef0-fa8331fc05ea.jpg)](https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230274907?ref=circudyne.com) These are sophisticated works, and quite wide-ranging. Reading through them, I was entertained by the notion that each offered the chance to earn merit badges, from felling a tree at the beginning to making a canoe in the middle to paddling a race at the end. Kind of like a summer camp. That is what a beginning can look like. A diverse set of bright kids arriving from different towns, discovering by the end of the first week that they were all into the same thing. It's a good summer when you both learn how to build the ship… and develop a longing for the sea (er, lake). ## Three merit badges Each book interrogates our moment through a different first principle. Each is necessary, none by itself is sufficient. Benyus asks about **limits**. By interrogating living systems, she defines what a mature system does: it runs on sunlight, uses only the energy it needs, banks on diversity, and taps the power of limits rather than fighting them. Nature curbs its excesses from within and by design. McDonough and Braungart ask about **waste**. Their question is effectively insolent. What if the category of waste did not exist? Not less waste, but no such thing as waste. If a cherry tree drops its blossoms on the ground by the thousand nobody calls it wasteful. Braungart is a chemist and McDonough is an architect, which gives their book an unusual reach. Their territory spans from the molecule to the blueprint. Stahel asks about **time**. If you sell jet engines, you want to shorten the time between sales. If you sell thrust by the hour, you want the engine to fly for thirty years. Same object, opposite incentives. Choose your model, choose your business. Limits. Waste. Time. Keep those three questions in mind and you can interrogate almost any circular proposal that crosses your desk. ## Diagnosis, prognosis, remedy Taken together, these three volumes move through a familiar sequence. - Benyus is diagnosis. She tells you what a healthy system looks like and how sick ours is by comparison. - Stahel is prognosis. He tells you what happens to value over time and what it will cost to ignore time as a factor. - *Cradle to Cradle* builds. There is no substitute for imagination in the remedies. Their imaginations run free. They move beyond the what-if scenarios and propose mature product concepts: factories whose effluent leaves cleaner than it arrived. A washing machine you lease preloaded with two thousand loads' worth of internally recycling detergent. A building that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, distills water, and changes with the seasons, like a tree. There's a gradient that runs like this: as you move from diagnosis to prognosis to remedy, the emphasis shifts from rigorous application of first principles to rampant application of imagination. It's clear when you take these books in at once that you need both. But you cannot reason your way to a remedy nobody has pictured. Somebody has to picture it. This is where the *User's Guide* stops. In conceding the point about inspiring broad desire for a circular future, the book declares its remit. It presents us with a supply-side recipe. We're meant to look elsewhere for visions of remedies. ## Slow loops, fast loops Set *The Performance Economy* next to *Cradle to Cradle* and you notice at least one fundamental disparity. There's a good deal of information value in it. Stahel wants your things to last. Keep the object in service. Repair it, upgrade it, remanufacture it, and the longer it works the better everyone does. *Slow* the loop. McDonough & Braungart want the loop to run as *fast* as you need. Let people have the new thing. Let them desire it, buy it, wear it out, hand it back. Just make sure every molecule comes home, so that the aspiration for the new thing results in no waste. Speed the loop. Same movement, different velocities. Strong conviction on both sides. The logic of both arguments is sound. Which one fits our world? Pondering this question was the biggest pause I took in my reading this week. The only reasonable conclusion is that **loop speed is a design decision, not a moral one.** It follows from what the object is for, and what the business model behind it requires. A turbine, a building, a machine tool, a bridge: the value is in the service life, and the loop should run slow. Stahel is right about these. A jacket, a phone, a kitchen, a chair: the value refreshes with desire, and the loop should run fast, provided the materials come home. McDonough & Braungart are right about those. The linear economy's actual sin was never speed, or fashion. It was running one speed for everything, and sending nothing back. ## Ragweed and redwood Benyus's analysis instructs in another way. By looking deep into nature's past, she evokes humanity's future. Her conceptual framework for the stages of an ecosystem reminded me of the S-shaped curve of the Product Life Cycle. (This may become pertinent in next week's *Letter* when we cover Donella Meadows.) An ecosystem starts as what she calls a Type I system, and it behaves the way you would expect from something young. It grabs. It sprawls. It burns through resources, spends everything on growth, and it is very good at colonizing bare ground. Ragweed does this. So has the linear industrial economy. A mature system, the Type III, does something else. It has been in the same place long enough to understand it. It shops locally, banks on diversity, runs on information, and gets more life out of less material. A redwood forest does this. Anyone who has visited a redwood forest will not mistake it for a diminished version of a ragweed patch. That is the whole aspiration, and it is not a sacrifice. It is a graduation. There is opportunity in this. The question is whether brands can learn how to sell life as a redwood over life as a weed. ## What is the intention? All three books point to the same star: design. Benyus says design may be the most powerful lever we have for moving an economy. Stahel's business models are design decisions expressed as actuarial science and time value of money. McDonough & Braungart treat every design as "a declaration of intent." At this moment, the intent is for accelerated, fundamental system change. It is an act of rebellion, an implicit critique of the forces that brought us to where we are. A persistent refrain of *Cradle to Cradle* is that it is not enough to do *less bad*. That is the essence of today's approach to sustainability, and the authors dismiss its half-measures — the social market economy, business for social responsibility, natural capitalism — as "uneasy alliances, not true unions of purpose." The next move lies upstream of materials and upstream of business models. It is in what we intend a thing to be, before anyone makes it. That is where loop speed is decided. That is where waste is invented or abolished. That is where the longing either gets built in or gets left out. The writers of these three books had to reason from first principles, because there was no playbook. Ingenious pioneers, they had to reason with what they had, and apply wisdom and intention and purpose. They earned every badge the camp had to give. They felled the trees, built the boats, and taught us how to paddle. The last badge — call it longing for the sea, or "true unions of purpose" — is still on the table. That is still the job. --- *Image prompt: First-person point of view from a wooden dock at a retro summer camp, looking across a still lake, a single canoe drawn up on the near shore and another canoe out on the calm water, a neat row of canvas A-frame tents pitched among pine trees along the shoreline, three closed hardcover books stacked on the sun-warmed planks in the near foreground, distant wooded hills, bright calm summer morning, mid-century travel-poster illustration style, 1960s World's Fair poster aesthetic, symmetrical whimsical composition, bold confident graphic design, flat color areas with clean edges, warm optimistic palette, citrine yellow (#FEC400) canvas tents and citrine yellow canoes, teal (#00B7B0) lake water and sky, deep space navy (#1B2951) pines and depth, a small coral red (#F14432) spot accent, pearl gray negative space, gouache and screenprint texture, nostalgic, orderly and inviting, no people, no text* _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Circular Economy: A User's Guide URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-circular-economy-a-users-guide/ Last updated: 2026-07-06T12:03:36.000Z Summer is here, and that means it's time for a new season of *the Circudyne Letter*. I've decided to start a new tradition that lives in harmony with the season: summer reading. My school mandated a slate of books to be read over the vacation. I suppose that while the compulsory aspect was not so welcome, it was nice to have another reason to settle down with books amidst all the celebratory and sensual delights of the season. I intend to make summer reading an annual event here at *the Letter*. This year, I'd like to revisit some of the canonical texts informing the conceptual framework of my practice. The best place to start is at the beginning. The book we'll look at today had the working title *Circular economy for beginners*. It's by [Walter Stahel](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/walter-stahel/), who has been mentioned often in these letters and who subsequently reached out on LinkedIn with a link to it. [‎The Circular Economy‎Business & Personal Finance · 2019![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/favicon-books-48-a8eb8171a8d912ed29d99e7a134953d3-a689d8b3-5491-41db-a2d0-f8ff86b6158f.png)Apple BooksWalter R. Stahel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/1200x630wz-a5d82c22-a9e8-42a3-ba66-f27355d9caf3.png)](https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-circular-economy/id1565201963?ref=circudyne.com) I decided to build a larger list around and behind it — a few core circular-economy texts first, and then some volumes underlying some of the themes of [Circudynamics](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudynamics/): systems, strategy, [Lean](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/lean/), the philosophy of science, the science of beauty and aspiration. If you'd like to follow along, please do. The complete reading list is outlined below. So the season starts where the field starts. *The Circular Economy: A User's Guide* is Stahel's summary of his work leading up to the concept of circularity as we know it today. In the very beginning of the book, he invokes his muse. He quotes Saint-Exupéry: > When you want to build a ship, do not begin by gathering wood, cutting boards and organising work gangs, but rather create the longing for the sea, awaken within men the desire for the vast and endless sea. The shift to a circular economy, Stahel says, depends on that same longing — a bottom-up desire strong enough to make the whole transition self-propelling. He sets the question at the front door of his own book. Does he answer it? Hold that thought. ## An economy built around "YOU" Stahel thinks in epochs. For most of the human story, circularity needed no advocate, because scarcity compelled it. When a castle outlived its politics, its stones became bridges. Then coal and iron broke the constraint, leading to what he calls the *Linear Industrial Economy*. With that framing, he strips the linearity of any vestige of being the natural order of things. It's one epoch among several — a 250-year experiment, bracketed on one side by the circular society of scarcity and, if he has his way, on the other by a *Circular* **Industrial** *Economy* of abundance. The old circularity was imposed. The new one must be chosen. The work happens in two theaters. "The era of 'R'" keeps objects at their highest value and utility: *re*use, *re*pair, *re*manufacture; technological upgrade. "The era of 'D'" recovers molecules at their highest purity: *de*\-polymerize, *de*\-alloy, *de*\-laminate, *de*\-vulcanize. I was struck by how completely these two era-names carry this book on their shoulders, far more prominently than in any of the later literature on circularity I've encountered. The theme runs through every chapter. Manage stocks. Maintain value. Let *use value* take the throne that *exchange value* has held since the beginning of the industrial age. Stahel's device against thesis sprawl is a recurring line, and it is endearing and somewhat startling: *"The centre of the circular economy is YOU."* His emphasis. Then he specifies: - YOU, the owner-user, keeping what you own in service instead of tossing and replacing. - YOU, the owner-manager of used objects, dismantling and remarketing. - YOU, the salesman, backing your goods with lifetime repair. - YOU, the policymaker, closing the liability loop. - YOU, the manager of a fleet. By the closing pages it is simply *you and me*. The book calls us where we are. Every reader leaves with an assignment, and nobody gets to be a spectator. ## A certain kind of caring And what is the nature of the assignment? A shared remedy: *caring*. A specific kind of caring, to be precise. His origin story is the Saxon foresters of 1713, where the word *sustainability* was coined by men who tended forests because forests were the source of their wealth. His household example is Pirsig's motorcycle. His industrial example is [Rolls-Royce](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/rolls-royce/), watching its engines in flight enabling repair while on the wing. This is husbandry — a long, custodial, economically interested relationship with a *stock*. You take care of the thing because the thing takes care of you. Somewhere in the margins of chapter one, I made this note: *caring is a substitute for planning.* It may be the book's hidden message. Nature has no master plan, Stahel observes, and neither did the circular economy of scarcity. What it has instead is millions of custodians, each holding a long relationship with a stock of things (and presumably, with each other). Caring acts as, or at least stands in for, the distributed governance that hasn't fully shown up yet for a transition to a circular industrial economy. ## Reflections Read through the lens of Circudynamics, the book grounds arguments in systems language that I have been making, if I'm honest, from intuition and experience. His account of premature obsolescence and restricted repair is his characterization of [manufactured dependence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/manufactured-dependence/). His regional workshops remanufacturing mass-produced goods parallel [the atelier](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/atelier/). And one sentence near the end was striking: if users had a voice and were heard, he allows, they could become the major change agents of the shift. There is the Circudyne hypothesis, endorsed in passing. He plants the flag and moves on. We differ, honestly, in two places. He expects the circular economy to substitute labor for energy; I think [energy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/distributed-power/) and [machine intelligence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/ambient-intelligence/) are getting too cheap for that trade to pencil out. He files desire under sentiment — vintage-car rallies, heritage pride — and treats it as a minor driver. I think [joy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/joy/) is the major one. But these are quarrels inside an agreement. ## Longing for the sea — not quite. Stahel is modest. He concedes his invocation to the muse goes unanswered. The book has structured and illustrated the principles of the circular industrial economy, he writes — but it may not have answered how to create the longing for the sea. His remaining suggestion: perhaps moving the legal gateposts — depreciation schedules, liability rules, taxing resources instead of labor — is how policymakers might spark some interest. A great economist walks to the edge of his discipline, and sees in the final step a choice between persuasion and compulsion. He chooses regulation. I'm more interested in where he started: by creating a longing for the sea. The concession matters, because the metaphorical longing to which he refers is a stand-in for something fundamental. Stahel admonishes us to remember that the circular *economy* is about economics, and it's hard to argue against that. But economics involves the study of the relationship between supply and demand, and this book — like the field its author helped create — is a supply-side masterwork. Reverse logistics, remanufacturing returns, liability loops, mini-mills: supply, supply, supply. Demand is delegated to policy and to poetry, and so nobody owns it. My operating hypothesis — for this essay and for Circudyne — is that this is the field's debilitating blind spot, and it explains much of why a sensible, profitable, natural next epoch keeps failing to take hold. It's worked out backwards: the engineers built the ship. But hardly anyone is longing for the sea. ## No showroom As Stahel puts it: the circular industrial economy has no showroom. The linear economy is practically made of showrooms — the auto salons, the launch keynotes, the whole luminous apparatus of the point of sale. Circular work as presently conceived and practiced is quiet, local, dutifully whispered mouth to ear. No stage. No window display. No place where longing gets manufactured. Past epochs handled this differently. When the industrial future needed to spark demand, it built showrooms the size of cities. The great expositions — above all [in 1939, where the World of Tomorrow](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/worlds-fair/) turned a picture of prosperity into a dream that a nation later fulfilled and surpassed — did for their century exactly what Stahel says our century is missing. The [Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/) deserves one of its own. That is a longer argument, and readers of this letter have watched me make it for over a year now. Stahel's honesty is instructive. The field's user's guide ends by calling for a longing it fails to create. [Creating that longing is the work of this moment](https://www.circudyne.com/building-cultural-momentum/). --- ### Summer Reading 2026 1. Stahel, *The Circular Economy: A User's Guide*. 2. McDonough & Braungart, *Cradle to Cradle* \+ Benyus, *Biomimicry* \+ Stahel, *The Performance Economy*. 3. Meadows, *Thinking in Systems*. 4. Forrester, *Industrial Dynamics*. 5. Popper, *The Logic of Scientific Discovery* \+ Kuhn, *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*. 6. Martin, *Playing to Win*. 7. Christensen, *The Innovator's Dilemma* \+ *The Innovator's Solution*. 8. Womack/Jones/Roos, *The Machine That Changed the World* \+ Ohno, *Toyota Production System* \+ Deming, *Out of the Crisis*. 9. Alexander, *A Pattern Language* \+ Brand, *How Buildings Learn*. 10. McLuhan, *Understanding Media*. 11. Fadell, *Build*. 12. Hall, *Where Is My Flying Car?* --- *Image prompt: First-person point of view from a quiet New England beach looking out to sea, an elegant modestly-sized sailing sloop plowing the waves in the far distance, a single closed navy-blue hardcover book resting on the pale warm sand in the near foreground, dune grass at the margins, calm bright summer daylight, gentle surf and a broad open sky, mid-century travel-poster illustration style, 1960s World's Fair poster aesthetic, bold confident graphic design, flat color areas with clean edges, warm optimistic palette anchored by citrine yellow (#FEC400) sunlight with teal (#00B7B0) sea and sky, deep space navy (#1B2951) for depth and the book, a small coral red (#F14432) spot accent on the distant hull, pearl gray negative space, gouache and screenprint texture, serene and inviting, no people, no text* --- *Below the line: the equipment — three arguments this book puts in your hands — plus the takeaway and a preview of next week's reading.* _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Carousel of Plenty URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-carousel-of-plenty/ Last updated: 2026-06-29T12:03:26.000Z This is the end of the [*Carousel of Plenty*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/carousel-of-plenty/) series, and the 52nd consecutive weekly *Circudyne Letter*. One letter a week, every week for a year. Worth a moment of reflection. There seem to be as many ways of running this kind of enterprise as there are entrepreneurial writers. The goal of presenting circularity transformation as something more than a sustainability play — that it's the next form of progress, that [it is Lean's successor](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/), that it pays, that [the culture is already turning toward it](https://www.circudyne.com/building-cultural-momentum/) — has pulled me in several directions. My instinct at the outset, which I think has been validated, is that collecting essays into series would provide discipline and creative constraint. Each of these four seasons has felt as much like a semester at school as a quarterly deliverable. It's been a joy, and educational. *Carousel of Plenty* is more than an abstraction. Like the Circular Century, it's a place to go. A destination you cannot picture is a destination you cannot want. So this season we went and furnished the place. Patterned on a great medium from the last century: The GE Carousel of Progress. Like its predecessor, this carousel ride runs through aspirational wonders, like the Robot Milkman, the home that improves with age, a tailored and timeless wardrobe, and a cheap place to eat that's built like a temple. I expected, setting out, that the season would be a catalog. It turned into an argument about the good life. ## Luxury decouples from scarcity Luxury is the business of aspiration. Aspiration is easy to stimulate when there is a competition for goods, and the whole machinery of marketing runs on staging that competition. But the competition changes character depending on where you stand on [Maslow's pyramid](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/maslows-pyramid/). Down at the base it is existential. "If I don't get that loaf of bread" is a sentence about survival. Near the top it is a proxy fight. "If I don't get that sports car" is a sentence about standing. The two could not be more different in substance. The feeling underneath them is identical: *I have to have it.* That feeling is the marketer's product. Scarcity enables it, and the linear economy learned how to make it out of nothing. [Manufactured dependence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/manufactured-dependence/) takes several forms. It embodies things like [planned obsolescence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/planned-obsolescence/), which we have all learned to disdain but have not yet systemically resolved, or evolved to resist. That changes in the Circular Century. [Three forces](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/three-dynamos/) press new forms of abundance into everyone's hands. When you [make your own power](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/distributed-power/), when [intelligence is wired into everything](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/ambient-intelligence/) like electricity, when nothing is wasted and [stuff is conserved into the form of equal or better stuff](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/recombinant-matter/), the hustle loses its cultural and psychological grip. The competition slips ever higher up Maslow's pyramid, until one day the only things left to argue over are art and philosophy. The idea of *that* world turned out to be the center of gravity in this season. When abundance is real and [beauty is everywhere](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/systemic-beauty/), rarity can no longer be the thing that makes something luxurious. The discriminator moves to joy, to craft, to fit, to meaning. Offered caviar or cherries with the scarcity premium stripped away, a person might honestly choose the fruit, because what they want is the thing that fits their life, not what impresses the neighbors. ## Aristocratic bearing for the rest of us We dwelled for a time on *aristocratic bearing*. In today's context, that connotes snobbery. But bearing is not snobbery. Bearing is comfort with one's place in the world. It is the posture of a person for whom the question of material survival is settled and stays so. Despite living in a far more prosperous age, today few people ever feel it; just when somebody makes it, the race for more just restarts. Substantial wealth is not the same as *enough*. The treadmill does not care how fast you are already running. To the luxury trade, and in the good life as it has been sold to us, "enough" is a word that is seldom uttered. General Electric, the sponsor of the Carousel of Progress, used to say: *we bring good things to life.* That was progress: the good life is more things. A hundred or so years ago, that is what we needed to hear. Today, it's the sound of the century we are leaving. And it is the precise opposite of what the Circular Century offers, which is *enough* — the right amount, kept, maintained, yours. It is aristocratic bearing for the rest of us. Which raises the question. If aspiration is the raw material of the good life, is there anything left to long for where "luxuries" are common? There is, and this is the point. When beautiful objects are everywhere, owning what's scarce is no longer the source of pleasure. That is the *noblesse* — the nobility that comes from the pursuit of higher goals than the hustle. Noblesse is the "so what" of joy. It is the working knowledge that you own your joy in the material world, that it cannot be rendered obsolete by the next product cycle. Quality was the dividend of Lean. Circularity turns that value into a [Quality Cascade](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/quality-cascade/), at the end of which sits a kind of dignity that can reach not only every person but, because the waste has been designed out of how we make things, every living thing. Circularity is the decoupling of value from extraction. The good life in the Circular Century is a similar decoupling: the good life unhooked from the economic and environmental hustle that has always been its price. ## A carousel that moved in a straight line The General Electric *Carousel of Progress* opened at the 1964 World's Fair and runs to this day at Walt Disney World, an Audio-Animatronic family man narrating the march of household progress across the decades, all of it resolving into the Sherman Brothers song *There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.* We encounter it today as nostalgia. Read it the way [Marshall McLuhan](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/marshall-mcluhan/) taught us to read things, and [it becomes something more peculiar](https://www.circudyne.com/mcluhan-perception-and-the-role-of-brands-today/). Look at the medium, not the appliances. The audience sat still while the theater revolved around fixed stages. Progress was a thing that happened *to* you, automatically, while you were carried past it in a comfortable chair. The past stayed put as a diorama you left behind. Tomorrow stayed permanently one act ahead, never arriving, because the show had to loop and the buying had to continue. The medium was a circle. The message was a straight line that never reached its end. A story about a treadmill. Beneath the warm family scene, the good life was something you consumed. The Carousel of Plenty keeps the metaphor and fixes the message. This time the content is finally as circular as the form. Tomorrow stops receding, because the season's promise is not *more* but *enough*, and enough is a place you can actually step off the treadmill. ## The season at a glance The Carousel of Plenty was conceived as a catalog, and it reads best as one. Twelve scenes, each depicting something the Circular Century makes ordinary, arranged from the infrastructure outward to the self and its freedoms. [**The Robot Milkman**](https://www.circudyne.com/the-robot-milkman/) *The delivery that arrives full and leaves with the empties.* The season opened on the humblest possible image, a little robot that delivers goods *and* picks up the empties. It symbolizes the larger machine: a business that profits from the return trip, not the replacement sale. → When the maker is paid to take it back, abundance and waste finally stop traveling together. [**The Atelier**](https://www.circudyne.com/the-atelier/) *The workshop that keeps alive what you already own.* The institutional form behind the season. Not a store that sells you the next thing, but a house that maintains, alters, and renews the things you have, the way the wealthy have always kept a tailor. → The atelier of democracy: the artisan's relationship with objects, available to everyone. [**The Neighbors**](https://www.circudyne.com/the-neighbors/) *Production moves back onto the street.* Distributed making, local energy, the productive neighborhood. The supply chain shortens until it runs down your own block. → Sovereignty is partly a matter of distance. The shorter the line, the freer the household. [**The Living Home**](https://www.circudyne.com/the-living-home/) *How it feels to live in a home that gets better with time.* The dwelling as the test case for everything. A house that appreciates through care rather than depreciating through neglect. → Maintenance is not a chore you owe the house. It is the house returning the favor. [**Energy Sovereignty**](https://www.circudyne.com/energy-sovereignty/) *The house that powers itself, and the grid that thanks it for it.* The three Dynamos made domestic. Distributed power, storage, and intelligence turn the home from a meter into a small, generous utility. → The clearest taste of bearing the season offers: a household that owes the system nothing it cannot supply itself. [**The Companion Device**](https://www.circudyne.com/the-personal-companion/) *The device fitted to you on your first day of school, still yours a lifetime later.* The anti-upgrade. A device that ages like a baseball glove, grows with you and earns its character through the long collaboration between maker, owner, and time. → Systemic Beauty over the spec sheet. The object becomes a record of a life rather than a reject in a landfill. [**Something Borrowed**](https://www.circudyne.com/something-borrowed/) *Owning, borrowing, pooling: three modes of access, three new freedoms.* The performance economy comes home. You buy the outcome, not the hardware, and the maker stays on the hook for the whole life of the thing. → Access unbundled from ownership is access unbundled from burden. [**The Curated Wardrobe**](https://www.circudyne.com/the-curated-wardrobe/) *Your style — not the season's, not the algorithm's — fitted, refreshed, expertly maintained.* The closet as studio. Clothing chosen for fit and meaning, kept in good order, free of the churn that fashion manufactures. → The morning starts settled. The settledness is the luxury. [**The Commissary**](https://www.circudyne.com/the-commissary/) *The good meal, made near you, served like a civic right.* The automat reimagined as a temple of democracy: everyday craft and local food offered with a dignity usually reserved for the costly. → Plenty is not a private hoard. At its best it is a shared room. [**Personal Mobility**](https://www.circudyne.com/personal-mobility/) *The right vehicle for every trip, owned by no one in particular.* Mobility unbundled from the car in the driveway. Here the season named its own terms: conspicuous consumption giving way to inconspicuous craft, and the Sufficiency Frame arriving as a stated idea. → The freedom is not the second car. It is no longer needing it. [**Coping with Abundance**](https://www.circudyne.com/coping-with-abundance/) *What people do once the struggle for enough is finally over.* The turn from catalog to sociology. How earlier breakaways from scarcity — the old aristocracy, the digital generation — handled their abundance, and what the Circular Century can learn from both. → Abundance is not the end of the story. How a culture *carries* it is. [**The Circular Century — So What**](https://www.circudyne.com/the-circular-century-so-what/) *The last letter asks what all of it is for.* The finale convened a council of the departed and put one plain question to the season: so what? The answer: nothing less than the evolution of humanity into something we can be proud of. → Sovereignty, joy, and worth, folded into one. The *telos* the furniture was always serving. ## What it was all for Read forward, the season is a showroom. Read backward from the finale, it was never about the robot or the wardrobe. The objects were means. The end was the bearing they produce: a life in which your joy is your own, the material question stays settled, and the dignity of *enough* extends, for once, to the rest of the living world as well as to you. That is the noblesse the Dynamos make possible, and it is the closest thing to a moral the season has. ## The seat we left empty Every pavilion at a [World's Fair](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/worlds-fair/) had a sponsor. Progressland had General Electric, and the arrangement was honest: the sponsor's products *were* the content. Progress meant appliances, and GE made appliances. So who sponsors the Carousel of Plenty? By the same logic, it should be the firm whose product *is* the Circular Century's furnishings — the one the finale called the Toyota of Circularity, the company that proves circularity like Toyota proved Lean. The trouble is that this firm does not exist yet. And it cannot be a company built in GE's image, because GE's whole ethos was *more, forever*, and the Circular Century's promise is *enough.* The right sponsor is whoever first figures out how to build a great business out of sufficiency, which sounds, in the old grammar, like a contradiction. So we have left the seat empty on purpose. The Carousel of Plenty is, among other things, a casting call. It describes the pavilion in enough detail that the right tenant should recognize the address. > 🔎 *Coming up next season: an answer to the casting call.* ## Parting thought When the season began, the Circular Century was an idea. By the end it was an address, with a robot and a kitchen and a home that ages well. But the thing worth betting on is not these furnishings. It is the decoupling underneath them — the good life finally separated from the hustle that always used to be its rent. The linear economy promised progress and delivered volume. The circular economy promises enough, and delivers plenty: the precise amount that satisfies without burdening, and the bearing that comes with knowing it will stay. > 📬 *Thank you for reading this season of The Circudyne Letter.* --- *Image prompt: A large circular mid-century-modern theater on a sunlit Edwardian country-house lawn - a graceful domed rotunda, taller than the trees around it but settled into the landscape, its curved wall and low segmented dome rising just above a surrounding grove, large enough to dwarf the small empty wicker chairs and tea table on the grass in the foreground, a grand manor house on a rise in the middle distance, deep generous lawn, eye-level view, calm and quiet and faintly uncanny, muted gouache painting, soft painterly flat color, restrained warm palette with silver-teal accents, Rod Serling stillness, no people* ### The Circular Century — So What URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-circular-century-so-what/ Last updated: 2026-06-22T14:44:15.000Z *This letter is part of the* [*Carousel of Plenty*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/carousel-of-plenty/)*, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the* [*Circular Century*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/)*. All season we have shown you its furnishings — one solution at a time, things you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world built for permanence rather than disposal. These last two letters set the catalog down and step back to the questions the whole season was built to reach: why this abundance is different from every one that came before it, and what, in the end, it is for. This is the conclusion.* --- When I was a kid, I really enjoyed reading Arthur C. Clarke. One of his observations has endured in the popular collective consciousness: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." It's a pretty good line. Tech founders use it a lot. But I'm fonder of a more obscure remark of his: "Either we are alone in the universe or we aren't — and either prospect is terrifying." I call it [Clarke's Binary](https://www.circudyne.com/404/). I like the way Clarke formulated this observation, because it disallows complacency. The moment you consider the choice, the failsafe option — indifference — falls away. If we *are* alone, then we have to reckon with representing, on our own, the full potential of the entire universe. And if we are *not* alone, then somewhere out there is someone older and wiser, and one day we may have to account for ourselves to them. I used to think of this as Clarke's "paradox." But it's not a paradox. It's a choice, really. And it's clever because to understand it is to be compelled by it; as there is no logical alternative, there is no procedural opt-out. That's why I've come to think of it as a binary. It's one thing, or the other. Also, it is a set of instructions. Because whichever way it breaks, the work is the same: to make ours a civilization worthy of either answer. This is the last letter of the *Carousel of Plenty* season. Its mission: to show how life in the Circular Century will feel. Better living through circularity. Hopefully, if you've been following along, it's given moments of hope, maybe aspiration. But even if it has, there is a larger question this (or any) vision of the future has to answer: *so what?* If the Circular Century is just the latest update on consumer welfare, aren't we just repeating a cycle? It can be something more, but to prove it, we need to account for it. We need to know what the Circular Century is *for*. ## Picturing the unimaginable Let's go back to Clarke's idea. Suppose the reckoning actually came. Suppose, one ordinary morning, a ship set down. In the movies, it usually happens in Washington. For our purposes, let's keep it personal. Let's say the ship lands on the long lawn from [last week's letter](https://www.circudyne.com/coping-with-abundance/) — the one going gold at the edges, the white chairs, a tennis match half-played. The door opens. The visitors have come to see what we made of the place. Could we walk out across that grass and meet them as neighbors? Could we stand there and answer for ourselves, without flinching? I find I cannot really picture it. Not because it frightens me. Because it sits outside everything any of us has ever lived. We have no memory to reach for, no extraordinary moment that felt remotely like it. The mind just slides off. So let me trade it for a reckoning we can feel. Let's pick a different scene from a different movie. Picture a council of force ghosts, like Obi-wan Kenobi. A small group of luminaries we have lost. People many of us revered, called back for one evening to look us in the eye. This thought experiment is easy for me. I know instantly who I'd hope to be visited by. Two groups of three. Three who loved the living world: Jane Goodall, Jacques Cousteau, Carl Sagan. And three who loved the made world: [Steve Jobs](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/steve-jobs/), [Clayton Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/), and Peter Drucker. Wise masters all. Here is the thing about this council. They used to be us. They walked the same ground, paid the same taxes, lost sleep over the same headlines. They are on our side; they want us to make it. So their questions would be plain, and answerable, the kind you could actually take up on a normal day. And because they are sitting together as one body, their questions would not contradict each other or leave gaps. Six people. One verdict. We will hear from them. But first, let's consider an alternative perspective. ## Part One — How we got here There are two ways to understand something like the *telos* of the Circular Century. You can reason forward from where we have been. Or you can reason back from first principles. Let us do both — and see if they arrive at the same place. That is usually how you can tell a thing is true. Start with where we have been. The clearest record of the modern economy we have is the history of the automobile. In 1913, the finest car on earth was a [Rolls-Royce](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/rolls-royce/). To prove how smoothly it ran, salesmen would stand a coin on its edge on the running engine, and the coin would stay put. It was a beautiful machine, and almost no one would ever have one. Rolls-Royce built a few thousand of the best cars in the world. In the same years, Henry Ford built fifteen million ordinary ones. If you had a dollar to invest in 1913, you put it on [Ford](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/ford/), not on Rolls. Craft, perfected, reached its asymptote. By its nature it served only a few. Now skip ahead seventy years. By the 1980s, the smart money was not on Ford anymore. It was on [Toyota](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/toyota/). Toyota had figured out how to build with Ford's scale and something close to Rolls-Royce's care, at the same time — a way of working we came to call [Lean](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/lean/). And Lean gave the world Lexus. There was an ad: a champagne glass tower balanced on the hood of a running LS400, the wine trembling and never spilling. It was the Rolls-Royce coin trick from eighty years before — only now you could drive it home for the price of a good Buick. The circle closed. A car built in the numbers of a Ford and quality of a Rolls, with the cost structure of Toyota. We are standing at comparable fork right now. Today's way of making things is finely honed and, like the Rolls, indiscernibly limited — it runs in a straight line from raw material to landfill, and that line has an end. The step-change is circularity: things made to come back, to be remade, to keep going. Somewhere out there, to be determined in the fullness of time, is circularity's Toyota. And whoever they turn out to be, they will be as far past where we stand today as that Lexus was past the Rolls-Royce Phantom. Industrial gave way to Lean. Linear is giving way to circularity. Call it [Lean 2.0](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/) — *craft*, at *scale*, that also *lasts*. That is the production story. Two more forces sit underneath it. The first is that we have come into sudden plenty before, and mostly we have fumbled it. Last week's letter walked through two of those windfalls — an aristocracy that mistook its luck for virtue, and a digital generation handed the whole library of the world but left anxious and scattered by the gift. Having plenty is not the same as knowing what to do with it. The second is a choice we made once and can make again. After World War II, there was significant productive overcapacity. We had options for how to use it. The choice we made was to engineer demand to meet the overcapacity: planned obsolescence and its cousins, what I call [manufactured dependence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/manufactured-dependence/). We taught people to want more than they needed, hired the best minds of the age to do it, and pointed the whole apparatus at manufacturing desire. [Carlota Perez](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/carlota-perez/)' analysis has identified the pattern: at the transition from one age to the next, a moment like this one, when a new set of technologies has been built and is ready to be spread, can become a golden age — *if* we aim it at something worth having. So where does the new plenty actually come from? Not from making more, faster, and burning it off quicker. From three plain things working together. [Power you make yourself](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/distributed-power/). [Intelligence woven](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/ambient-intelligence/) quietly into ordinary objects. And [matter that comes back around](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/recombinant-matter/) instead of going to the dump. Supply, on one side. [A sense of enough](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/sufficiency-frame/), on the other, so the surplus is not simply squandered. And [things made beautiful enough](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/systemic-beauty/) to be worth keeping. Put them together and the surplus is real — and for once, [we get to keep it](https://www.circudyne.com/a-new-deal-you-can-acquire-for-yourself/). ## Part Two — What it's for Now the other road. First principles. Let's return to our council. It's not a trial, or a sermon, but a kind of lesson. They teach by asking questions. Drucker speaks first. Are you anticipating the future, he asks, or making it? Are you running on yesterday's logic, or on something new? Christensen leans in. What is the job that actually needs doing? And are you willing to disrupt yourself to do it? Then Jobs. What is it about the world you inherited — built by people no different from you, who came before — that needs changing? And what will you build that other people can use to change it? Now the three who loved the living world. Cousteau, who with a friend invented the Aqua-Lung so he could breathe underwater: Are you called by the wonder of the world? What will you invent to get closer to it? Sagan, who believed our purpose is to be the way the cosmos comes to know itself: Are you a fair witness to the universe as it actually is? And what is your part as a citizen of the pale blue dot, the only home we have ever had? And Goodall: have you treated nature with the respect it deserves? Have you given people the hope they need? Listen to them together and they turn out to be asking one question, posed six ways. It is a charge to lead, and to build, in service to the living world. The people who made things and the people who loved the planet are supposed to be on opposite sides. Sitting on one council, they ask for the same nice thing. That is what the Circular Century is for — to make us *feel* that not only is it going to be alright, it's actually going to be pretty nice. Most of the time, the right thing feels good — and given enough time, it turns out to be good for everyone. That is pretty much it. But it requires leadership, which is a choice. The choice that feels good in the living up to it. The choice our grandchildren will thank us for. [Sovereignty](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/sovereignty/), [joy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/joy/), and worth — they are the same plain truth expressed three ways. Which brings us back to Clarke. If we swap two words around, his admonition lends us quite a bit more agency, and with it, responsibility: "Either we are alone in the universe or we aren't — and *the prospect of either* is terrifying." Being forced to face reality is hard. Reckoning with logic that deprives us of our comfortable indifference is rough. But that is the nature of progress. The alternative is worse. Recall our council. The point wasn't about discovering whether we are alone or not. It is whether we are worthy of either possibility. A civilization that builds to last, that treats the living world with respect, that keeps faith with its children — that is a civilization worth meeting. And worth being, even if there is no one out there to meet it. That is the moral of the story of the *Carousel of Plenty*. ## The last word I want to save the last word for one of the six members of our imaginary council. Jane Goodall died last October. Before that, she sat alone with a camera and recorded what she wanted said once she could no longer say it herself. Of everyone on the council, she is the one who truly came back to speak to us — underscoring the value of it. These are people who used to be us, who wanted us to make it. She left this proof: > *I would say I was somebody sent to this world to try to give people hope in dark times, because without hope, we fall into apathy and do nothing. And in the dark times that we are living in now, if people don't have hope, we're doomed. And how can we bring little children into this dark world we've created and let them be surrounded by people who've given up? So even… even if this is the end of humanity as we know it, let's fight to the very end. Let's let the children know, you know, that there is hope if they get together. And even if it becomes impossible for anybody, it's better to go on fighting to the end than just to give up and say, "Okay."* In other words, without hope we fall into apathy and do nothing — and that we owe ourselves more than that. That is the answer to the terror. Hope is what you do with clear eyes. It is how a civilization stays worthy of whatever the universe has in store. So. [The Robot Milkman](https://www.circudyne.com/the-robot-milkman/), [the atelier](https://www.circudyne.com/the-atelier/), [the wardrobe](https://www.circudyne.com/the-curated-wardrobe/), [the commissary](https://www.circudyne.com/the-commissary/), [the car](https://www.circudyne.com/personal-mobility/).... [Twelve letters, twelve possibilities](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/carousel-of-plenty/). Add them up and what they bought back is time, and attention, and the freedom to become — the freedom that every age of plenty before this one rationed out to a lucky few. That is what the Circular Century is for. Not more. Better. Worthy of the cosmic answer, whichever it is. *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved.* [*Join the Dynamos*](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup)*.* --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Coping with Abundance URL: https://www.circudyne.com/coping-with-abundance/ Last updated: 2026-06-15T12:03:34.000Z *This letter is part of the Carousel of Plenty, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the Circular Century. All season we have shown you its furnishings — one solution at a time, things you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world built for permanence rather than disposal. These last two letters set the catalog down and step back to the questions the whole season was built to reach: why this abundance is different from every one that came before it, and what, in the end, it is for. This is the first.* We keep rebuilding one particular summer. It is the summer of 1913, or a summer like it. A house in the country. A long lawn going gold at the edges. White flannels, a game of croquet nobody is trying very hard to win, with tea. The light is generous. Nobody on that lawn knows that the world which made the afternoon possible has about fourteen months left to live. We have rebuilt that afternoon in our novels and our films more times than anyone can count. We park our cars in garages and call them carriage houses. We buy suits cut to a pattern perfected in Edwardian tailoring rooms. We are, a century on, still a little in love with a class most of us would have served rather than joined. Let's be honest with ourselves about it. The love is real and the reasons for it are mixed. So set aside, for a moment, everything that was unjust about that world, because the thing we actually miss is not the injustice and not the money. It is the bearing. ## Golden age elegy The people on that lawn had been handed a rare gift: the question of survival was settled, and they knew it. The matter of staying alive, staying fed, staying warm — closed. What remained was the question of what to do with a life once that weight is lifted. They answered it with literature and philosophy and a code of conduct they took seriously even when they failed it. There was a *noblesse* to the nobility. They expected to become their best selves, and they expected it of each other. It was a whole age that prized that kind of self-possession, and it left us these words for it: *I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.* It was something they believed. Do we? I'm not so sure, as a culture, that we do. It sounds, in 2026, like a platitude printed on a motivational poster. It would be easy to assume a sentiment like that came from that stately lawn. It did not. William Ernest Henley wrote it in 1875, from a hospital bed — the son of a struggling bookseller, one leg already lost to tuberculosis, the surgeons fighting to save the other. He had no estate and no station to fall back on. What he had was a conviction that ran right through the culture of his century: that a person is the author of his own life. That self-possession grew out of an age the economic engine had made independent. But it settled into the culture, not just the class that benefitted most from it. What reached Henley, several degrees removed from that wealth, was the conviction, not the income. The estate did not travel. The bearing did. A penniless invalid could lay as much claim to it as the gentry, because it belonged to the age more than to any estate, or class. You do not need a long lawn to stand the way Henley stood. You need a moment when the weight lifts — and the nerve to use it. That summer afternoon was such a moment. The people on the lawn stood between the mean centuries of feudalism behind them and the grubby machine-century closing in ahead, balanced for a while between the two — survival settled, the deluge not yet arrived. The abundance was new enough to enjoy and not yet old enough to take for granted. There was no slouching, literally or figuratively. And then it was over. The afternoon passed, the way those afternoons do. What we feel looking back — the particular ache of it — is bound up in the brevity: we know, as the people on the lawn could not, how little of it was left. It was a threshold. And the thing about a threshold is that you only ever dwell there for a while. ## We had our own threshold, and we miss that too You do not have to reach back a hundred years to find another one. We had ours, and most of us were there for it. Picture the years between the arrival of the web and the arrival of the smartphone — call it 1991 to 2007\. Information had become cheap and close in a way it never had been, and it had not yet become a flood. You went to the internet, and then you left it, and it stayed there. The phone in your pocket was just for calls. That threshold has a perfect monument, and it is the television comedy of the era. *Seinfeld.* *Friends.* *The Office.* Watch them now and notice what the characters get to worry about. A bad date. An awkward lunch. Who said what to whom. These are the troubles of people whose survival is handled and whose attention is still their own. They are comedies of manners, which is the kind of story a culture produces when it finds itself, briefly, with room to breathe. They are the Jane Austen novels of the dial-up age. We are nostalgic for them for the same reason we are nostalgic for the lawn. But again, we should be honest with ourselves. Nobody wants dial-up back. Nobody sane wants the landed estate back. The longing is not for the technology and not for the hierarchy. It is for the balance — for a threshold we were allowed to stand in for a while before it gave way. The ache is not a wish to return. It is evidence of our appreciation of life in the balance. It indicates our longing for a kind of life we keep reaching for and keep losing. ## Every threshold has closed, and some closed in the trenches Because they do give way. That is the bitter fact under the sweetness. The Edwardian summer ended in the literal trenches of the Somme. The young men from the lawn went into the mud and a great many of them did not come back, and the world that produced the afternoon never reassembled. The threshold did not fade politely. It collapsed, all at once, into the worst violence humanity had yet seen. Ours is closing too, and we are already in the trenches of it. We are dug into the feed. We fight a daily war of attrition against a flood that never crests — the notifications, the tabs, the refresh, the monetization of our own attention against us. Somewhere underneath all of it is a person who, as I wrote in a letter last season, just wanted to read a book tonight. The abundance of information that once felt like dipping a toe into an ocean of knowledge now feels like drowning. The tide pulled us in. As it always seems to do. ## The reason has a name Why does every threshold end this way? Is it bad luck, or foolish people making bad choices? Or is it part of the design? Economist Carlota Perez mapped how this works. Each great wave of new technology, she shows, moves through the same stages — an eruption of the new, then a frenzy of money chasing it, then, if we are fortunate, a long stretch of broad prosperity she calls a golden age, and finally maturity and exhaustion, just as the next eruption begins. It is last season's namesake bubble, dignified into a model. The sweet spot — the balanced threshold we keep mourning — is never a place to rest in her account. It is a way-station on a curve that is still accelerating. The frenzy is always coming. The thing always gets overdone. The engine that does the overdoing has an old name. [Jevons paradox](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/jevons-paradox/): make a thing more efficient or more abundant, and we do not bank the surplus, we spend it on more. [Clay Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/) described it more plainly — *we husband what is scarce and squander what is plentiful*. The cycle has repeated for a hundred and sixty years. It is the reason the lawn became the Somme and the reason why we're drowning in information. Every honeymoon ends because the engine underneath it cannot idle. [I have argued in these pages before that Jevons is a paradox and not a law](https://www.circudyne.com/more-joy-less-work/), and that the cycle finally dies in one specific place: inside the books of a company that earns more by selling less. I will not re-litigate that case here. I will stand on it. Let's stipulate that the link between abundance and excess can be cut, the way harder links have been cut before. The question this whole season has been circling is the next one. Suppose it can be cut. Suppose we build a real abundance, [the Circular Century we keep describing](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/). Is it just the next threshold — wonderful for a while, and then overrun like all the others? ## The first abundance built to stay This is where I want to make a friendly corollary to Perez, because her model presents an opportunity for a variant we are in a position to realize. Her cycle has a slot for the golden age. But the golden age is always fleeting. The reason is simple: each paradigm in her analysis ran on scarcity. Its returns came from getting more of something other people could not get — more land, more coal, more oil, more attention, more data. Scarcity-capture is a race with no top speed, and a race with no top speed is what produces the escalation, the frenzy, the eventual crash. She never had a paradigm whose returns came from *enough*. Circularity is that paradigm. It is the first abundance that is self-limiting by design, and it limits itself in two ways at once. A circle feeds itself: its outputs are its inputs, so it cannot run away into the kind of bottomless extraction that always ended in a wall. And its money is made differently. When a company profits from the long life of a thing rather than its rapid replacement, every avoided sale is margin, and the appetite for more — the engine of every past collapse — is simply not in the building. The restraint is not a virtue anyone has to summon. It is in the wiring. Think of the difference in the machines. The old economy ran like a steam engine: a violent stroke of power, then a collapse, then another stroke, faster and harder as it grew. The circular economy runs like an electric motor on a battery that fills from the sun. It does not need the explosion. It is happiest at a steady hum, and it can hum for a very long time. So the threshold need not close. The balance we keep losing — new enough to enjoy, not yet taken for granted — can, for the first time, be the permanent condition rather than a way-station the curve is dragging us past. The window that has slammed on every generation since the steam engine can be made, this time, not to. A golden age that doesn't contain the seeds of its own collapse: that's the promise of the Circular Century. ## A carousel is a circle that does not punish you We have been living, all of us, on a treadmill. It is a circle. You move and move and stay exactly where you are, and the longer you're on it the harder it becomes to stay there. The raise that wears off. The house that becomes normal. The feed that refreshes. Everyone reading this knows the machine, because no one alive has known anything else. The escalation has been the background hum of every human life in living memory. A carousel is also a circle. You go around on it too. But there is music, and a child's delight, and the whole point is the going-around. Same geometry. Opposite life. The difference is entirely in the engine underneath — one that wears you down the longer you stay on it, one built to turn at the pace of a song. The treadmill did not only bury us in things and noise. It took our agency. It turned us into inputs — into the raw material of someone else's growth, measured by what we consumed and how long we stared. You cannot be the master of your fate while you are an input. Stop the escalation, and the condition that made that old couplet sayable comes back. Not the estate. The bearing. The settled question, the room to breathe, the nerve to stand up straight — available now without a lawn, and in a world we are never going to unplug from. That is the unburdening this season has been promising, and it goes deeper than a clean conscience. A clean conscience is relief from guilt. This is relief from the machine itself. Which leaves us, at last, with the joke buried in this letter's title. We have spent a whole season describing an abundance so complete, so handled, so calmly yours, that the only thing genuinely left to figure out is how on earth to cope with it. What does a person do with a life when the weight is finally, permanently lifted — when the question is not how to survive, or how to keep up, but simply how to live? That is next week's letter. For now, it is enough to know that the threshold can become a home. *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved.* [*Join the Dynamos*](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup)*.* --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Personal Mobility URL: https://www.circudyne.com/personal-mobility/ Last updated: 2026-06-08T12:03:52.000Z *This letter is part of the Carousel of Plenty, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the Circular Century. We talk a lot about circular transformation — why it matters, how it works, what it demands of leaders. This season, we show you where it leads. Each letter presents one solution: something you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world designed for permanence rather than disposal. The premise is simple. The linear economy promised progress and delivered volume — more things, fewer of them worth having. The Circular Century delivers plenty: the precise amount that satisfies without burdening. These are its furnishings.* ### Turn Sunshine into Freedom. And Fun. > Friends, let me tell you about the recipe for turning sunshine into freedom — and fun. > At our house, it starts with panels in the yard. That sunshine — free every morning, never late for the job. Part of that energy goes to a battery. The rest, to a sleek box out back, no bigger than a deep freezer, that drinks the light in and holds onto it. And out of that box comes what we need to carry us through the day and then some. > The sleek box makes the hydrogen that fills up our converted old truck. That truck is more than a dependable old friend. It is a symbol of freedom. Fueling it up requires no station, no pipeline, no bill from anybody downtown. That's my conveyance of choice. > The boy prefers his bicycle. It charges on the porch rail overnight and runs him to school in the cool of the morning. And when Marie has to get clear across town, she taps the glass by the door and a tidy little car comes round the corner, just the right size for the errand, carries her there, and goes on about its business. She doesn't park it. She doesn't own it. She just goes. > Time was, a family needed one big machine to do every last thing, and paid for the whole of it whether it moved or sat. Now we keep the right thing for each thing, and we run it all on light we caught ourselves. > And the wonder of it is the whole street's at it now. Every roof a little powerhouse. When the lights flicker over in the next county, ours stay lit — because the power is ours, made at home, and shared right down the row. > We gave up nothing we loved to get a cleaner, quieter day. We just stopped renting our freedom by the gallon. > Now — that's progress. ### For the Consumer Consider ketchup. For most of the last century it stood alone on the American table. It was the necessary and sufficient condiment because it complemented the same small flight of dishes that most people ate all the time. One red bottle could sit at every elbow and do the whole job. Then the table opened up. A country that once argued over a single condiment learned to cook a hundred cuisines, and to stock its shelves with herbs and grains and peppers to satisfy a more sophisticated palate. The strange and happy result is that we eat better now *and* enjoy it far more. Now we reach for the ripe avocado or the bowl of pho because it tastes good. The health came along for the ride. Cars are like ketchup. **For a hundred years, one machine had to be and do everything.** The school run and the cross-country haul. The trip for a loaf of bread and the long drive home at the holidays. So each of us bought, and built lives and a society around, the machine that could manage our hardest, rarest day — five seats, a big motor, room for the lumber — and then drove it empty and oversized through all the ordinary ones. A compromise, repeated countless times. **There is a reason that machine kept growing.** The car has carried us, thrilled us, and set us free, and no one is taking that away from it. But look at why it weighs what it weighs. It moves by burning, and burning is a violent business, so the machine has to be heavy enough to contain the violence and armored enough to survive it. Armored, it feels safe, so we drive it faster. Faster, it grows heavier still. Heavier, it grows more dangerous — to the people inside it and everyone outside it — so it calls for more armor. Round and round the spiral goes. The hulking shape of the thing in the driveway is the shape of that spiral, drawn in steel. **The waste is not where you think it is.** We have always assumed the harm a car does is in the driving. Some of it is; much of it is not. By the time a new car reaches the driveway — before it has rolled a single mile — it has already done close to half the environmental damage it will ever do, in the mining and the smelting and the making. The environmental impact is cash on the barrelhead in more ways than one. Which turns the whole matter over. The real waste is not the motion. It is the stillness. And these machines are almost always still. The typical car sits parked about ninety-two percent of its life. When it does move, it carries one and a half people in five seats and turns barely a tenth of its fuel into forward motion — the rest lost to heat and to hauling its own dead weight, some twelve pounds of machine for every pound of person aboard. To keep all of this standing ready, we have given over half the land of the modern city to roads and parking. And the toll in lives we agreed, long ago, to stop seeing. A thing that does its damage at the start and then sits idle is the most wasteful arrangement we could have made. The only way to redeem the harm already spent is to use the thing hard and keep it long. A parked car redeems nothing. **We couldn't have done better before. Now we can.** The car was never really chosen so much as forced — the only sensible answer in a world where summoning the right ride was impossible, where fuel came by the tankful from far away, and where a worn-out vehicle had nowhere to go but the crusher. Three things have changed, quietly and at once. We can now call the right vehicle to the right trip about as easily as we once turned a key. We can make and keep our own power. And we can build a machine to come apart and go round again. Put those together and the one compromise machine breaks into a whole table of them — the right size for each trip, summoned and surrendered, sometimes owned by no one in particular. **We have seen both of these futures drawn before.** At the 1939 [World's Fair](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/worlds-fair/), the most beloved thing in it was a vast model of an America remade for the car — every need answered by more highway and more horsepower. We built that one, more or less, and got the sprawl and the spiral along with it. A generation later a [different man](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/walt-disney/) sketched a different city: one where each kind of movement had its own proper place, and the street was handed back to the people walking it. We never built that one. We can build it now. **And in places, we have started.** Paris has been determinedly taking the curb back from cars and giving it to café tables, trees, and room to stroll. The Dutch decided several oil crises ago (who's counting?) that getting around should mean choosing easily among trains and bikes and your own two feet, and laid out their towns to make it work. In New York, the companies that make deliveries are swapping double-parked vans for pedal carts that thread the same streets faster. None of this waited for permission. It is the walkable block of [*The Neighbors*](https://www.circudyne.com/the-neighbors/) and the home-made power of [*Energy Sovereignty*](https://www.circudyne.com/energy-sovereignty/) arriving on the street as ways to move. And out at the far edge of it is the thing the fellow on the porch was getting at: a family making its own fuel from its own roof, beholden to no oil company, no utility, no carmaker — the whole stack of it unbundled, right down to the light that turns the wheels. For most of a century we were told to choose: freedom or thrift, the open road or the light footprint. The unbundled world hands you the whole table and asks you to give up none of it. Freedom, lightness, and fit, all at once. In the Circular Century, we will have it all. We know how to outgrow ketchup. We'll do it again. ### By the Producer Begin with the question every carmaker is asking in the face of evolving demand patterns: if people stop buying cars the way they buy them now, where does the money go? Let's return to [Roger Martin](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/)'s provocation that strategy starts not with what to do next but with what winning would even look like. For the automaker, winning has always meant moving more metal off the lot — more units, more model years, more reasons to trade up. For the company that builds the unbundled world, winning looks like something the old firm is not designed for: to be the one people trust to move them, for a lifetime, across whatever machine the moment calls for. The carmaker wants to sell you your next car. The new firm wants to be the last mobility company you ever need. Where to play follows from that. You do not fight for the crowded center — the driveway, the new-car smell, the trade-in. The opening lies where the car is weakest. [Horace Dediu](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horace-dediu/), who named micromobility and titled its manifesto [*The Car Will Be Unbundled*](https://micromobility.io/manifesto?ref=circudyne.com), spent years hunting for a way the car might be disrupted and could not find one: cheaper cars fail against the used-car lot, and electric drive and self-driving only make the incumbent stronger. Then he rode an electric bike, and had his answer in twenty minutes. The disruption was never a better car. It was the short trip the car has always handled worst — the two-mile errand, miserable with parking and cold starts — served by a machine built for purpose. How you win is the part that has waited for the right machines. The private car sits inside a dense web — financed, insured, registered, taxed, fueled, serviced, regulated — and the whole web exists to move it off a lot and keep it running. The new modes fit almost none of it. Recall the [law of conservation of attractive profits](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/conservation-of-attractive-profits/) from [Clayton Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/) via Ben Thompson: when the profit drains out of one link as it commoditizes, it reappears at the next link, captured by whoever integrates around the customer. As the car itself becomes a commodity, the profit migrates — to whoever orchestrates the whole portfolio around your trip, and to whoever owns the fleet and sells you the outcome instead of the object. A second move is to migrate the half-century-old performance economy paradigm from B2B to B2C. Recall [Rolls-Royce](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/rolls-royce/) stopped selling jet engines to airlines and started selling flight-hours: the airline buys the thrust, Rolls-Royce keeps the engine and every repair bill. Incentives align this way around better products and higher performance. When a maker keeps the asset, durability turns from an opportunity cost into a profit, and building something to wear out becomes self-sabotage. Point that same move at the driveway and you get a company like Hugo Spowers's Riversimple, which does not sell you a car at all — it keeps the car for its whole life and sells you the miles, so that every breakdown and every drop of fuel is the maker's problem to manage rather than yours, with the natural world written into the company's own charter as a stakeholder with a seat at the table. There is an implicit repair buried in this. Today a car is designed, priced, and sold to its first owner, though it is built well enough to outlast that owner two or three times over — and, at the same time, nowhere near as well as it could be. Compare an airliner: refit on a schedule, maintained to documented standards, its whole decades-long life planned from the drawing board, because the people who built it have their money riding on every year it stays in service. A car gets none of that care, because the maker's interest ends at the sale. Keep the asset, and the second owner stops being an afterthought and becomes a customer worth designing for — and the car is finally engineered like the durable, maintained, decades-long machine it has always physically been. Some incumbents can see the shape of it. [BMW](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/bmw/)'s i Vision Circular, a concept the company showed in 2021, was drawn from a blank sheet to come apart: a single clever fastener, etched with the word *circular*, that frees a wheel or a seat with one turn of a tool; almost no glue, no paint, no chrome, no leather; a body of recycled aluminum and a battery built to be melted down into the next one. It keeps itself current through software and "options as a service" rather than the trade-in, and when it is parked it can feed power back to the house and the grid. It is a beautiful piece of thinking. It is also the right design still wearing the old business model — because all that lovely disassembly only pays the company that builds the car if that company is also the one that keeps it. The design is ready. The model is the leap. Most of what gets sold as the future of driving is not. Cheaper cars, electric drivetrains, even the self-driving car — each one makes the existing car better and the existing carmaker stronger. The driverless car has a real place at this table; think of it as the descendant of the old monorail, the smooth automatic shuttle, now loosed from its track and folded into the mix as one mode among many. But a company that bets everything on "the same car, now without a driver" has made the safe wager and dressed it up as a bold one. And it is not only the carmakers who should be uneasy. The change reaches the whole apparatus that privileges the car — the road engineers, the parking minimums, the fuel taxes, the agencies whose every habit assumes a world of private automobiles. They are incumbents too. They will be moved. There is a pattern in which brands survive a shift like this one. The ones that endure join the counterculture rising against the old order rather than defend it. We wrote, in [*Are You a Punk?*](https://www.circudyne.com/20260109-are-you-a-punk/), about the quiet rebellion of people building lives that no longer depend on systems that have stopped serving them — the menders, the growers, the ones making their own power. A mobility company crosses over to them not with an advertisement about freedom but by handing them the real article: a way to move whose terms they own. And the reward for crossing over compounds. A household carried for thirty years is worth more than any showroom sale could ring up — not a row of transactions but a long, rising curve, captured whole by the company that owns the life of the machine and the trust of the person it carries. > The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved. [Join the Dynamos](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup). _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Commissary URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-commissary/ Last updated: 2026-06-01T12:03:26.000Z *This letter is part of the Carousel of Plenty, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the Circular Century. We talk a lot about circular transformation — why it matters, how it works, what it demands of leaders. This season, we show you where it leads. Each letter presents one solution: something you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world designed for permanence rather than disposal. The premise is simple. The linear economy promised progress and delivered volume — more things, fewer of them worth having. The Circular Century delivers plenty: the precise amount that satisfies without burdening. These are its furnishings.* ### The Best Place in Town Is the Place We All Go. > Friends, there's a place down the street I want to tell you about. > It's a little like the old Automat, if you're old enough to remember those — the wall of small glass doors, a coin in the slot, a sandwich waiting behind the window like a present. My grandmother used to talk about hers the way other people talk about a church. But this is a new thing, and I think it's a better one. > You walk in around six and the whole neighborhood is already there. The Petersons in the corner. The young couple from the third floor, taking turns with the baby. The fellow who fixes everyone's bicycles, eating by himself and not minding one bit, because nobody stays by himself for long in a room like this. There's a counter where the food is, and it is good food — the kind you'd be proud to put on your own table, because somebody close by grew it and somebody close by cooked it. > Here's the part I love best. People don't just sit. They get up between bites and wander over to another table to say hello, to hear how the trip was, to settle who's bringing what on Sunday. A plate in one hand and the news in the other. It's a party that happens to serve supper. > And on one of those nights when you're worn through and the day was too long, you take it home in a box, and nobody thinks a thing of it. The door is always open. The coffee is always on. > That's the truth about the best place in town. It isn't the fanciest one. It's the one we all go to. ### For the Consumer > There was nothing like the coffee at the Automat > Its aroma and its flavor were supreme > from a silver dolphin spout > the coffee poured right out > not to mention at the end > a little spurt of cream! > — from "(There's Nothing Like) The Coffee from the Automat", written and sung by Mel Brooks Once, there was a restaurant where a nickel bought the best cup of coffee in the city. It was called the [Automat](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/automat/), and for most of the last century there were scores of them across Philadelphia and New York, feeding hundreds of thousands of people a day. You came in off the street into a room of marble and chrome and stained glass, a room built like a bank or a temple. Along one wall stood little glass doors, hundreds of them, each with a dish waiting behind it: a wedge of pie, a bowl of creamed spinach, a sandwich, a slab of cake. You dropped your coins in the slot, turned the knob, and the door swung open. You carried your plate to a table. No waiter. No tipping. No one whose job was to decide whether you belonged. The banker and the bricklayer and the young woman who had come to the city alone all ate the same fresh pie under the same colored glass. A newspaper rhyme from the thirties imagined the technocrat, the plutocrat, the autocrat, and the Democrat all laying down their quarrels to go eat together at the Automat. People called it the most democratic room in America, and they meant it. **It worked because of three quiet inventions, none of them food.** - The first was automation. The little doors and the coin slots did the work a roomful of waiters would have done, which meant the money that would have gone to serving could go to cooking instead, and the savings could come back to you. - The second was standardization. Behind that wall of glass doors sat a central kitchen — the company called it a commissary — where the pie was made to one exacting recipe and sent out fresh to every location in the city, and the coffee was made fresh and poured out on a strict clock, long before it could turn bitter. A nickel did not buy you cheap coffee. It bought you the very same coffee, held to the very same standard, that it bought the man in the good suit two tables over. - The third was care lavished on the whole experience: the marble, the light, the easy flow of the room. The Automat had decided that an ordinary meal, taken by an ordinary person, was worth staging like an occasion. Put those three together and you have the wonder of the age: good food made genuinely special and genuinely cheap at the same time. **The dolphin was the part with no reason to exist.** At the coffee station, the coffee did not come from a pot or a plain tap. It poured from the mouth of a dolphin — a spout of polished metal, cast and shaped into a dolphin's head, for no reason except that someone had decided the best coffee in the city deserved to dispense in a small ceremony. People remembered that dolphin for the rest of their lives. They remembered it longer and more fondly than they remembered meals at far grander places. The success of that detail is worth thinking about, because there was no business case for it. A length of pipe would have poured the same coffee. But the people who built the Automat understood something that can't be captured in a spreadsheet: that a small, beautiful detail, met every single morning, becomes part of how a person feels about being alive. Steve Jobs's father taught him to finish the back of the cabinet — the side that faces the wall, that no buyer will ever see — because the craftsman would know it was there. The dolphin is that same lesson, turned around to face the customer. It is the back of the fence, painted, and handed to you with your coffee. **Then it died.** The nickel held for the better part of forty years. Forty years is long enough that a price stops being a price and becomes a promise. But the coin slots had been built for nickels, and they could not take pennies. So when costs finally climbed — after the war, when everything climbed — the price of the coffee could not creep up an honest penny at a time. It had to wait, and hold, and then leap all at once to a dime. Twice the price, overnight, in the autumn of 1950\. The newspaper called it a black day for coffee drinkers. People felt it as a betrayal, and they were right to. Within the year the company was pouring tens of millions fewer cups. The very machine that had made the cheap coffee possible — the coin slot, the automation, the first of those three quiet inventions — was the thing that turned a gentle rise into a broken promise. The Automat's genius and the Automat's undoing were the same mechanism. The tools that let it hand out a nickel's worth of dignity in 1912 were the tools that could not bend in 1950. The rest of the story happened to every Main Street in the country. Families moved to the suburbs. The car replaced the walk. A new kind of cheap food arrived, faster and thinner, sold through a window to a person who never left the driver's seat, and it answered a real need — the need to be fed in a hurry in a hurry-up world. The Automat could not answer that need without ceasing to be itself. The marble rooms emptied out. The last one closed its doors in 1991\. By then the dolphins were being sold off at auction, one at a time, to people who remembered. **The Commissary is the Automat's promise, kept by better machines.** Consider what we lost when those rooms emptied — and what replaced them never gave back. What replaced the Automat was the drive-through and, in time, the glowing phone that brings a stranger's cooking to your door. Both kept the part where someone else cooks. Both threw the rest away. We lost the *standard* — the Automat's hidden kitchen answered to one exacting recipe, while the delivery kitchen answers to no one you could ever reach, a ghost kitchen tuned to a ratings average with no name behind the food. We lost the *room* — eating became something you did alone, in the car, in front of a screen. We lost the *dignity* of the thing, the old sense that an ordinary supper was worth setting a real table for. And quietly, we lost some of the *plain health* that comes with food that in the ground last week and grew nearby. [A new kind of neighborhood kitchen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/the-neighbors/) hands all of it back, and it can do so now for the same reason the Automat could do it then: the machines underneath have changed. The power that runs it is made close by, [on the roof and out over the field](https://www.circudyne.com/energy-sovereignty/), so the lights and the cold-rooms and the ovens no longer answer to a wire strung from five states away. The coordination that once took a dozen managers now runs quietly in the background — what is ripe, what is needed, what is left over — [matched and routed without waste](https://www.circudyne.com/the-robot-milkman/) and without fuss. The kitchen draws from farms a short drive out, on lines fresher and shorter than any chain can run, its menu moving with the seasons, the summer tomatoes and the autumn squash showing up when the ground actually offers them. And where the ground needs a hand, there are sophisticated growing rooms nearby that make good food possible the year round. What those rooms take in is, more and more, what the old system used to throw away: the trimmings and the spent grounds and the scraps come back around as the feedstock for the next harvest. A closed loop turns out to be more than kindness to the earth. It is good arithmetic, and the arithmetic is what holds the price honest. [Steve Nygren](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/steve-nygren/), who built a community in Georgia around the idea, distills it down to this: *buy your food from someone you know*. Not food wearing a clever label. Food with a person standing behind it — a face, a name, a handshake somewhere up the line. That is what provenance has always actually meant. Not a sticker that reads "local." A relationship. Perhaps you're thinking, well we tried slow and careful once, and the world picked fast and cheap instead. The world did not pick fast and cheap. It picked *convenience*, and fast-and-cheap happened to be the only kind of convenience for sale at the time. Convenience has grown up since. A neighborhood kitchen that knows you, feeds you well, gives you a good room to enjoy it in, and hands you a warm box at the door on the nights you cannot stay — that is far more convenient than the drive-through ever was. It only took us seventy years and a better set of machines to build it. The best place in town is still the place we all go. We only had to learn how to build it again. ### By the Producer If you feed people for a living — a restaurant group, a fast-food operator, a delivery company, a regional distributor, a farm hunting for somewhere better to sell — the Automat's history is not nostalgia. It is a map, and most of the territory on it is still unclaimed. Begin with the aspiration, because strategy begins there. [Roger Martin](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/) teaches that a winning strategy starts not with what to do next but asking [what winning would even look like](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/winning-aspiration/). For the fast-food chain and the delivery app, winning has always meant more orders — more tickets an hour, more drivers on the road, more frequency wrung from each customer. For the Commissary, winning looks like something beyond: to become the place a neighborhood eats, for a generation, so completely that grabbing a sad meal to eat alone in the car comes to feel like the thin substitute it always was. The chain wants more orders. The Commissary wants to be the table you keep coming back to. [Where to play](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/where-to-play/) follows from that. You do not play where the chains are strongest — the busy corners already lined with drive-throughs and lit by delivery signs. You play where good food never comes: the neighborhood that gets a fast-food franchise and nothing better, the small town with a drive-through and no table worth sitting at. Kashi Sehgal, who runs a vertically integrated local-food company in the South, puts the principle plainly — the national operator will never come to the poorest neighborhood, but a local one who owns the whole chain, from the farm onward, can. The place the incumbents have written off is not a charity case. It is open ground. [How you win](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/how-to-win/) is the part that has waited a hundred years for the right machines. You win by integrating what the others leave loose. The fast-food chain keeps its relationship with you deliberately thin: place the order, take the bag, leave, and no one is responsible for whether you ate well or ate at all. The delivery app went further and commoditized the kitchens themselves — your favorite restaurant reduced to an interchangeable thumbnail, ranked by an algorithm, while the app kept the customer, the data, and the cut. [Clayton Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/) gave us [this law](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/conservation-of-attractive-profits/): when the profit drains out of one link in a chain because everyone can do it, the profit reappears at the next link, captured by whoever integrates around the customer. The Commissary integrates exactly where they all went thin. It takes back the relationship they abandoned — it pays the farmer fairly, serves a good meal affordably, and earns its margin across the whole loop, so that, as Sehgal says, you can lower the price without lowering the dignity. This is the move of a truly great platform, pointed at dinner. It captures its value slowly, across a relationship that does not end, rather than all at once in a sale that does. The household that eats with you for thirty years is worth more than the lucky concatenation of any single order to any other. The figure that describes that household is not the arithmetic of a transaction but the long, compounding curve of a relationship that never churns. Which brings us to the hard part, and the reason the territory is still open. This is patient work, and patient capital is rare. By one estimate from inside the field, some forty billion dollars of venture money has been burned trying to fix food on a software schedule — a ten-year fund leaning on a thing that gives a farmer perhaps thirty growing seasons in a working life. The harmony was off. Food is not software, so the money died. The Commissary cannot be built on a clock that either. The kitchen takes years to raise and is meant to stand for generations; the soil it leans on improves on the unhurried [pace layer](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/pace-layers/) of nature. The capital has to match the thing. The producer who finds patient money — blended, mission-aligned, content to compound rather than flip — gets to build on ground they get to keep. And there is a final piece of the work that shows up on no balance sheet and decides everything anyway. The brand that builds the Commissary is not selling dinner. It is restoring something — the dignity of the farmer, the honor of a good meal, the room where a neighborhood comes to know itself. [Douglas Holt](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/douglas-holt/) has shown that [the brands that become icons are the ones that give a cultural longing its voice](https://www.circudyne.com/closing-the-mythology-gap/). The longing is already here, plain to anyone who looks: people are tired of eating alone, out of containers handed through a window or left at the door. The producer who says so, clearly and early, and then builds the room that answers it, becomes the name the whole change is remembered by. --- *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved. Join the Dynamos.* --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Curated Wardrobe URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-curated-wardrobe/ Last updated: 2026-05-25T20:56:36.000Z *This letter is part of the* [***Carousel of Plenty***](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/carousel-of-plenty/)*, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the* [***Circular Century***](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/)*. We talk a lot about circular transformation — why it matters, how it works, what it demands of leaders. This season, we show you where it leads. Each essay presents one solution: something you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world designed for permanence rather than disposal. The premise is simple. The linear economy promised progress and delivered volume — more things, fewer of them worth having. The Circular Century delivers plenty: the precise amount that satisfies without burdening. These are its furnishings.* --- ### Dressed Right. Settled. > Now then, friends. Pull up a chair. Let me tell you about the morning my daughter started her new job. > She'd been working toward it for years. Law school, then the clerkship, then the long wait for the offer. And the morning came. She'd been ready for weeks. I don't mean ready in the sense of preparation. I mean ready in the sense of *prepared*. Tailored for the job. > She'd picked the cut herself, last spring. Charcoal wool, single button. The shirt a soft white cotton. The Atelier did two fittings across the summer; she wouldn't have it any other way. The Robot Milkman delivered the rotation from the Atelier the Tuesday before. Took back the things she wouldn't need. Maybe two dozen pieces in the closet, all told. Every one of them earning its place. > That morning, she opened the closet. There was never a question. She didn't pull three things off hangers and lay them on the bed and put two back. She reached in and chose. The shoes were already polished, sitting in the line she'd put them in the night before. In three minutes, she was dressed. > Now folks, here's the part that gets me. She didn't think about her clothes once that whole day. Not in the elevator, not at the desk, not in the meeting with the partners. It was all put together. > A purpose-built, custom-fitted wardrobe: that's how every kid should get to start. This is how being well-dressed used to feel only for the children of senators and bankers. The kind of folks who had someone to lay out their things, to fetch what needed fetching, to send the rest off when the season turned. Now it's for everyone. > She got to spend the day being who she was, instead of who she was wearing. > My friends, I couldn't be prouder. --- ### For the Consumer Perhaps there is a certain closet in your life. A closet with a preponderance of garments that haven't been worn this year. A few haven't been worn at all — bought because they were on sale, or because they looked right in the store light, or because you needed something for that one event. The drawers are heavier than they should be. Somewhere there's a bag of returns you keep meaning to take to the post office. This closet costs you. Time every morning. The small dignity of arriving somewhere knowing you look right. And money — $500 billion vanishes every year in clothes nobody wears, much of it tossed by consumers, much of it burned by retailers who never managed to sell it. Ninety-two million tons of garment waste reach landfills every year. More than 30% of fashion bought online comes back, often before it's been worn. The closet of disappointments has a balance sheet, and somehow both sides are suffering. [Marie Kondo](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/marie-kondo/) tells us to keep only the things that [spark joy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/sparking-joy/) in closets like this one. It is constructive advice. But everything in this closet was designed to spark *desire* instead — the brief, hot feeling that gets you to the checkout and dies on the way home. Joy is a different kind of light. The long-burning kind. The clothes you reach for again and again because they feel like you. That kind of light is hard to generate from a system designed for repetition. #### From dictation to counsel The Curated Wardrobe inverts the relationship the linear economy taught you to expect with a clothier. Today the clothier dictates: this season's silhouette, this season's color, this brand's collection. You choose among offerings, but style is curated *for* you — by Vogue, the algorithm, the mall's inventory. You are positioned as the recipient of taste. Tomorrow the individual dictates and the clothier executes. Style is expressed *by* you, with the atelier's craft. The clothier's job is realization, not direction. The clothier advises and executes — and stops there. There's a contemporary attempt at this. Stitch Fix and the algorithmic-curator generation built real machinery — preference modeling, AI-assisted personalization, fit prediction — and pointed it at a real problem: matching what the individual actually wants. That intent is more than the fashion industry as a whole has typically managed. But the algorithm is optimized to drive transaction flow, not to tend the relationship. The high return rate is the cost. Garments physically move so the algorithm can refine its preference signal one transaction at a time. Waste in service of preference matching is still waste, and it is still the wrong path. The Curated Wardrobe is what the same machinery does when the business model rewards the long covenant rather than the seasonal transaction. Three structural shifts make the inversion viable now. The craftsmanship and finishing that used to require a personal tailor, a valet, and a wardrobe consultant is available as a service — the economics of the bespoke house extended to the citizen who could never have walked through its door. Clothiers no longer need to sell mass quantities; the business model has adapted to long relationships rather than seasonal restock, so small curators with good taste can survive on the merits of their judgment. And the individual retains the final authority at the moment of choice — the brief, decisive test Kondo gave us, which we call the Joy Test. *It sparks joy, or it does not.* The yes earns the thing its place. The no says the citizen has enough. #### Three postures, one service The Curated Wardrobe doesn't ask you to dress a particular way. It asks you what way you'd like to dress and arranges itself around the answer. - **The uniformist** wants permanence. Steve Jobs had his black turtleneck. Einstein, by some accounts, kept seven identical suits in his closet so he never had to spend a thought on what to wear. The service keeps the rotation right and the question moot. - **The expressive** wants to evolve. Try things, change with the year, be seen in something new. The service gives them range without the ownership burden — the atelier handles the refresh. The Joy Test still gates what enters; nothing comes in that the citizen wouldn't keep. - **The standard-wearer** is clear about what works and intends to keep it. The atelier handles the seasonal swap on the standards. Nothing changes about the look. The fabric is fresh. The fit is current. The clothier thrives perfecting the favorites. None of these postures is subordinate to the others. The service holds all three at once, because the architecture — not the algorithm — makes the citizen's style sovereign over the clothier's. #### The objection *"But if everyone designs their own clothes, won't the result be awful?"* A fair question. Good taste is scarce. The Curated Wardrobe doesn't pretend otherwise. What changes is the mode of distribution of good taste, not its scarcity. Today good taste is gatekept — by Vogue's edit, by the brand's collection, by the algorithm's recommendation engine. The individual is positioned as the recipient. Tomorrow good taste is voluntarily associated with. The individual is the author. Curators become chosen advisors, not imposed gatekeepers. The Quality Cascade — the slow downward flow of craftsmanship over time from elite makers to mainstream practice that Schumpeter described — democratizes the *craft of execution*. More people have access to a well-made, well-fitted thing. The Sufficiency Frame — positioning to serve satisficers over maximizers — makes small production runs viable; a curator with good taste can survive without scaling to mass volume. And the Joy Test runs in both directions: a yes draws on the Cascade, a no rests on the Frame. People still look to their environment for cues — but they choose whom to look to. Good taste's *value* grows under this arrangement, because access to its execution is broader and the demand for thoughtful curation is higher. There will always be arbiters of taste, the way there will always be therapists, artists, and tennis coaches. They earn their authority through voluntary association. Few will buy anything solely on the say-so of a trusted brand. Many will pay a thoughtful curator who teaches them what works. #### How the brand conveys taste The clothier's role is to convey, not to dictate. Three elements of the brand's design discipline each play a part in the individual's style journey. - [**Compositional Logic**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/compositional-logic/) — the brand's pieces compose by construction. Trousers, jackets, shirts, shoes share a unified design grammar. The individual doesn't have to be a stylist to coordinate; the pieces already work together. Style is the selection the individual makes from a coherent system. The freedom is composing within a grammar that guarantees fit. - [**Instructional Design**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/instructional-design/) — the atelier shows the work. The artisan explains why this fabric drapes this way, why this proportion reads as elegant, why this color works for the citizen's coloring. The brand conveys what it knows. The citizen leaves more fluent in their own style, capable of choosing well without the brand's seasonal direction. - [**Timelessness**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/timelessness/) — the wardrobe's spine is made of designs that survived. The wool overcoat. The cotton oxford. The silk scarf. The well-cut trouser. Unchanged across decades because the geometry was right from the start. Economically dominant under the Sufficiency Frame because the business model no longer requires planned aesthetic obsolescence. Together they replace the seasonal-magazine-fashion-tip mechanism. Not by gatekeeping, but by making the principles legible. The Curated Wardrobe builds the citizen's taste fluency, not their dependence. That is the consumer's experience. Now we have to look at how the clothier makes it possible. --- ### By the Producer The clothier in this model lives with an inversion that should, by the linear economy's logic, be ruinous: the better the relationship goes, the less the customer shops. A satisfied customer in the Curated Wardrobe stops needing seasonal restock. She stops browsing. She stops returning. And yet the business has to grow. The resolution begins with a mental model shift. The clothier here operates as a tailor at scale — paid for relationship and craft over years, with intimate knowledge of each client's body, taste, and life. The AI engine, the [atelier](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/atelier/) network, and the [Robot Milkman](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/robot-milkman/) are part of an ecosystem that extends this tailor's model from a few dozen clients per tailor to a few million per brand. The manufacturer's economics — selling units, turning inventory, optimizing same-store sales — do not apply here; the tailor's economics do. Roger Martin's choice cascade — winning aspiration, where to play, how to win, what capabilities and management systems make it possible — is the operational unpacking of that model. #### Winning aspiration: be the brand the citizen stops shopping with The clothier's aspiration in the Curated Wardrobe is made clear by the satisfied customer's testimony: *I haven't shopped in years. My wardrobe just gets better.* The line reads as a complaint only to ears trained on the linear economy. To the clothier in the Curated Wardrobe, it is the customer testimony she most wants to earn. Her wardrobe is being maintained — by the atelier, by the Robot Milkman, by the design discipline that keeps the system coherent across seasons of the year, and of life — and her experience of it is improvement, not erosion. The friction is gone. The decisions are made. The relationship is producing its intended result. For the clothier, this is the win condition. Not transactions per quarter. Not collection sell-through. The win is the individual who arrives at a Curated Wardrobe and never voluntarily leaves. #### Where to play: threshold moments, not seasonal calendars The linear-economy clothier segments the year. Spring/Summer, Fall/Winter, holiday, resort. Each segment is an occasion for a transaction. The Curated Wardrobe clothier segments the life. The customer enters at a threshold moment — the first job, the return from maternity leave, the relocation, the late-career transition into a different line of work — and stays through every threshold that follows. The atelier is built to receive her at each one. This shift in segmentation changes the unit of analysis. A customer is not a season's repeat visitor; she is a decades-long relationship, and the right entry point is the moment her existing arrangements stop working. A first job demands a wardrobe she does not yet have. A new role calls for a style she has not yet developed. A child changes the day's activities. A move changes the climate. Each moment is a chance to onboard — and once she is in, the seasonal swap, the maintenance, the steady refinement, all become the relationship's normal rhythm. The seasonal calendar fails not because it is mathematical nonsense, but because it segments the customer's life by the brand's production schedule rather than by the customer's identity changes. The Curated Wardrobe segments by the customer. #### How to win: the tailor's craft, at scale The clothier wins by making the tailor's craft executable at scale. The technology stack that does this work is a hallmark of the Circular Century. The AI engine models fit, preference, and style with enough fidelity to advise without dictating. It learns from the individual's choices, from the atelier's refits, from the Joy Test's yes-and-no record across years — a long-cycle model trained on a relationship rather than a transaction-flow optimizer trained on a basket. The atelier is the physical interface. It is where the artisan touches the cloth. Where the fit is corrected. Where the brand's design grammar is taught hand-to-hand. Couture-grade execution at neighborhood density, made viable by the Quality Cascade. The Robot Milkman handles the rest. Returns, repairs, seasonal swaps, fabric refreshes, the deliveries of the new and the retirements of the no-longer-fitting. The atelier never asks the customer to schlep a garment back to a store, because the logistics layer does the schlepping silently. Holding all three together is the brand's design discipline — Compositional Logic so the pieces always work, Instructional Design so the citizen grows fluent in their own style, Timelessness so the spine of the wardrobe persists across decades and the small runs of refinement and refresh stay economically viable under the Sufficiency Frame. No fashion incumbent has this stack. No DTC entrant has it. No algorithmic-curator startup has it. The combination is the moat. #### Value capture over time The tailor's economic model is built around the lifetime relationship, not the transaction. Revenue per client per year compounds as the relationship deepens. Cost to serve declines as the tailor accumulates knowledge of the client's body, taste, and life. The Curated Wardrobe extends this from a few dozen clients per tailor to a few million per brand, and the per-client economics scale with it. - **Year one: invest.** The citizen arrives at her threshold moment. Foundational fittings, materials sourcing, AI engine ingest of fit data and Joy Test responses. Customer acquisition cost is high; revenue is moderate. The clothier is opening the customer's book. - **Years two through five: maturation.** Seasonal swaps and steady refinements become predictable. The atelier's work concentrates on refresh and refit, not ground-up construction. The AI model's advisory accuracy rises. Annual revenue per citizen stabilizes; margin per relationship rises as the marginal cost of serving an existing client falls. The book begins to pay back. - **Years five through fifteen: steady state.** The wardrobe is mature; the citizen rarely arrives with a structural new need. The work is maintenance — the seasonal swap, the periodic repair, the occasional commission for a meaningful occasion. Volume is intentionally low, gated by the Joy Test. Margin per client is high: the cost to serve is low, the trust is deep, premium pricing is accepted on the work she chooses to commission. This is the phase where the linear manufacturer's economics fail — a customer who is not shopping but is producing steady, high-margin annual revenue. - **Year fifteen onward: heritage.** The first wool overcoat, now three decades old, comes in for a refresh, not a replacement. The customer's daughter is introduced to the atelier at her own threshold moment, and multi-generational economics begin. Cost to serve approaches zero on the existing wardrobe; revenue from refreshes and new-generation acquisition compounds. The clothier has become infrastructure to the customer's family identity. Where the linear manufacturer measures Customer Lifetime Value as average order × frequency × years-to-churn, the at-scale tailor measures it as the integral of annual relationship revenue across a relationship that does not churn. Plot the two curves: the manufacturer's spikes at acquisition and decays toward churn; the tailor's rises through onboarding, plateaus into a high-margin steady state, and steps up at multi-generational acquisition. The shapes are different, and so are the businesses. #### Capabilities, systems, and what the clothier must retire The capabilities the Curated Wardrobe clothier must build are unfamiliar to fashion: fit modeling at population scale, atelier networks with consistent craft standards, logistics integration that handles bi-directional flow, design discipline enforced as a brand-wide grammar, customer relationship management measured in years, and small-run precision manufacturing. The management systems are even more unfamiliar. Churn is the failure mode. A citizen who leaves the relationship is not a normal market dynamic; she is a signal that the model has failed her. Years-of-relationship is the leading indicator — the longer the average relationship runs, the healthier the business, regardless of what same-store sales would say. And the clothier must retire what made the linear-economy fashion business legible: the seasonal collection as cadence, the inventory turn as efficiency, the celebrity-curator edit as marketing, the markdown cycle as inventory clearance. None of those instruments measure the right thing in the Curated Wardrobe. None of them serve a customer the clothier is trying to keep for life. #### The atelier evolves with the customer One feature carries through every life stage and resolves what would otherwise be the clothier's hardest segmentation problem: the same atelier serves the citizen across decades because the atelier's register evolves with her. At twenty, the atelier is part tattoo parlor, part hot-rod shop — a place for experimenting with identity, for the deliberate provocation of a chosen look, for the first acts of self-authorship. The artisans engage the questions the young citizen is actually asking: who am I becoming, and what do I want the world to read off me? At forty, the register shifts. The materials are haute. The fit is exact. The composition is settled. The atelier is the place where the citizen expresses the self she has become — refined, confident, no longer in dialogue with the question. At sixty, the register shifts again. Now the work is heritage. That wool overcoat that has been with her for thirty years is here for a refresh, not a replacement. The younger pieces in the atelier exist in conversation with the older ones; the artisans are curating across decades, not seasons. The atelier becomes a place of continuity. The brand grows with the individual. The clothier does not need to compete for her at each new life stage, because the relationship is already there — adapting, evolving, persisting. The atelier is one building. The work inside it changes as the citizen changes. That is what makes it possible for the clothier to win by being the brand the citizen stops shopping with. That is the producer's architecture. What it asks of the practitioner is the work of the next section. --- > Image prompt: An open closet on a bright morning, a small carefully curated wardrobe on wooden hangers citrine yellow jacket prominent, teal blouse, coral red scarf, charcoal sweater, canvas shoes lined up below warm sunlight streaming through a window beside the closet, a handwritten atelier card visible on one hanger, a small wooden bench in the foreground with a folded sweater laid out ready for the day, light wood floor, pearl gray walls, the room warm and ordered, mid-century advertising illustration style, 1960s World's Fair poster aesthetic, bold confident graphic design, flat color areas with clean edges, warm optimistic palette featuring citrine yellow and teal and coral red accents, Madison Avenue print advertisement quality, retro-futuristic consumer optimism, clean sans-serif typography feel, slightly stylized figures without detailed faces, cheerful domestic scene, gouache and screenprint texture --- *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved.* [Join the Dynamos.](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup) --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Something Borrowed URL: https://www.circudyne.com/something-borrowed/ Last updated: 2026-05-18T12:03:05.000Z *This letter is part of the *Carousel of Plenty*, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the* [*Circular Century*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/)*. We talk a lot about circular transformation — why it matters, how it works, what it demands of leaders. This season, we show you where it leads. Each essay presents one solution: something you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world designed for permanence rather than disposal. The premise is simple. The linear economy promised progress and delivered volume — more things, fewer of them worth having. The Circular Century delivers plenty: the precise amount that satisfies without burdening. These are its furnishings.* ### Nothing in the Garage. Everything Within Reach. > You know, folks used to measure a man by what was in his garage. The drills he owned. The lawnmower he kept tuned. The good ladder. The pressure washer he'd splurged on. Twenty years of equipment piled up against the day he might need it. > Well, friends, our garage doesn't have any of that. And let me tell you why. > Down at the corner there's a building — well-lit, glass front, friendly folks hanging around. That's where we keep the drill. A good one. The kind that would set you back two hundred dollars new and would sit in your garage the other 359 days of the year. Nobody on our block owns one. We share the one at the corner. > Last Saturday Mother needed a picture hung in the front hall. I walked down, signed the drill out — twenty seconds, no fuss — and walked home. Forty minutes later the picture was up and the drill was back at the corner. By dinner three other people will have used it. By the weekend, more work than any garage-bound drill ever managed. The kind of work the engineers who designed it had in mind. > But friends, that's not the part I wanted to tell you about. Walk past the tool room at the corner and you find another door. Open it up and inside is a model railroad layout — a real beauty. There are hills. Valleys. A little wooden bridge. Two retired engineers in the neighborhood keep it humming. The carpenter from down the street built the mountains. The former president of the town council runs the longest meeting of his life now, every Wednesday night, working out the timetables. > And the kids on the block? They wander in. Nobody invited them. The door is just there, and one of them stuck his head in one Saturday, and the retired professor said *want to see how this works?* and the boy said yes. Now my granddaughter can solder. The professor's still teaching. > None of those men could have built that layout alone. None of them would have. The boys would never have learned to solder from a structural engineer if the door hadn't been right there, in the same building where their parents go to borrow a drill. > Something borrowed. Built together. Better than owning. > *This is life in the Circular Century, friends. The right tool. The right room. The right neighbors. And nothing in the garage you don't need.* --- ## For the consumer Do you own a drill? Almost certainly. If you don't, maybe you have been thinking about buying one. Maybe you feel the small shame of not having one. A drill in your garage represents something the conventional wisdom treats as a single thing — *ownership* — with four distinct payoffs we have learned not to separate. The first is **identity**. A Leatherman multitool in your pocket signals competence. The fly rod in the garage deems you a fly-fisher even on the days you don't fish. The well-stocked workshop says something about its keeper. The second is **sovereignty**. The drill is yours at 3 a.m. when you need it. No permission slip, no queue, no rental counter, no apology to anyone. The third is **persistence**. The drill evokes memories. Maybe some of the tools belonged to your grandfather. Ownership provides an uninterrupted temporal layer. The fourth is **mastery**. The drill rewards familiarity. Good tools are tuned and broken in. Ownership is the precondition for the kind of mastery that requires a particular object across a particular span of years. These payoffs are real. Any honest account of the qualities of ownership has to honor them. But there are burdens that come with ownership. Equally real but less articulated, they are the part the linear economy has trained us to accept. - *Storage as tax.* Every owned thing claims square footage. The garage is not free. The unused half of every closet is not free. The storage locker is certainly not free. - *Maintenance as obligation.* Every owned thing is a small dependent. Batteries to charge. Edges to sharpen. Calibrations to check. The thing waits for your attention, and over a lifetime the cumulative attention for our stuff adds up to thousands of hours. - *Idle capital.* The cordless drill in the suburban garage runs at a lifetime utilization rate of less than 1%. By the time it is replaced, it has performed perhaps a dozen of the ten thousand hours its chassis was engineered for. The depreciation continues at full speed during the 99% idle. - *Fixed configuration.* The drill you own is whatever drill you bought. The job that needs a hammer drill, or an impact driver, or a right-angle drill, finds you with the wrong tool. This is the dynamic [Walter Stahel](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/walter-stahel/) observed in the 1980s and named the [*Performance Economy*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/performance-economy/). Rolls-Royce, gifted at making durable and efficient engines, found the best way to help its customers was to charge them for thrust by the hour. Xerox started selling pages instead of photocopiers. In each case the producer's incentive flipped: the longer the asset lived, the better it performed, the more revenue it generated. The customer hired the outcome; the supplier delivered the capability. The math worked for goods with high capital intensity — millions per engine — because the spread between owned-but-idle and hired-and-active was too big to miss. It was simply better business for both sides. That same dynamic applies to the drill, the ladder, the sewing machine, and the pressure washer. The per-asset spread is smaller, but the aggregate spread — across a neighborhood's worth of underutilized tools — is large enough to sustain a real institution. The Library of Things, already operating in hundreds of cities, is what that institution looks like at one end of the capability spectrum. Zipcar is the same pattern applied to vehicles, mature enough now to count as an antecedent rather than a novelty. The historical frictions of borrowing have structural answers when the institution is designed well. The trust failure of the neighbor who didn't return becomes irrelevant when the institution holds the asset. The friction tax of the rental counter reduces to a twenty-second reservation and a thirty-second return. The status inversion — borrowing as a sign of poverty — flips when the library-of-things in the wealthiest neighborhoods reads as sophistication. *We don't keep inventory we don't need.* The new payoffs of institutional borrowing are three. - *Lightness.* The household carries less. The mental load of inventory shrinks. Anxiety lifts. - *Expertise on tap.* The institution has the right tool for the job, not the all-purpose compromise. - *Configurability.* Today the hammer drill. Tomorrow the impact driver. The right tool for *this* job, not the average tool for *any* job. But the deepest argument for borrowed capability is not the math. The math is the *what*. There is a *what for*. For that, we have to step past both owning and institutional borrowing, into something less conventional. The drill in your garage is the *own* mode. The Library of Things is the *borrow* mode. There is a third — *pool* — that a previous letter, [*The Neighbors*](https://www.circudyne.com/the-neighbors/), established as the operating layer of plenty. Pooling is not borrowing. Pooling is joint construction of shared abundance no individual could afford alone. Peter Strack documents this mode in the Swiss 2,000-watt neighborhood pilots — communities engineered to bring per-capita energy use to roughly one-fifth of typical American levels. The central mechanism is not technological. It is institutional. The model train room in the building's common space was not an asset the institution loaned out; it was an asset the residents *built together*, because none of them could have justified the layout at home, and the hobby had no future in their families. The asset did not previously exist. They made it, as a team. The 2,000-watt neighborhood is the rigorous engineered version of patterns the developed world has been operating for a century or more. German *Schrebergärten* and British garden allotments have been pooling cultivated space since the late 1800s. American food co-ops and credit unions have been pooling groceries and capital for much of the same period. Danish *bofællesskaber* and the cohousing movement that descends from them have been pooling residential life for more than fifty years. None of these are utopian projections. All have track records, in some cases longer than the lifespans of the institutions that today dominate their respective industries. The mechanism, as we described in *The Neighbors*, is not ideology, but proximity and shared interest — enabled by design. What the pool mode produces: [**belonging**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/belonging/). The fourth payoff. The neighborhood that pools its capability is also a neighborhood that knows its members. The cross-generational interaction is not designed, but the affordance for it is. It happens because the door was right there, in the building where the boy walked past on his way home from school, and the retired professor said *want to see how this works?* and the boy said yes. The loneliness that the linear economy leaves to fester in private naturally recedes in public, in the company of people who are making something together. [Clayton Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/) taught us that consumers [hire products to do jobs](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/jtbd/) — and that [the jobs are rooted in feeling](https://www.circudyne.com/from-milkshakes-to-meaning/) more than in optimization. The morning-commute milkshake is hired to make the commute bearable, not because the milkshake is nutritionally optimal. The same logic applies to capability. The customer hires the drill to put a shelf on the wall. The Library of Things delivers that hire efficiently. The community hires the common room where the model train is as a place where the retired engineer's hands stay useful and the boy's hands learn to make something his father couldn't have taught him. That's still a job-to-be-done hire. The institutional form is the difference. --- ## For the producer If you operate in the household-capability space — if you sell tools, equipment, sporting goods, or any of the categories of object that live in the suburban garage — the analysis above describes the structural opportunity in front of you. The category is ready to disrupt. What follows is the strategic frame. ### Borrowing and the conservation of attractive profits In *The Innovator's Solution*, Clayton Christensen articulated what he called the *Law of Conservation of Attractive Profits*: when modularity and commoditization cause attractive profits to disappear at one stage in a value chain, the opportunity to earn attractive profits with proprietary integration almost always emerges at an adjacent stage. [Ben Thompson, at *Stratechery*, has observed](https://stratechery.com/2015/netflix-and-the-conservation-of-attractive-profits/?ref=circudyne.com) the law operating across the central platform disruptions of the last two decades. - AirBnB *commoditized property* and *integrated trust*. Hotels had kept trust as their proprietary integration, and rooms as the modular commodity; AirBnB inverted both, moved trust to the platform layer, and assumed the hotel's relationship with the customer. - Uber *commoditized cars* and *integrated dispatch*. Taxi companies had kept dispatch as their proprietary integration, with the medallion system protecting the integration's exclusivity; Uber moved dispatch to the platform layer, commoditized the vehicle, and assumed and elevated the customer relationship. - Netflix *commoditized content production* and *integrated subscription-and-recommendation*. The studios had kept production as the proprietary integration and distribution as the modular layer; Netflix flipped both, and the customer relationship moved. The Borrowed Capability producer makes the same move. The incumbents in the household-capability space — the big-box retailers, the tool manufacturers, the suburban garage as institution — have kept the *customer relationship* modular. The transaction is brief: come in, buy the thing, leave. The customer's actual need — the hole in the wall, the workshop full of capability, the place to learn to make things, the friends to make alongside — is left unowned, distributed across YouTube comments and informal maker spaces and the inherited handiness of one's father. The Borrowed Capability producer commoditizes individual tool ownership (the asset becomes modular, sourced from multiple manufacturers, present at the institution rather than in any garage) and integrates *capability itself* — outcome-delivery, expertise-on-tap, continuity of relationship across years, and (in the pooling mode) the community of practice. The single-word label for the integration vector, in the Thompson pattern, is *capability*: not the tool, the outcome the tool serves, with the journey from need to mastery wrapped around it. The Library of Things is a specialized CRM company for the household-capability customer. So is the cooperative-pooling-infrastructure provider. The architecture is the most familiar pattern of the last twenty years of business strategy, and it has not yet been deployed at scale in this category. The leap of faith the producer-side reader has to make is not whether the model works — it works the way every other platform disruption has worked. The leap is whether you will build it before the incumbent retailers do. ### Two archetypes, one covenant The **capability-as-utility provider** operates the Library of Things model. The job is to aggregate underutilized capability at neighborhood scale, supply it on low-friction terms, and integrate the customer-adjacent layer: expertise, continuity, recommendation, scheduling, mastery development. The capital structure is a multi-decade asset base requiring institutional maintenance discipline, member-experience design, and inventory rotation. Stahel's performance-economy logic scales down with the right institutional architecture. The **pooling-infrastructure provider** operates cohousing developments, community land trusts, neighborhood-as-service operators, and cooperative housing-and-capability models. The job is to design the physical and social infrastructure that enables proximity and shared interest. The capital structure is more patient still; the social infrastructure matures over decades, and the return is a function of the institution's longevity. Strack's Swiss pilots are the empirical evidence at small scale; the older cohousing and allotment movements are evidence at larger scale; the form is unfamiliar to most American producers because American zoning and capital structure have not historically rewarded it. The two archetypes are complementary, not competitive. The same neighborhood that hosts a Library of Things benefits from cooperative pooling structures around the assets that reward joint construction. The producer that masters one is well-positioned to develop the other. The cultural argument runs across both. [Douglas Holt](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/douglas-holt/) described iconic brands as those that [articulate a narrative of rebellion](https://www.circudyne.com/20260109-are-you-a-punk/) against the central catechism of their moment. The household that opts out of accumulation, that borrows from institutions and pools with neighbors, is already a rebel against the linear economy's central catechism. The producer that gives the rebellion vocabulary, posture, and dignity does iconic-brand work in Holt's strict sense. This is marketing with purpose. It is the cultural work the moment is hiring producers to do. Winston Churchill treated as given the *broad sunlit uplands* in store for a population that had not yet experienced peace; McCann Erickson, in 1971, put eighteen young adults on a hillside and gave them a song about *what the world needs today*. The function was good business. The brand that articulates the unfamiliar arrival-state earliest and most clearly becomes the cultural infrastructure through which the arrival is recognized when it comes. The covenant the producer enters: capability must be reliably available, well-maintained, low-friction to access, high-status to use, and — for the pooling mode — designed to invite participation rather than substitute for it. The Library of Things that runs out of drills on a Saturday morning loses the rebellion. The cohousing development whose common rooms sit empty because no one bothered to design for the friendships loses the deeper rebellion. The capital structure must align to multi-decade institutional outcomes, not short-cycle returns. Short-cycle capital cannot fund this work. The asset base is built over years and maintained forever. The social infrastructure matures over generations. The producer plays a multi-decade game. The patient brand wins. --- > Image prompt: Still life of a coral red cordless drill standing upright on its > flat base on a wide citrine yellow countertop in the Library of > Things, three-quarter view slightly above eye level, the citrine > counter surface a matte high-quality material that reads like > classic formica at first glance but reveals modern stone-like > depth on closer inspection, golden hour sunlight angling in from > the upper left through an unseen glass storefront, long warm peach > shadows stretching across the citrine surface, the drill rendered > in stylized graphic flat planes occupying roughly a quarter of > the frame as the clear focal point, a soft hint of pegboard with > neatly hung tools blurred in the muted background wall, a small > Pearl Gray paper return tag resting beside the drill, a small > teal accent container at the edge of frame, the citrine counter > dominating the composition as a warm color field, no human figures, > mid-century advertising illustration style, 1960s World's Fair > poster aesthetic, bold confident graphic design, flat color areas > with clean edges, warm optimistic palette featuring citrine yellow > (#FEC400) and teal (#00B7B0) and coral red (#F14432) accents, > Madison Avenue print advertisement quality, retro-futuristic > consumer optimism, clean sans-serif typography feel, slightly > stylized figures without detailed faces, cheerful domestic scene, > gouache and screenprint texture --- > *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved.* [Join the Dynamos.](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup) --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Personal Companion URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-personal-companion/ Last updated: 2026-05-11T12:03:54.000Z *This letter is part of the* [***Carousel of Plenty***](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/carousel-of-plenty/)*, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the* [***Circular Century***](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/)*. We talk a lot about circular transformation — why it matters, how it works, what it demands of leaders. This season, we show you where it leads. Each essay presents one solution: something you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world designed for permanence rather than disposal. The premise is simple. The linear economy promised progress and delivered volume — more things, fewer of them worth having. The Circular Century delivers plenty: the precise amount that satisfies without burdening. These are its furnishings.* --- ### A Friend You Never Have to Say Goodbye To > Now then. Pull up a chair. Sit a minute. I want to tell you about the day my granddaughter started school. > She picked the fabric herself. Blue with delicate flecks of gold. We brought it down to the atelier on Saturday and the artisan fitted the case to her hand — to *her* hand, not the size on the chart. Hers. He said she'd grow into it but he wanted to be sure it fit her right today, on the first day, when it mattered. > Now folks, this is the part I love. That little device knows her voice already. Knows the way she draws. Knows she likes her stories read slowly and her songs a little silly. > She's gonna have that same Companion when she goes off to college. Same one when she gets her first job. Same one when she's holding her own grandchild, and that grandchild reaches up and the Companion knows that little hand too. > The chassis on my own Companion is a sturdy old thing. The skin's been changed three times. Modules upgraded — well, who can count? Software's never the same software for two months running. But the *thing* — the thing I carry, the thing that knows me — that's the same thing. It's like an old friend. > A friend you never have to say goodbye to. > That's plenty, friends. --- ### For the Consumer Do you have a baseball glove? Then you know there is a particular sound a baseball glove makes late in its life. The leather has darkened in the pocket. The lacing has been replaced twice. The webbing carries the scars of a full life. You might say that Rawlings made the glove, but you made it *your* glove. It's a peculiar partnership, but not complicated. Ask any catcher whose name belongs on their glove and they'll tell you: both of ours. This is the relationship a Companion Device proposes. Not a phone you replace every two years, or a watch you trade in after three. A thing fitted to your hand, your voice, your life, that gets better the more you hold it. We have been told, for as long as most of us have been buying consumer electronics, that this is impossible — that the price of progress is disposability, that you cannot have *both* the relentlessly improving silicon *and* the lifelong companion. The linear economy forced us to choose. The chip's lifespan became the object's. When the chip aged out, so did the object. At which time the poor thing went into a drawer, and from the drawer to a landfill, and you went and bought another one, and the relationship that might have grown was canceled before it could begin. Joy is the opportunity cost of that arrangement. [The spark of joy is the signal](https://www.circudyne.com/sparking-joy-the-secret-ingredient-of-the-circular-century/) that long-arc utility is being maximized — the sign that an object has earned its place in your life across *enough* of your life for the bond to mean something. Disposability is not just wasteful. It is the compulsory absence of the conditions under which attachment becomes possible. The linear economy did not merely throw things away. It threw away the *possibility* of attachment. #### A violin Consider a 250-year-old violin. The luthier who made it is long gone, but the instrument has been played by a dozen virtuosi since. Each performer left something in the wood — the way a particular bow stroke wore a faint groove, the way the body resonated to a particular range of vibrato, the slow chemistry of varnish and air and rosin. When Anne-Sophie Mutter draws the bow across her violin, she is not playing alone. She is playing in collaboration with everyone who played the instrument before her, and with the maker who chose the wood, and with the time that taught the wood to sing. The character that violin has accumulated *is what makes it capable of expression in the first place.* Not despite age. Because of it. This kind of virtue has historically been accessible only to people who could afford instruments worthy of earning it. Stradivarius for the soloist. Patek Philippe for the collector. Hermès for the heir. The rest of us got things on a two-year clock, and our objects never lived long enough to mean anything. The Companion Device is the access-for-all version of that virtue. Not every Companion will become a Stradivarius. But every Companion is the kind of object whose accumulated character is real, legible, and inheritable. It's beyond the realm of a feature: a person's Companion will conform to their life in a way no spec sheet could capture. It forms a substrate of the life it accompanies. #### Pace layers [Stewart Brand](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/stewart-brand/) taught us that complex things are made of layers that move at different speeds. Fashion moves the fastest — experimental, volatile, gone next year. Commerce moves more slowly. Infrastructure slower still. Governance, slower again. Culture over generations. Nature, slowest of all. A healthy system lets each layer keep its own pace without dragging on the others. To understand [pace layers](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/pace-layers/) is to understand why, despite their miraculousness, consumer electronics objects have become so fraught and joyless. The silicon is fast. The chassis is slow. The relationship is slower still. Linear economics welded them all to the timeline of the shortest-lived components, which meant the slow layers were destroyed every time the fast layer turned over. Imagine throwing away your house every time you replaced a light bulb. The Companion Device is designed to separate the layers again. Software moves continuously. Modules turn over in months. The skin gets refreshed at the atelier every few years. The chassis lasts decades. The patina accumulates across the whole life of the object. The soul — the relationship between the device and you — is the slowest layer of all, and the one that matters most. Because the pace of progress is fast and linear economics demand disposability, we are deprived of the joys of good old things. The best of both worlds is when there is balance between progress *and* continuity. The new doesn't prevail by default; it has to compete against the tried and true. The Circular Century is the first economic order that lets old and new compete on the merits, and combine delightfully. #### Maintenance is the medium of caring [Brand recently wrote](https://www.circudyne.com/maintenance-is-a-first-principle/) that owning a horse means tending the stall, the paddock, the hay, the tack. *A form of caring,* he called it, *a relationship with another sentience.* The horse can care back. He wondered, in the same chapter, whether something like that might come again someday — a vehicle that cares back. A relationship with another sentience requires work. That sentience is what is capable of caring back. We need to accept the former if we are to enjoy the latter. Brand again: *when you take responsibility for something, you enter into a contract to take care of it. If it's a child, to keep it fed. If it's a knife, to keep it sharp.* The linear economy stripped maintenance out of consumer life and called it liberation. *Don't worry about it; just buy a new one.* What was actually being stripped out was the only loop through which an object could earn its place in your life. The horse could care back because the contract of care made the relationship real. Sever the contract and the horse becomes a unit of transportation. Severed enough times, you forget that vehicles ever cared back at all. The Companion Device cares back. Not necessarily because it's sentient — though it might be, in some defensible sense, by the time the technology matures — but because the *system* has been redesigned to permit the kind of relationship a horse used to be capable of. You take it to the atelier. You choose the new skin. The technician shows you the wear pattern on the case and asks how it happened. She remembers your last visit. The Companion remembers everything. The relationship is real because the system permits it to be real. #### Aristocratic living without the aristocracy [Horace Dediu](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horace-dediu/) poses the question in a way that captures the essence of humane progress: *look at what rich people do today, and ask how that gets done for the masses tomorrow.* Rich people don't price-shop flights. They don't decide between driving and Uber. An assistant handles it. Then the phone became the assistant. The pattern of history is consistent: aristocratic privilege graduates into ambient capability. The average person today lives better in most material respects than a king did 200 years ago. The move the Companion Device represents is not that Patek Philippe condescends to the mass market. It is that [**Apple**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/apple/)**'s offering comes to resemble Patek's** — because economic and technological advancement, properly directed, bring durability, service relationship, and provenance within reach for the rest of us. Today's level of progress might let us live like aristocrats *without living under the reductive geometry of the aristocracy.* That is an open possibility, and a continuing trend. The aristocrat's freedom required a constrained class beneath him; the Companion Device's owner is free without constraining anyone. The broad answer to Dediu's question transcends luxury. The aspiration ought to include the absence of financial fear for the future, and the presence of available alternative pursuits for everyone. Modern abundance as we have defined it ([Distributed Power](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/distributed-power/), [Ambient Intelligence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/ambient-intelligence/), and [Recombinant Matter](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/recombinant-matter/)) severs the relationship between the scarce and the aspirational. The linear economy taught us a false dichotomy. Everything good-and-accessible was new and disposable (the iPhone). Everything good-and-aspirational was old and long-lived (the Patek). That split is not a law of nature. It is the visible signature of a single economic regime nearing its end. The linear economy is finishing where it had to finish — wasteful and [enshittified](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/enshittification/). Its successor, if this generation meets its moment, collapses the dichotomy. #### The third element of Systemic Beauty A first swing has been taken. The approach Fairphone has taken is directionally correct: a phone designed to be repaired, with parts you can replace yourself. Honor where honor is due. But Fairphone employs modularity the way Dell does — user-upgradable, and little else. That misses two of the three elements of [Systemic Beauty](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/systemic-beauty/): [Compositional Logic](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/compositional-logic/) — a unified design grammar across the parts, so the object reads as one thing even as the parts age at different rates. [Instructional Design](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/instructional-design/) — the composability is self-evident; the system teaches you how to use it without manuals or specialists. [LEGO](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/lego/) is the canonical case. Modular, yes — but beautiful because the modularity is governed by a unified compositional logic, with instructional design baked into the bricks themselves. IKEA, at its best, achieves the same combination. The Companion Device adds a third element to Systemic Beauty that LEGO and IKEA haven't quite reached: **timelessness.** Old elements that provide continuity. New elements that enhance capability. Combined and synergized in a single object that does not date. If we find the combination improbable, or vaguely alarming, it is only because we have lived exclusively under a linear-economy regime. Product design, business design, strategy, and ultimately politics will all be liberated by moving onto what comes next. That is the consumer's experience. Now we have to look at how the producer makes it possible. --- ### By the Producer The Companion Device rests on a single strategic claim that turns the consumer-electronics business model inside out. **The chassis is not the product. The relationship is the product. The chassis is just where the relationship lives.** Every traditional consumer-electronics firm sells the chassis. The annual keynote. A new model. The same unit-sales economics. Customer-relationship management is something that *supports* the unit sale. The Companion Device firm reverses the polarity: every unit sale is a moment that supports the relationship. The chassis is durable infrastructure. The relationship is what the firm actually sells. #### Pace-layered architecture Borrowing Brand's frame and applying it to the object: | Layer | Pace | Authored by | | -------- | ---------- | ---------------- | | Soul | A lifetime | The owner | | Patina | Years | Time + use | | Skin | Years | The atelier | | Modules | Months | The manufacturer | | Software | Continuous | The manufacturer | | Chassis | Decades | The manufacturer | The chassis is slow. The silicon inside it is fast. The object survives the upgrades because the upgrades aren't the object. This solves the apparent paradox we keep being told is unsolvable: the device is *both* relentlessly improving technology *and* the lifelong companion. They live on different layers. Like the ship of Theseus. The same architecture has existed for decades for capital products. The table above just as well describes a long-lived airliner: chassis is the airframe; modules are engines, avionics, interiors; software is fleet-wide updates; skin is livery; patina is hours flown, the airworthiness directives serviced over decades, the registry the airframe carries; soul is the operator's brand, the routes flown, the passengers whose lives it has crossed. The Companion Device is what happens when this familiar capital-product discipline is brought to a consumer product whose previous form was a two-year disposable. **The discipline already exists for the things that *had* to last; the Circular Century extends it to the things that *should* last.** #### Strategy Choice Cascade [**Winning Aspiration**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/winning-aspiration/)**.** Be the maker of the artifact that can accompany your customer for their entire life. [**Where to Play**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/where-to-play/)**.** The thresholds. First day of school. First job. The wedding. The new child. The Companion enters life at thresholds, because thresholds are when people are most ready to commit to a long relationship. [**How to Win**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/how-to-win/)**.** A chassis built to last. A module ecosystem that upgrades it at the appropriate pace. An atelier network (the [Atelier](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/atelier/)) that personalizes it. A return logistics layer (the [Robot Milkman](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/robot-milkman/)) that closes every loop. Software that learns the owner across a lifetime. [**Must-Have Capabilities**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/must-have-capabilities/)**.** All three elements of Systemic Beauty designed in from day one: - **Compositional Logic** — a unified design grammar across chassis, modules, software, and skin, so every layer reads as part of one object even as the layers age at different rates. - **Instructional Design** — the composability is self-evident; the device teaches its owner how it can grow with them, without manuals or specialists. - **Timelessness** — old elements that provide continuity, new elements that enhance capability, combined and synergized in a single object that does not date. The system layers underneath: Recombinant Matter at modules. Ambient Intelligence at software. The Robot Milkman for logistics. The Atelier for Skin. [**Enabling Management Systems**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/enabling-management-systems/)**.** Churn becomes a failure mode, not a KPI to manage. Years-of-relationship becomes the leading indicator. The chassis appreciates as long as the relationship continues. The accountant finally has to learn what the watchmaker has known for two centuries: a thing that lasts is worth more, not less, every year you keep it. For the model to work, all of the following [must be true](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wwhtbt/) at the same time: The manufacturer has to stop fearing retention as a constraint on new sales and treat it as the only thing the firm is actually selling. Customer relationship is not a sales event. It is the entire enterprise. The atelier evolves with the owner. Hot-rod-shop and tattoo-parlor at twenty. *Haute* materials and quieter modifications at forty. The same chassis underneath. The same relationship deepening. #### Why we call this season the *Carousel of Plenty* This is the right essay to step out of the frame and tell you why we named the season what we did. There are two carousels that remind us of what the Circular Century resolves. **Carousel one** is GE's Carousel of Progress — the 1964 World's Fair pavilion where a family man advocated for his household's experience of progress, scene by scene, decade by decade. The Madison Avenue voice that the Pitch sections of these letters borrow. *Now then, friends, pull up a chair.* Progress as something the family lives through and is bettered by. The forward pull. **Carousel two** is Don Draper's pitch in the *Mad Men* episode "The Wheel," written by Matthew Weiner. Draper, pitching a brand identity for the Kodak slide projector, walks through old family photographs and reframes the device. Technology, he tells the room, is a glittering lure — but on rare occasions a product earns a sentimental bond with its user. He cites the Greek root of *nostalgia*: the pain from an old wound. The slide projector, in his telling, is not a spaceship; it is a time machine. It travels round and back, the way a child travels, to a place where we know we are loved. The two carousels point at the same dynamic: humans are pulled by both the new *and* the old. The linear economy could only sell us the new — by definition, because it had to dispose of the old to repeat the sale. The result was a culture starved of the second pull, with the first pull turned up to manic. The Circular Century restores the second pull. The Companion Device is the artifact through which the restoration is most visibly felt. This is the source of marketing power that lies dormant in business models that make products designed for discard. Nostalgia, as Draper's pitch names it, is the emotional substrate the linear economy systematically prevented its products from earning. Circular business models don't merely permit nostalgic bond — they *generate* it, as a structural by-product of the relationship lasting long enough to produce it. That is a marketing capacity unavailable to incumbents whose business model precludes the relationship from getting "old enough to ache for." The Circular Century is the era in which we get to have both pulls at once. It provides a vocabulary and coherent forward-looking mythology in which progress and nostalgia are no longer at war. That is the brand promise. The Companion Device is the artifact that delivers it. --- > Image prompt: A mid-century illustration in the style of a 1964 World's Fair pavilion poster. Simple still life. Composition: a worn wooden surface in warm late-afternoon light — a kitchen table at home. On the surface, two objects beside each other: a Companion Device and a well-loved baseball glove. The Companion Device is a folio-format personal device in the spirit of Apple's 1987 Knowledge Navigator — closed, lying flat, tablet-sized (roughly the proportions of a small leather-bound agenda), with a hinged spine. Its outer surface is bound in the manner of Hermès leatherwork: deep saddle-stitched leather in a rich blue-black, contrast-thread stitching along the edges, small reinforced corner pieces in burnished brass, a discreet stamped maker's mark near the spine. The leather shows years of careful use — gentle patina along the spine and the edge where the hand grips, a slightly darker tone where the thumb rests, the corners softened from being picked up countless times. No visible screen; the device is closed and at rest. Beside it, the baseball glove: leather darkened in the pocket, lacing replaced, webbing showing the scars of many seasons. The two objects sit in companionable relation, slightly overlapping or near each other, as if both belong to the same person and have been set down together — kindred objects, kindred patinas. Camera angle slightly elevated, looking gently down. Limited mid-century palette: warm citrine yellow in the light, deep sky blue, soft teal in the shadow, terracotta accents, cream. Gouache and screenprint texture, confident color blocks, no photorealism. Optimistic, civic, Carousel of Progress register. --- *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved.* [Join the Dynamos.](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup) --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Energy Sovereignty URL: https://www.circudyne.com/energy-sovereignty/ Last updated: 2026-05-04T12:03:46.000Z *This letter is part of the *Carousel of Plenty*, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the* [*Circular Century*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/)*. We talk a lot about circular transformation — why it matters, how it works, what it demands of leaders. This season, we show you where it leads. Each essay presents one solution: something you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world designed for permanence rather than disposal. The premise is simple. The linear economy promised progress and delivered volume — more things, fewer of them worth having. The Circular Century delivers plenty: the precise amount that satisfies without burdening. These are its furnishings.* --- ### Yours to Make. Yours to Share. > Now, pull up a chair. Sit a minute. Let me tell you something Grandpa would not believe. > He used to talk about the feeling he'd get when the utility bill came in. He'd ask Grandma to nudge the air conditioning down. Take a quick cold shower instead of a long warm one. Help him through the summer. He'd open that envelope standing up. > Our bill came in last Friday. Forty-two dollars. In August! In Springfield! Mother set it down on the counter the way you'd set down a grocery receipt. > Now, here's the part I really like. Some weekends, the meter runs the other way. I tell the kids and they gawk like I'm doing a magic trick. They lean over to watch the little numbers turn — and the little numbers go backwards. > I'll tell you what it is. We make some of the power, you see. We share some of the power. And on a sunny weekend, we sell some of it. The roof is doing it. The trellis over Mother's tomatoes is doing it — the same trellis that shades the vines from the worst of the afternoon sun. Down at the corner, a little outfit knits us all together with the company — they handle the rest. > You know what Mother said about it the other day? She said it's like the tomatoes she grows out back. Some folks buy tomatoes at the store. Mother grows them in dirt that belongs to us. They taste better. They cost nothing. That's what the electricity is now. Out of the sky and into the lamp. Satisfying and free. > Grandpa would not have believed it. The sun scared him every August. Now it runs our porch fan while Mother brings in the tomatoes. > A new kind of freedom, friends. > A new kind of plenty. --- ### For the Consumer The bill that came on Friday is not the only thing that has changed. The relationship geometry has. For most of the twentieth century, the household stood at the far end of a very long string. At the other end were fuels, mines, ports, pipelines, and large machines burning what those mines and ports delivered. Anything that happened along the string showed up at the far end. A tanker rerouted; the bill went up. A storm knocked down a transformer fifteen miles away; your refrigerator went warm. The household was the last node on a long, fragile filament, most of it somebody else's concern. The fragility of that arrangement is what Grandpa was sensing when he opened the envelope standing up. [Last week's letter](https://www.circudyne.com/the-living-home/) explained how [Stewart Brand](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/stewart-brand/) observed that buildings are made of "shearing layers" that move at different speeds. He extended the same observation to civilization itself: *pace layers.* Fashion moves the fastest — experimental, volatile. Commerce moves more slowly. Infrastructure — roads, networks, the grid — moves more slowly still, constrained by cost and complexity. Governance is slower again. Culture moves over generations. Nature is the slowest of all. A healthy civilization lets each layer keep its own pace without interfering with the others. Energy is unusual in that it touches every one of those layers at once. Nature makes the resource. Governance makes the rules about it. Infrastructure delivers it. Commerce sells it. When the layers move in concert, the bill is just a bill. When the layers fall out of phase, the bill becomes a window onto a system in trouble. That is the system Grandpa was reading. Nature was breaking down faster than the rest of the system could absorb. Governance was chaotic. Infrastructure was aging out. Commerce kept selling a dying dream. The friction between the layers reached the household as a rising bill and a brittle line. [Bill McKibben](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/bill-mckibben/) has written about [what happens when energy stops being a resource you ship and becomes a flow you receive](https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/46-billion-years-on-the-sun-is-having-a-moment?ref=circudyne.com). The sun and the wind, he points out, are diffuse and everywhere. They are difficult to hoard. They are difficult to fight wars over. He is describing a deep reordering of the planet's power systems — power in both senses of the word. The household scale of that reordering is what Grandpa would not have believed. The geopolitical anxieties that used to get into his utility bill cannot get into ours, because there is no string for them to travel down. [Bill Nussey](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/bill-nussey/) has the cleanest way of putting the underlying shift. *Solar, wind, and batteries are technologies, not fuels.* That single sentence reframes the entire household conversation. A fuel obeys the *resource* curve — finite, fought over, priced by scarcity. A technology obeys the *learning* curve — abundant, improving, priced by manufacturing volume. A household with a furnace is buying fuel forever. A household with panels and a battery has bought a piece of the learning curve and gets to keep riding it for decades. The roof and the solar trellis are not generators in the old sense; they are durable goods that produce a service. 📈 A fuel obeys the **resource* curve — finite, fought over, priced by scarcity. A technology obeys the **learning* curve — abundant, improving, priced by manufacturing volume. Energy sovereignty is power at the speed of art, or at least, of a harvest. Power generation moves to the rooftop and the solar trellis. Storage moves to the wall. The neighborhood block becomes the buffer. The household loosens the string that runs through the world's troubles. Earlier this year we wrote about the punk's discipline of ordering one's own corner — making the small things in your own life right when the larger world refuses to be made right. [*Are You a Punk?*](https://www.circudyne.com/20260109-are-you-a-punk/) was about the moral posture. Energy Sovereignty is the same posture rendered in watt-hours. The household that generates and stores and shares its power opposes chaos the same way: tending the small zone of order that is actually under one's own care. Solar panels turn out to be a moral instrument and not just an electrical one. ☀️ Solar panels turn out to be a moral instrument and not just an electrical one. In 1997, [Apple](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/apple/)'s *Think Different* campaign placed Gandhi-at-the-spinning-wheel in a pantheon with Einstein, Picasso, and Martin Luther King. The image was carefully chosen. The spinning wheel was not a symbol of nostalgia, but an instrument of nonviolent resistance — the sovereignty of a household and a village over the production of its own fabric, with everything that implied for the empire that depended on selling cloth back. With *Think Different*, Apple gave a name to a lineage of tools for noble rebels. Energy Sovereignty belongs in that lineage. The solar trellis on the back of the house is the same gesture the spinning wheel was, applied to a different essential of daily life. ![Mahatma Gandhi tends to his homespun in Apple's promotional poster from 1997](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2026/05/Think-Different-HD----1-E---Mahatma-Gandhi-Medium.jpeg) "Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels." Two engines drive this kind of change, and both are running. [Douglas Holt](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/douglas-holt/) has shown that [powerful brands win their place by speaking to the gap](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/cultural-branding/) between [the official story of a culture and its lived experience](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/cultural-mythology/). Friction between pace layers can widen that gap. The official story of the legacy utility was reliable, modern, civic infrastructure. The lived experience was expensive, brittle, and hostile to participation. That gap is exactly the territory a narrative of rebellion fills. [Clayton Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/) has shown that [disruption arrives from below](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/disruption/) — worse on the metrics incumbents care about, better on the metrics incumbents ignore (but a new movement of customers value). Behind-the-meter solar-plus-storage was, for decades, worse on capacity factor and unit cost. It was better on resilience, predictability, and sovereignty. Both engines were turning quietly for two decades. Their historical moment has arrived. What they are turning into has a name. *Solarpunk 2.0* is an evolution. It is a working system with a household-scale entry point, powered by the sun. Mother grows the tomatoes. The solar trellis throws the shade and catches the photons. The block keeps the lights on through a storm. The bill is small. The dread is gone. That is the consumer's experience. Now we have to look at how the producer makes it possible. --- ### By the Producer The household experience above rests on three producers, not one. Treat them as a stack: 1. **Household-scale hardware** — the rooftop array, the solar trellis, the storage in the wall, the smart panel. Behind-the-meter where regulations are sticky; standard interconnect where they are not. This is what the resident sees and touches. 2. **Block-scale microgrid operator** — the long-term steward. Aggregates a row of households into a coherent prosumer at block density. Carries the [diplomatic](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/diplomacy/) burden across utilities, regulators, and residents across decades. Otis-shaped: an institution that stays in the relationship after the equipment is installed. 3. [**VPP**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/virtual-power-plant/) **coordination platform** — the [Ambient Intelligence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/ambient-intelligence/) layer that turns aggregated households into a market participant the utility can transact with. None of the three works at scale without the other two. Together they make virtual power plants profitable, performant, and robust. The triad's posture toward the legacy utility is complementary, not adversarial: it reduces substation costs, smooths demand, supplies generation closer to load, and shortens the interconnection queue. Conservation becomes an option for the resident, not an obligation. The utility that recruits the triad as a partner is doing better business than the utility that fights it. The role most underdeveloped of these so far is the operator: [**Winning Aspiration**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/winning-aspiration/)**.** Become the long-term steward of the block's energy citizenship. Turn a row of houses into a coherent prosumer. Stay diplomatic across decades. [**Where to Play**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/where-to-play/)**.** Geographies where regulation permits behind-the-meter prosuming today and where utility partners are receptive to demand-smoothing and alternative supply. Block density first; mini-grid scale second; community-microgrid scale third. [**How to Win**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/how-to-win/)**.** Bring [composable](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/composability/) household-scale hardware to the resident as a turnkey service. Operate the block-scale aggregation. Hold the VPP relationship with the utility. Promote the partnership to the utility as a substrate that helps it solve real problems — substation upgrades, peakers, queue pressure — rather than fight prosumers about them. [**Must-Have Capabilities**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/must-have-capabilities/)**.** Hardware partnerships at the household level. VPP coordination software, built or partnered. A service network for cell refresh, pack swap, and panel maintenance across decades. Diplomatic capability — what [*From Managers to Diplomats*](https://www.circudyne.com/from-managers-to-diplomats/) called the statecraft layer. A capital structure aligned to multi-decade obligation, in the [*Vendor Dependency*](https://www.circudyne.com/vendor-dependency-and-the-loveless-long-term-relationship/) covenant frame. [**Enabling Management Systems**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/enabling-management-systems/)**.** An engineering culture that designs for upgrade paths over decades. A regulatory affairs function that thinks like a foreign ministry. Customer relationships that survive the resident moving away — the asset stays with the address, in covenant with the next resident. A capital plan that *is* the strategic plan. For the triad to scale, all of the following [must be true](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wwhtbt/) at the same time. **All Dynamos of the Circular Century operating:** - [Distributed Power](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/distributed-power/) as the topology, with renewables as the source. - Ambient Intelligence routable across the stack. - [Recombinant Matter](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/recombinant-matter/) at the cell, pack, and chassis level — designed in from day one, so the equipment refreshes rather than landfills. **Behind-the-meter prosuming legal and economically attractive enough to bootstrap participation.** The interconnection queue gets fixed eventually. The triad cannot wait for it. Plug-in and behind-the-meter forms are the wedge that lets the market move while the queue heals. **Utilities recruited as partners, not opponents.** Some will lead. Some will be dragged. The triad's argument is *we make your job easier, your peakers cheaper, your queue shorter, your generation cleaner, and your customer relationships better*. The utilities that hear this will have multi-decade advantages over those that resist. **Capital in the right shape.** Patient strategic capital, infrastructure-grade debt, prepaid service contracts, long-tail revenue. Not VC. Get this wrong and the stack collapses into another rooftop-solar-loan-bankruptcy. **A cultural mythology widespread enough that prosuming reads as citizenship.** Solarpunk 2.0 is the multiplier. Without it, the operator faces a market of one-at-a-time hardware purchases. With it, the operator faces a market of communities asking to be served. Pull any of these out and the triad fails. Which is why this is genuinely circular-only — not retrofitted utility, not solar-as-trim. The triad is the next company structure capitalism is poised to ship at scale. An evolution: better design, better capabilities, better performance. In an earlier letter, [*Why Self-Disrupt?*](https://www.circudyne.com/why-self-disrupt/), we called this a different species of enterprise — built on an improved organizational architecture. The energy case shows what one looks like in practice. --- Image prompt: A mid-century illustration in the style of a 1964 World's Fair pavilion poster. Composition: the upper portion of the frame holds a low late-afternoon sun in a saturated golden sky, descending into clear blue toward the horizon. The lower portion holds a single modest suburban home with a pitched roof of integrated solar panels and, in the back yard, a wooden pergola roofed with semi-transparent solar panels shading neat rows of tomato plants below. A slim white battery cabinet sits beside the house. No people in frame. Camera angle is slightly elevated, looking gently down on the property. Late summer, warm golden hour light. Limited mid-century palette: warm citrine yellow, deep sky blue, terracotta, soft greens, cream. Gouache and screenprint texture, confident color blocks, no photorealism. Optimistic, civic, Carousel of Progress register. --- *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved.* [Join the Dynamos.](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup) --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Living Home URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-living-home/ Last updated: 2026-04-27T12:03:36.000Z *This letter is part of the* [***Carousel of Plenty***](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/carousel-of-plenty/)*, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the* [*Circular Century*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/)*. We talk a lot about circular transformation — why it matters, how it works, what it demands of leaders. This season, we show you where it leads. Each essay presents one solution: something you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world designed for permanence rather than disposal. The premise is simple. The linear economy promised progress and delivered volume — more things, fewer of them worth having. The Circular Century delivers plenty: the precise amount that satisfies without burdening. These are its furnishings.* --- ## Made to Last. Made to Grow. > Now, sit down a minute. Let me show you something. > You see that cooktop? Twelve years we've had that thing. *Twelve.* Mother was making Sunday stews on it back when the kids brought home works of art in the medium of finger paint. Now they're doing homework on the laptop, and that same cooktop is humming along like the day it was delivered. Actually, it's better than it was then, if you ask me. They came out and refreshed the parts inside last spring — made it smarter — and now it cooks Mother's stew better than ever. (Don't tell her I said that.) > When the kids were little, we lived in the bungalow over on Maple. Now we're here, with the porch and the room for the dog. You know what came with us? The kitchen. The whole thing, near enough. Cabinets came apart like a puzzle and went right back together in the new house. Same cabinets. Same kitchen. New chapter. > The thermostat learned the children's school bus schedule — runs the floor warm before they're out of bed. The heat pump out back called the company before it gave out; the part showed up two days ahead of the trouble. The dishwasher is on its second motor. It's still on its first relationship with this family. It's seen every Thanksgiving since our old dog was a puppy. > This is how it feels to live in *a home that gets better*. > Not because we're better at fighting the chaos. Better because the home was *made* for the long run — built to be fixed when it needs fixing, built to grow when we need it to grow. The clever bits inside, the ones folks used to tell you were too complicated to repair? They open right up. Send a part back, get a new one in the mail. Easiest thing in the world. > Now — we used to call this rich-people stuff. The architect who came back every five years. The carpenter who knew the family. Houses made for people, over time, that got more *themselves* with every season. The kind of life that used to require an inheritance. > Well, friends, it doesn't anymore. > We love this house. And you know what? > It feels like it loves us back. --- ## For the Consumer What changed in that kitchen is not the appliances. It is the home's posture toward the people living in it. The Living Home works subtly on your behalf. It actively engages you as a partner in the act of maintenance. It manages itself, with the makers it is in covenant with. The heat pump does not page you when it fails. The heat pump tells the manufacturer it is going to fail, and the manufacturer dispatches the part. You learn about it when the technician schedules their visit. There is an old Disneyland principle behind this. [John Hench](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/john-hench/) used to say that a guest's pleasure depended on never being asked to absorb a contradiction. In the linear-economy home, every appliance leaves a contradiction in your hands: the maker gets paid to sell, not serve. In the Living Home, the contradictions resolve before they reach you. The home is reassuring the way a good park is reassuring. Every detail has a partner. That is one register. Here is another. [Stewart Brand](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/stewart-brand/) identified six layers in a building — Site, Structure, Skin, Services, Space plan, Stuff. The work of the home, he said, is to let those layers move at their own different paces without tearing each other apart. There is a seventh layer he considered for the list: the Soul. The resident. The reason any of the building exists. In a linear-economy home, the *Soul* is servant to the *Stuff*. Each thing was sold to live alone — designed for itself, not for the rest of the house, and not for the rest of the resident's life. As the years pass, the makers move on. The resident is the only party left in the relationship. > 📦 In a linear-economy home, the Soul is servant to the Stuff. Brand once described the kind of relationship a person can have with a horse — that you take care of a horse and, over time, the horse takes care of you back. The reciprocity is what makes a horse a horse and not a machine. Most of what we live with does not care back. The Living Home is the proposition that some of it can. Hench's home protects you. Brand's home engages with you. The Living Home does both. The linear-economy home does neither. Christopher Alexander wrote books about how houses ought to grow with the people in them. Each pattern was small — a window seat, a sunny corner, a defensible private place — but they built up to a humane architecture, a dwelling that became more *itself* the longer you lived in it. He thought everybody deserved this. He also thought it was effectively unavailable to anybody who could not afford to keep an architect on retainer. [Composability](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/composability/) shifts that budget line for the better. If the parts of the home are swappable — if the cabinet's joints are standardized, if the cooktop's parts can be ordered in the mail, if the thermostat speaks to the heat pump in a protocol that did not exist when the heat pump was built — then the *adaptation* gets cheap. A translator layer between the old part and the new part keeps the home working while you change one piece at a time. Brand's pace layers stop tearing at each other. This is the principle Enzo Mari was after with *Autoprogettazione* — boards, nails, a manual, a chair anyone could build. It is the principle Adam Savage demonstrates every time he takes apart a flashlight on camera. That is composability outside of commerce. Circularity brings composability inside of commerce. The Living Home is the result: every season the home gets a little more suited to your life. More *yours*. Live in a home like this for a few years and a after a while it teaches you some of the benefits of living in the circular economy. **It appreciates rather than depreciates.** Every refresh of the parts, every firmware update, every chassis swap is an addition. You are accumulating the home with your life rather than maintaining it against entropy. **It composes well.** Standardized interfaces, swappable parts, addressable components. The dishwasher gets a new motor without losing its history. The thermostat gets a new face without losing the children's birthdays. **The maker stays in the relationship.** The producer is paid to keep you flourishing across decades, not to sell you a replacement. Durability is a property of the relationship as much as a property of the object. **Calm permanence settles in.** The kitchen is settled. The heat pump is settled. The thermostat is settled. The low-grade dread about which subscription auto-renews and which firmware is about to lapse — gone. **Time stops being a threat.** The cooktop is older today than last winter and still good. The cabinet is older today than last winter and still good. The years are something the home accumulates with you. The dwelling that gets better with care used to require an architect, an inheritance, and a team of people whose names you knew. The privilege was not the granite countertops. The privilege was the *posture* — a house tended to by people who would still be there next year. The Living Home is that privilege made accessible. Care, over time, from people you trust — now available across the whole market. It is the upper-pyramid product category. The first to ship at scale. --- ## By the Producer *This section uses* [*Roger Martin*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/)*'s* [*Strategy Choice Cascade*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/strategy-choice-cascade/) *—* [*Winning Aspiration*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/winning-aspiration/)*,* [*Where to Play*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/where-to-play/)*,* [*How to Win*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/how-to-win/)*,* [*Must-Have Capabilities*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/must-have-capabilities/)*,* [*Enabling Management Systems*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/enabling-management-systems/) *— followed by the "*[*What Would Have to Be True*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wwhtbt/)*" (WWHTBT) test that reveals why this solution can only exist in a circular economy.* The Living Home is the first appliance category in which the **Three Dynamos of the Circular Century** all run at once. The Three Dynamos are the enabling catalysts of the Circular Century — the technological forces that turn circularity from an aspiration into a working business model. They are: - **Distributed Power** — energy generated close to where it is used, owned by the people who use it. - **Ambient Intelligence** — software and sensing that let every object in the home listen, learn, and coordinate with every other object across its life. - **Recombinant Matter** — materials and components designed from the start to be refreshed, reassembled, and returned upstream. Each Dynamo has been advancing on its own track for some time now. The Living Home is what happens when those tracks finally cross at the consumer level — and the producer who can run all three Dynamos inside a single category is the one positioned to deliver this convergence to the household. The producer archetype is the appliance-as-platform company. It vertically integrates battery cells, inverters, power electronics, embedded compute, and grid services. It markets the appliance to the consumer; it licenses the platform to OEMs through Powered-by-Platform programs. [Impulse Labs](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/impulse-labs/) is the legible vanguard. Founder Sam D'Amico's *Impulse was never a stove company* is the spine of the strategy. The stove was the wedge. The platform is the play. The [virtual power plant](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/virtual-power-plant/) (VPP) is the [disruption](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/disruption/) from below. Let's run the appliance-as-platform company through Martin's Strategy Choice Cascade. **Winning Aspiration.** Become an operating layer of the Living Home — the company whose products run all three Dynamos inside the appliance and earn a multi-decade revenue relationship with every unit the platform powers. **Where to Play.** High-friction, established appliance markets where iteration cycles are long, regulatory bars are real, and incumbents are slow. Cooking first; the wedge is sharpest where the panel constraint hurts most. Heating, cooling, water, drying, EV charging next. North America first. Geographies with grid stress and policy support second. **How to Win.** Synthesize the Local Buffer as a productized layer. Bypass the Services-layer constraint at the home — no panel upgrade required, the buffer lives inside the appliance. Become the certified, default-installed energy storage in every electrified appliance category. License the architecture to OEMs through a Powered-by-Platform program so the platform reaches beyond the company's own developing retail channel. **Must-Have Capabilities.** Cell sourcing and pack engineering. Power electronics. Embedded firmware on a multi-decade upgrade horizon. Grid-services partnerships and VPP enrollment. A service network for cell refresh and pack swap. Design for disassembly. Material passport. Multi-decade financial modeling. The capability list reads more like a utility's than a consumer-electronics company's, which is the point. **Enabling Management Systems.** Capital structure aligned to multi-decade obligation rather than the VC exit horizon. Engineering culture that designs for swap-and-refresh from day one. A customer-service organization closer to Otis than to Whirlpool. A diplomatic posture toward OEM partners, regulators, and utilities — [closer to statecraft](https://www.circudyne.com/from-managers-to-diplomats/) than to sales. Now run the WWHTBT test. For the appliance-as-platform model to succeed, four conditions must be true simultaneously. **1\. All three Dynamos operating.** Distributed Power topology supported by grid and home. Ambient Intelligence routable into the appliance. Recombinant Matter at cell, pack, and chassis. Designed in from day one. Retrofitted later does not work. **2\. A buyer posture that is not TCO.** Consumers do not run Total Cost of Ownership analyses. They evaluate something else. [The producer's value proposition is **Lifetime Joy**](https://www.circudyne.com/sparking-joy-the-secret-ingredient-of-the-circular-century/) — the promise that the appliance will be a source of pleasure across decades rather than a depreciating obligation. The producer's success condition is **Total Joy of Ownership (TJO)** — the cumulative satisfaction the asset generates across its life, measured by the producer rather than the customer. The buyer chooses the appliance because she wants the relationship. The spreadsheet does not enter into it. This is the most fragile assumption in the model and the most important. Without it, the appliance is just a more expensive stove. **3\. Translator-layer infrastructure available.** The Local Buffer must be productizable. Cells must be cycle-able. Packs must be swappable. Firmware must update across decades. Standards must let the home speak to the grid. Some of this is endogenous to the company. Most of it is not. **4\. Capital structure that pays the maker to stay.** Not VC. Patient strategic capital, infrastructure-grade debt, customer prepayment, long-tail service revenue. Different in shape from any structure currently funding consumer hardware at scale. The capital is the thing that decides whether the relationship is a covenant or a sales transaction. Get this wrong and the whole stack collapses into another Fisker. All four must be true at once. Remove any one of them and the model fails. Remove two and the model never gets started. Which is why this is genuinely circularity-only economics — not retrofitted sustainability, not linear-with-trim. The Living Home is the appliance category the industrial economy has not previously been able to deliver, because the company that ships it has to be a new kind of company — transformed to thrive in the Circular Century. --- > Image prompt: A vintage mid-century advertising illustration in the > manner of a 1960s World's Fair poster, gouache and > screenprint texture, flat color areas with clean edges, > warm optimistic palette of citrine yellow dominant with > sage green, soft terracotta, and sparing teal accents, > retro-futuristic consumer optimism — depicting a quiet > sun-filled corner of a family home interior at late > morning, no figures. In the foreground a wooden workbench > against a cream wall, a small desktop 3D printer in > citrine yellow extruding a clearly modular geometric > component, a few finished modular parts on the bench. > Soft daylight. The open plan extends into the soft middle > distance: a glimpse of a kitchen with modular wood-toned > cabinetry and a single citrine yellow accent panel --- > *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved.* [Join the Dynamos.](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Neighbors URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-neighbors/ Last updated: 2026-04-26T23:49:13.000Z *This letter is part of the* [*Carousel of Plenty*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/carousel-of-plenty/)*, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the* [*Circular Century*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/)*. We talk a lot about circular transformation — why it matters, how it works, what it demands of leaders. This season, we show you where it leads. Each essay presents one solution: something you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world designed for permanence rather than disposal. The premise is simple. The linear economy promised progress and delivered volume — more things, fewer of them worth having. The Circular Century delivers plenty: the precise amount that satisfies without burdening. These are its furnishings.* --- ## A Neighborhood That Works! > Come on home to Willow — or Pine, or Jefferson, or whatever your block is called — and meet the neighbors! They grow your tomatoes right out front, under panels that catch the sun twice over. They keep your jacket in stitch and your kitchen chairs in finish. They know your name, and you know theirs. The [Robot Milkman](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/robot-milkman/) makes its rounds at dawn. The workshop door is open by eight. The commissary has this morning's pick ready when you walk by. > This is living, neighbor! The block generates its own power, grows its own lunch, tends its own things, and has time left over for a wave from the garden. The folks next door aren't strangers who happen to park near you. They're the people who repair your chair, share your drill, pour your coffee, and ask after your mother. > It's the neighborhood you were always promised. Now, it's yours. ## For the Consumer You walk out the door on a bright morning and the solar panels are up over the beds. Tomatoes below, electrons above. The block's shared garden is also its power plant, and neither crowds the other. The meter runs backward on the houses with enough and forward on the ones that need a little, and the surplus only leaves the block when the block has a surplus to spare. The grid used to be something that came to the neighborhood. The neighborhood is the grid now, and the old grid is just where the extra goes. From the sidewalk, subtle small differences are apparent. The [atelier](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/atelier/) door is open. The Robot Milkman skitters up the street. Someone is picking a cucumber under a photovoltaic canopy. The commissary has already updated its produce list for the day. It's only moderately futuristic. It just looks like a street. The difference lies in how it works. The people around you are assets, not strangers. The cobbler three doors down keeps your boots in better shape than they came in. The artisan at the atelier knows your jacket's history. The grower under the panels remembers which tomatoes you liked last August. The circular business model pays them to stay, maintain, and deepen their relationships with each other rather than sell and move on. They're still here next year because staying is what profits them. The connective tissue is an intelligent directory — think of it as a Yellow Pages that pays attention. It notices when the tool library is out of the bit you need and tells the operator to reorder. It knows the commissary's produce rhythm and the atelier's backlog. It doesn't introduce you to your neighbors. It just puts you in the same place doing complementary things at overlapping times, and the rest takes care of itself. The mechanism works by proximity and shared interest, enabled by design. Opt in to as much or as little as you like. You can share surplus power with the block or keep it for your own battery. You can list your drill in the tool library or keep it in the garage. You can let the atelier know your preferences or drop things off like anyone else. The neighbor who opts all the way out still gets Milkman service, still walks through the commissary, and is still welcome at the atelier. The infrastructure is permissive, not coercive. What you join, you join one layer at a time. The only tragedy to be found in this commons is the local theater's production of *Romeo and Juliet*. ## By the Producer Three structural shifts made all of this possible, and none of them came from the neighborhood itself. They came from the pillars underneath it. **Power** used to require concentration — coal plants, transmission lines, a grid that flowed one way. **Distributed renewables** broke that physics. A virtual power plant coordinates what the block generates, stores, and consumes, and it scales organically as more neighbors add solar, storage, or heat pumps. The panels over the beds aren't just shading tomatoes. They're the visible sign of the neighborhood's thriving independence. **Information** used to be scarce, and hierarchies allocated it — broadcast networks, corporate chains of command, Madison Avenue telling you what to want. Today, information is everywhere, and abundance has produced its own pathology. You knew more about celebrities than about the person next door. **Ambient intelligence** fixes this by scoping information to the relevant geography. Local detail replaces global noise. This is the nervous system the resident experiences as the attentive Yellow Pages. **Production** used to require a factory floor — massive capital, industrial volumes, and whatever materials could be produced on budget at that scale. **Post-industrial technologies** broke the requirement. Regenerative materials cycle through the atelier, the commissary, and the Robot Milkman's bi-directional route. Additive manufacturing puts a production capability in a neighborhood workshop that used to require an overseas factory. The local Lexus factory in *Minority Report* was a plausible extrapolation of this idea. Together these shift the economics so that local production is viable at scales that used to require centralization, and the margin comes from durability and stewardship rather than global reach. Durability is something a local artisan can deliver. 📈 ...local production is viable at scales that used to require centralization, and the margin comes from durability and stewardship rather than global reach. These shifts restore something the linear economy collapsed: a full range of relationship intimacy, graded honestly by what each tier does well. Up close, local providers compete on memory and presence — the cobbler who knows your boots, the grower who remembers your tomatoes. Their product is the relationship itself. At mid-range, a liminal tier the twentieth century mostly erased comes back: the regional mill, the remanufacturer forty miles out, the farmer's co-op. You may never meet them, but they have names and accountability one tier up from the household. They serve neighborhoods rather than individuals. And at global scale, there are the producers who genuinely require it — the feedstock plant, the chip fab, the tractor company. The service is correct because it's impersonal. What makes this tier structure strategic rather than sentimental is that each tier's behavior is now conditioned by the one below it. Consider John Deere. In the linear economy, the tractor is designed for commodity agriculture — the farmer is a node in an anonymous pipeline, and horsepower and lock-in are the specs that matter. In the Circular Century, the farmer at the edge of your neighborhood supplies a commissary whose customers know her name. She cultivates relationships as well as food, because both are margin. What she needs from Deere changes. Serviceable. Modular. Right-sized. Remanufacturable on a regional service model. Deere's strategy follows the demand signal upstream. The global tier ends up doing work that is shaped by the local outcome. One [Winning Aspiration](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/winning-aspiration/), then, is to become the operating layer that makes all three tiers legible and economically viable at neighborhood scale. [Where to Play](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/where-to-play/) is the gap between global brands, which are too distant to know you, and individual households, which are too isolated to provide for themselves. [How to Win](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/how-to-win/) is network density within a walkable radius: every service makes every other more valuable, and every additional participant thickens the virtual power plant, the tool library, and the commissary at the same time. [What would have to be true](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wwhtbt/) for any of this to work? [Distributed Power](https://www.circudyne.com/404/), [Ambient Intelligence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/ambient-intelligence/), and [Responsive Matter](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/recombinant-matter/) — all three at once — plus a demand signal from the neighborhood strong enough to pull the upstream tiers. Remove the renewables and the block is back on the old grid's economics. Remove the ambient intelligence and the services don't cohere without a manager. Remove the regenerative materials and local providers can't compete with global supply on anything but sentiment. And remove the demand pull, and John Deere goes right back to locking in commodity tractors to commodity farms. The mid-century dream was wholesome in what it wanted: convenience, abundance, a neighborhood worth coming home to. It couldn't keep its promise because the enabling technologies hadn't arrived and the economic thinking hadn't caught up. Distributed Power, Ambient Intelligence, and Responsive Matter are here now. Circular business models are finally unlocked. The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow wasn't wrong. It was early. --- A note on terminology: this is the first Circudyne Letter to name *responsive matter* as the third of the three dynamos that make the Circular Century possible. Earlier versions of this essay and previous essays in this series referred to "regenerative materials" and "the three pillars." The language evolved because the category was always broader than materials alone — it includes additive manufacturing, material exchange, repair, and the artisanal tending of things. Future Letters will use the new terms. --- > Image prompt: A warm neighborhood street at midday seen from street level perspective, three or four figures visible at different distances one walking toward an open workshop door with warm light inside, two others chatting near a small food counter with produce in the window, a fourth figure tending shared garden beds, a citrine yellow delivery vehicle visible further down the street where someone is unloading a return container, warm sunlight, the feeling of a village street where everyone knows each other, lived-in and welcoming not pristine, mid-century advertising illustration style, 1960s World's Fair poster aesthetic, bold confident graphic design, flat color areas with clean edges, warm optimistic palette featuring citrine yellow and teal and coral red accents, Madison Avenue print advertisement quality, retro-futuristic consumer optimism, slightly stylized figures without detailed faces, cheerful domestic scene, gouache and screenprint texture --- *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved.* [Join the Dynamos.](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Atelier URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-atelier/ Last updated: 2026-04-13T12:03:36.000Z *This letter is part of the* [***Carousel of Plenty***](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/carousel-of-plenty/)*, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the* [*Circular Century*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/)*. We talk a lot about circular transformation — why it matters, how it works, what it demands of leaders. This season, we show you where it leads. Each essay presents one solution: something you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world designed for permanence rather than disposal. The premise is simple. The linear economy promised progress and delivered volume — more things, fewer of them worth having. The Circular Century delivers plenty: the precise amount that satisfies without burdening. These are its furnishings.* --- ## Your Things Deserve an Artist > You know, it used to be that when something wore out, you just went and bought another one. The jacket got a little tired in the shoulders. The upholstery on the car seat went thin where your elbow sits. The color faded on a phone case after a summer in the sun. And what could you do? You lived with it, or you replaced it. Those were your options. > Well, friends, let me tell you about the place down the street that changed all that. > It's called an atelier — that's a fancy word for a workshop, but the fancy is the point. This isn't a repair shop. Nothing's broken. It's a studio where people who are very, very good with their hands (and have the latest tools) tend the things you own before they ever need emergency attention. They oil your boots. They adjust the jacket so the shoulder finally sits right — the way it never quite did off the rack. They re-cover the car seat in a fabric that develops a patina that belongs to you and nobody else. > And here's the part Mother likes. That old set of kitchen chairs? The ones we were about to haul to the curb? She sent them in last Tuesday with the [robot milkman](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/robot-milkman/). By Thursday they came back with new cane seats and a finish that made them look like something from a magazine. The kids didn't even recognize them. She's been polishing them every morning since, just for the pleasure of it. > Over time, your things stop getting worse. They get better. More *yours*. More suited. More beautiful. The artisan knows your name. Your history is on file. And the work — well, the work is art. > This is life in the Circular Century, friends. Your things deserve an artist. And now they've got one. --- ## For the Consumer Last week, we covered [how the Robot Milkman works like a circulatory system](https://www.circudyne.com/the-robot-milkman/). It is an infrastructure that hums beneath daily life, moving things in and out, silently, on schedule. The [Atelier](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/atelier/) is where those things go when they need a human hand. Not a repair shop. The distinction matters. A repair shop waits for failure. You bring it something broken and it restores what was. An atelier tends what's whole. It makes things fit better, last longer, look the way you always wished they had. The job is not restoration. It is evolution. The word is borrowed from fine art. Hermès calls its workshops *ateliers*. A painter's studio is an atelier. The word carries weight: what happens here is skilled, considered, and beautiful. We use it deliberately. The person who re-covers your car seat is not a mechanic. She is an artisan. The word tells her so, and it tells you. The atelier can be independent — a neighborhood studio where a craftsperson maintains everything from boots to bicycles to kitchen furniture. Or it can be part of a brand. Imagine an electronics manufacturer that doesn't just sell you a phone but runs a studio where your device gets fitted with the case material you chose, in the color you love, shaped to your grip. When the next generation of internals arrives, you don't replace the phone. You bring it in. The screen improves. The camera improves. The shell — the part that feels like yours — stays. Or imagine an automaker whose showroom doubles as a refurbishment studio. [BMW's Vision C concept already demonstrated the hardware](https://www.circudyne.com/modularity-theory-the-compass-for-circular-innovation-strategy/): twist-key upholstery panels that detach completely, enabling seasonal refreshes without replacing the car. What's missing is the place — the beautiful, accessible place where customers experience the refresh as a visit to their craftsperson, not a trip to the dealer. The atelier is that missing piece. Here is what all of this gives you that the linear economy never will. **Things that improve with age.** Your boots get resoled with better materials. Your kitchen table gets refinished when the kids outgrow the phase where they carve their initials into everything. Your phone gets a new shell in a material that didn't exist when you bought it. Not repairs, but upgrades that honor the original. **A relationship, not a transaction.** You go back to the same place. The same craftspeople. They know your jacket, and they know the left shoulder rides high because you carry a bag on that side. They adjust for it without being asked. It's *couture,* at scale. **Freedom from the replacement cycle.** The linear economy needs you to discard. That is the business model: sell, obsolesce, sell again. The atelier breaks the cycle. When your things improve instead of decline, the pressure to replace evaporates. You stop shopping out of frustration and start choosing out of desire. That is [sovereignty](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/sovereignty/) over your material life. Think of a baseball player's glove. It arrives as a standard product. Through use and care — oiling, reshaping, relacing — it becomes *his* glove. No one else's hand fits it the same way. The atelier scales that experience to everything you own. Your car interior. Your winter coat. Your kitchen. The deeper job is not "get my things fixed." It is: *I want my things to become more* mine *over time.* And the economics that make this possible are not magic. They are structural. The robot milkman handles the logistics — pickup and delivery so you never have to drive anywhere. [Ambient intelligence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/artificial-intelligence/) tells the artisan what needs attention before you call. [Renewable energy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/renewable-energy/) powers the workshop for nearly nothing. Regenerative technologies abound. The only scarce input left is the artisan's skill, but skill is a capital investment with durable returns. Hermès proved this. When demand for their bags exceeded the supply of artisans capable of making the difficult saddle stitch, they did not automate or cut corners. They invested in creating new skilled artisans — elaborate training, purpose-built studios, conditions for lifetime employment. Their output grew even as quality and desirability held. We have called this the atelier of democracy: the place where the Circular Century's promise of mass customization becomes real. What if the Hermès logic applied to everything — not at Hermès prices, but at prices made possible when the support system around the artisan approaches zero marginal cost? --- ## By the Producer The atelier only works when the manufacturer wants the product to last. Under [planned obsolescence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/planned-obsolescence/), every year an artisan extends a product's life is a year of lost replacement revenue. The skilled maintainer is an economic threat. The manufacturer has no reason to share design intent, supply parts, or build for serviceability. In that world, the atelier is an adversary. The Circular Century inverts this. When the manufacturer retains ownership, profits from remanufacture, or competes on stewardship reputation, the atelier becomes a partner, or a capacity. But in any case it is the place where consumer, producer, and product meet to make things better. Because the longer your things last, the more profitable the relationship. [**Winning Aspiration**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/winning-aspiration/)**:** Become the trusted steward of products across their full lifetime — the relationship layer between manufacturer and owner. [**Where to Play**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/where-to-play/)**:** The territory linear manufacturers abandon after the warranty expires. Post-purchase product lifecycle. The decades between sale and disposal where no one currently competes, because no one currently profits from being there. [**How to Win**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/how-to-win/)**:** Skill. Knowledge of your specific products, your preferences, your history. Switching costs built on accumulated relationship — not contractual lock-in, but the fact that the artisan down the street knows your things and you trust her judgment. [**What Would Have to Be True**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wwhtbt/)**:** Manufacturers must want products to last. They must share design intent, not just parts lists. The return network — that robot milkman — must exist to handle logistics. Energy must be cheap enough that skilled human attention is the dominant cost. And the culture must value craft again — must see the person who tends your boots as an artist, not a laborer. Care is the new luxury. Unlike the old luxuries, it scales. --- > Image prompt: > A craftsperson seen from behind at a well-lit workbench in a warm neighborhood atelier studio, carefully tending a beautiful woven textile object, artisan tools arrayed with care on the wall, warm citrine light streaming through a window, mid-century advertising illustration style, 1960s World's Fair poster aesthetic, bold confident graphic design, flat color areas with clean edges, warm optimistic palette featuring citrine yellow and teal and coral red accents, Madison Avenue print advertisement quality, retro-futuristic consumer optimism, slightly stylized figures without detailed faces, cheerful workshop scene, gouache and screenprint texture --ar 3:2 --s 300 --no photorealistic, photograph, HDR, dark, dystopian, gritty, lens flare, stock photo --- *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved.* [Join the Dynamos.](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Robot Milkman URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-robot-milkman/ Last updated: 2026-05-09T17:48:19.000Z *This is the first letter of* the Carousel of Plenty*, a series exploring products and services that could only exist in the* [*Circular Century*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/)*. We talk a lot about circularity transformation — why it matters, how it works, what it demands of leaders. This season, we show you where it leads. Each essay presents one solution: something you'd use, live with, or depend on in a world designed for permanence rather than disposal. The premise is simple. The linear economy promised progress and delivered volume — more things, fewer of them worth having. The Circular Century delivers plenty: the precise amount that satisfies without burdening. These are its furnishings.* --- ## Brings What You Need. Takes What You Don't. > Now, I know what you're thinking. Another gadget, another gizmo, another thing to keep track of. But folks — this one's different. This one takes things *away*. > See that little vehicle at the curb? Came by this morning, same time it always does. Dropped off new filters for the air purifier and the water pitcher — the old ones already boxed up on the porch, and off they went, back to the manufacturer. I didn't lift a finger. Didn't even have to remember. The system just... knows. > Last Saturday the kids wanted movie night in the backyard. So we ordered a projector — a beautiful thing, German optics, the kind of picture you'd swear was a theater screen. It showed up Friday afternoon. Sunday morning we set it back on the porch, and by Monday it was at somebody else's house, making somebody else's kids gasp at the size of the dinosaurs. We got the movie. They got the movie. Nobody got a five-thousand-dollar projector collecting dust on a shelf. > But here's the part that really gets Mother excited. You know that jar of cooking oil under the sink? The one you can't pour down the drain but can't bring yourself to throw away? She puts it in the return bin now. Out it goes, gets converted to biofuel, and that's that. Same with the dead batteries, the broken tire pump, three cables to something nobody owns anymore. She loaded the whole junk drawer into the bin last Thursday. By Friday, every bit of it was at a recovery facility. She's been smiling about that tidy drawer all week. > And the knives. Oh, the knives. You know, in the old days we just put up with dull knives. Same way our grandparents put up with bad coffee — figured that's just how it was. Now the kitchen knives go out in the return bin every few months. They come back sharp enough to make you wonder how you ever cooked with the ones you had before. The cobbler picks up the shoes the same way. It's the kind of care people used to reserve for their very best things. Now it's just... how things work. > Oh — and I almost forgot. Hear that chime? That's Aunt Gladys' lasagna. She never misses a Thursday. Her speciality — the one with the béchamel, you know the one — arrives in a reusable container, warm from her kitchen across town. Last week we sent back the dish with a jar of Mother's pickled beets. The vehicle handled the whole exchange. Gladys called that night to say they were the best beets she'd had in years. I didn't even know Mother made pickled beets. > One vehicle. One stop. Everything comes, everything goes. Nothing piles up in the garage, the closet, or the conscience. > This is life in the Circular Century, friends. And I've got to tell you — it's a great big beautiful tomorrow. We're already living in it. --- ## For the Consumer Everyone over forty remembers the milkman. He brought full bottles and took the empties. The glass went back to the dairy, got washed, got filled, went out again. Nobody called this sustainability. They called it regular life. Everyone under forty has Amazon, and knows the routine. The parcel arrives. Into the recycling bin goes the box it came in — maybe. The packaging was engineered to survive the journey. Beyond that — left to happenstance. It served the seller. It burdens the buyer. That asymmetry is the design signature of linear logistics. Delivery is a service. Disposal is an externality. Everything that happens after the package lands on your doorstep — the breakdown, the sorting, the guilt, the Saturday trip to the donation center — is labor the system transferred to you without asking. The Robot Milkman reverses that transfer, and closes the loop. An autonomous vehicle that arrives at your door, drops off what you need, and picks up what you're done with. Filters going back for refurbishment. Cooking oil headed for biofuel conversion. A broken tire pump bound for material recovery. Knives out to the master sharpener, back in a week with an edge that changes how you cook. The retrieval function that the linear economy abandoned — restored, automated, and made invisible. The [job to be done](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/jtbd/) runs deeper than delivery. Amazon solved "get stuff to your door." Waste management solved "get stuff away from your door," but the tell is in the name: it's still waste, and gets treated that way. The Robot Milkman solves both halves in a single stop: *I want access to what I need without the burden of what I'm done with.* Go deeper still. What you want is for your relationship with things to be simple. No guilt about the packaging. No junk drawer of dead batteries and mystery cables. No expired product aging in the back of the cabinet. The system handles the lifecycle. You handle the living. ### The doorstep as a bus In computer science, a shared communication channel is called a *bus*. A bus is agnostic to what data passes through it, and connects everything to everything else. The Robot Milkman turns your doorstep into exactly this, but for stuff. One interface, open to the entire circular economy. Toner cartridges from a manufacturer in Shenzhen. A box of fresh produce from your local farmer. A German projector arriving Friday for movie night, departing Sunday for the next family who wants it. Compost going out, garden soil coming back. Aunt Gladys' Thursday lasagna in a reusable dish. The doorstep doesn't care what's in the bin. It cares that things move, with efficiency and perfect information. And because the system is standardized — shared containers, shared routes, shared protocols — it works for everything and everyone, from multinational brands to the woman three blocks over who makes jam. This **composability** is what separates the Robot Milkman from a delivery service with a return label. A delivery service connects you to one company. The Robot Milkman connects you to a system. One vehicle handles a dozen material flows in a single stop. It's the postal service reimagined for physical goods — and like the postal service, its power comes from universality. Anyone can send. Anyone can receive. The network carries it all. ### Own what appreciates. Borrow what depreciates. The circular economy unlocks value in a way that the linear economy is designed to undermine: some things gain value when you care for them. A cast-iron skillet. A well-made pair of boots. A set of kitchen knives that come back from the sharpener better than they left. These are worth owning — and the Robot Milkman makes owning them better, because the maintenance that keeps them appreciating is now a service the infrastructure provides. You don't have to find the cobbler, drive to the cobbler, remember to pick up the shoes. Proper maintenance is the default. Other things lose value the moment you take them home. A projector. A carpet cleaner. A snowblower you'll use three times this winter. These are worth *using* — and then releasing back into the system so someone else can use them tomorrow. The Robot Milkman makes this so frictionless that the old instinct to buy and store starts to feel like hoarding. Why own a five-thousand-dollar projector that sits in a closet eleven months a year when a better one shows up on your porch the afternoon you need it? The linear economy couldn't make this distinction because it had no return channel. Everything was a purchase. The Robot Milkman gives you the infrastructure to be strategic about what you keep and what you access — and makes both modes feel equally effortless. ### Reach out and touch someone This is how the Robot Milkman becomes something warmer than infrastructure. The early telephone system did more than just transmit information. It connected people. It turned distant relationships into daily ones. It made the aunt in another city feel like the neighbor next door. The Robot Milkman does the same thing for the physical world. Aunt Gladys sends her lasagna on Thursday. You send back Mother's pickled beets. The CSA share arrives from the farm twenty miles out in crates that go back next week. A friend across town drops a novel into the system because she thinks you'll love it. The reusable containers circulate. The relationships deepen. The network carries béchamel and beets and borrowed books with the same quiet efficiency it carries toner cartridges and spent cooking oil. The linear economy made distance cheap and connection disposable. The Robot Milkman makes connection cheap and distance irrelevant — for things, the way the telephone did for voice. This is the difference between volume and plenty. Volume is more packages, more boxes, more waste, more trips to the curb. Plenty is the precise amount that satisfies: the right thing arriving when you need it, the finished thing departing when you don't, and your home staying clean, orderly, and stocked with only what deserves to be there. The word "enough" stops being a constraint and becomes a description of how the good life feels when the system works with you instead of against you. The mid-century American dream included doorstep service as a standard feature of civilized life. Milk, bread, ice, laundry — services came to you, and the containers went back. As it evolved, the linear economy dismantled this in favor of self-service and called it freedom. The Robot Milkman restores what was taken — with better technology, broader scope, and a reach that extends from the manufacturer to the neighbor to the farm to the friend. Every solution in the Carousel of Plenty depends on a logistics layer that moves in both directions. This is that layer. It's why we start here. --- ## By the Producer *This section uses* [*Roger Martin*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/)*'s* [*Strategy Choice Cascade*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/strategy-choice-cascade/) *— Winning Aspiration, Where to Play, How to Win, Must-Have Capabilities, Enabling Management Systems — followed by the "*[*What Would Have to Be True*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wwhtbt/)*" test that reveals why this solution can only exist in a circular economy.* From the producer's side, the Robot Milkman looks like a *logistics* company. It behaves like a *utility*. And it wins like a *platform*. **Winning Aspiration:** Become the trusted last-mile interface for the circular economy. The infrastructure that makes all performance economy models viable. Not the company that delivers your groceries or your packages — the company that connects your household to the entire material system, in both directions, permanently. **Where to Play:** Residential last-mile logistics, specifically the return and retrieval function that every existing carrier ignores. FedEx, UPS, and Amazon have spent decades optimizing one-way delivery. Their trucks leave the warehouse full and come back empty. The return trip is dead weight — a cost center with no corresponding revenue. The entire economics of linear logistics treats the journey home as waste. This is the opening. The Robot Milkman plays in the space that one-way carriers structurally cannot, because filling the return trip would require them to redesign their cost model from the ground up. **How to Win:** Bi-directional route density. Every delivery is also a pickup. The same vehicle, the same stop, the same relationship — but the vehicle is never empty in either direction. **Rotable** filters going back to the filter maker. **Reclaimable** electronics headed for material recovery. A neighbor's lasagna dish returning across town. **Expendable** cooking oil bound for biodiesel. A pair of boots headed to the cobbler. The cargo is diverse, but the route is unified. One stop services six material flows. This density is a structural cost advantage over one-way logistics. The Robot Milkman doesn't compete with Amazon on delivery speed. It competes on system completeness — and the completeness compounds with every manufacturer, every neighbor, every local service provider that joins the network. **Must-Have Capabilities:** > **Material identification and sorting at point of pickup.** The vehicle needs to know what it's collecting and where each item goes next. Every object in the return bin — a spent filter, a jar of cooking oil, a pair of boots — must be legible to the system at the moment of collection. > **An intelligence that views every home the way a freight forwarder views an airport** — not as a destination, but as a node in a living network. It operates like air traffic control, but at a scale that exceeds it by an order of magnitude: millions of vehicles instead of tens of thousands, billions of parcel movements instead of millions of passengers, millions of sorties every hour. > **Partnerships guaranteeing return-stream demand.** The system only works if somebody on the other end wants what comes back. Sometimes that's a manufacturer. Sometimes it's a biofuel company, a cobbler, or Aunt Gladys waiting for her dish. **Enabling Management Systems:** > **Digital material passports** embedded in products and packaging, telling the vehicle what it's picking up and routing it to the right destination. The passport is the system's language — without it, the vehicle is guessing. > **A customer-facing interface** that makes returning as frictionless as receiving. No labels to print. No boxes to find. No carrier to schedule. The bin is the interface. The system does the rest. > **A network protocol** that lets multiple participants share the same retrieval infrastructure, the way multiple shippers share the same postal service. The doorstep becomes a universal bus. The protocol is what makes it universal. ### What Would Have to Be True One thing above all: somebody has to want it back. Every touchpoint in the system requires an active send-receive transaction. Sometimes the receiver is a manufacturer — the filter maker who wants the spent cartridge for remanufacture. Sometimes it's the biofuel company that wants your used cooking oil. Sometimes it's the cobbler who'll resole the boots and return them next week. Sometimes it's Aunt Gladys, who wants her lasagna dish back so she can fill it again on Thursday. In a planned obsolescence economy, that want doesn't exist at scale; only the landfill does. The product was designed to fail and be repurchased. Return infrastructure is a cost center with no upside. Nobody wants the old one back because nobody profits from having it. In that model, of course the Robot Milkman is economically irrational. There's nothing worth picking up, and no one willing to pay for the trip. Only when the business model changes does the math change with it. When the manufacturer retains ownership — the performance economy, where you buy lumens and the company keeps the bulb — the product *must* come back, because it still belongs to the maker. When the manufacturer profits from material recovery — the circular value chain, where reclaimed inputs cost less than virgin ones — the product is *worth* getting back. When the neighbor profits from generosity and the cobbler profits from craft, the system carries those flows too. In every case, the return trip stops being a cost center and becomes a reason to exist. The vehicle that was irrational under planned obsolescence becomes indispensable under circularity. It looks like a logistics company. It behaves like a circulatory system. Every pickup is a heartbeat. The Robot Milkman is the part of that system we can see — the agent at the door, the vehicle at the curb — but beneath it runs a bi-directional infrastructure connecting manufacturers, craftspeople, neighbors, farms, and recovery facilities into a single living network. Every solution in the Carousel of Plenty depends on that network moving things in both directions. The Robot Milkman is how your household touches it. It can only exist in a circular economy. And a circular economy, at consumer scale, can only function with something like it at the last mile. No single company runs the Robot Milkman alone. The system requires industry coordination at a level that, historically, only emerges when the economic incentive becomes overwhelming — or when someone builds the expo pavilion that makes everyone see — and want — it at once. --- > Image prompt: > A sleek friendly autonomous delivery vehicle in citrine yellow parked at a suburban front door at dawn, a homeowner seen from behind handing a neatly packed return container to the vehicle's open compartment, warm morning light, neighborhood visible in background with similar vehicles on other porches, mid-century advertising illustration style, 1960s World's Fair poster aesthetic, bold confident graphic design, flat color areas with clean edges, warm optimistic palette featuring citrine yellow and teal and coral red accents, Madison Avenue print advertisement quality, retro-futuristic consumer optimism, slightly stylized figures without detailed faces, cheerful domestic scene, gouache and screenprint texture --- *The rest of this letter is for Dynamo members — the people building plenty with us. If you're reading as a guest, you're welcome here. But the best seats on the Carousel are reserved.* [Join the Dynamos.](https://circudyne.ghost.io/?ref=circudyne.com#/portal/signup) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### On the Bubble URL: https://www.circudyne.com/on-the-bubble/ Last updated: 2026-03-30T12:03:26.000Z When I first started the practice of writing these weekly letters last year, I landed on the idea to group them by the dozen according to a specific theme. That way, I could access broad subject matter while going deeper on another. After three seasons, I'm ready to declare victory on that objective. It's been an effective learning process. Three seasons ago, [*Introduction to Circudyne*](https://www.circudyne.com/introduction-to-circudyne/) laid out an architecture: [five domains, a transformation methodology](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudynamics/), and [the argument that circularity should be understood as Lean's successor](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/). Two seasons ago, [*A Circudyne Odyssey*](https://www.circudyne.com/a-circudyne-odyssey/) traced the constellation of thinkers who shaped that architecture — and discovered, along the way, that storytelling was not just a theme in the work but its connective tissue. The season that just ended asked a harder question. If the architecture is sound and the ideas are robust, why hasn't the Circular Century arrived by now? [*On the Bubble*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/on-the-bubble/) was written to confront that question honestly. Circularity is rich with promise, heavy with expectation, and now under pressure to prove what it can deliver. This series examined why — and what must change. --- ## A trove of motivations Twelve essays later, the answer is clearer than I expected. The [Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/) has not arrived yet because its advocates have been selling the wrong thing. For thirty years, circularity has been pitched as an environmental obligation. Reduce waste. Cut emissions. Close loops. The logic makes sense. So why hasn't it worked? The circularity gap is moving in the wrong direction not because the science is flawed or the economics don't pencil out, but because moral obligation alone does not produce enough momentum to justify radical transformation. *Letter* by *Letter*, *On the Bubble* compiled a serviceable inventory of benefits circularity actually offers — to brands, to individuals, to the culture at large — once the environmental frame is set aside as table stakes rather than *raison d'être*. Strategic advantage. Organizational resilience. Joy. Sovereignty. Dignity. A relationship with objects and systems and time that is fundamentally more humane than what the linear economy provides. The environmental imperative is the reason to begin. Everything else is the reason to stay. That distinction — *have to* versus *get to* — turned out to be the season's moral. And it is the bridge to what comes next. --- > 🔜 *Next week marks the beginning of our next series.* The last three seasons on architecture, ideas, and honest diagnosis are conceptual pillars for a circular future. Now it's time to populate it. The next series will explore specific products and services that could only exist in a circular economy. --- ## A note on this letter Each season of *The Circudyne Letter* follows a rhythm: twelve substantive essays for our Dynamo subscribers, and a thirteenth — this one — offered freely to everyone. To our Dynamo members: thank you. Your patronage makes this work possible. The depth of the weekly letters — the Practitioner Insights, the frameworks, the extended arguments — exists because you've decided it's worth investing in. That matters more than I can say. To everyone reading this summary: welcome. If what you find here resonates, I hope you'll consider joining the Dynamo tier. Each of the essays below represents a full letter, and what follows is a brief sketch of each. The real substance lives behind the links. --- ## The season at a glance *On the Bubble* did not follow a pre-drawn map. The question — is circularity a bubble? what is the state of play? what would it take to regain momentum? — resisted clean answers. Each essay followed the thread where it led, and the season's shape became visible only in retrospect. What follows is a sketch of where each letter went, and what it found there. --- [**The Supply Mirage**](https://www.circudyne.com/the-supply-mirage/) *Circularity was built for a moment of expected scarcity. That moment never fully arrived.* The season opened by confronting an uncomfortable origin story. Early circular economy advocacy rested on a supply-side thesis — rising material costs and resource volatility would force redesign. The thesis was reasonable. It was also wrong, or at least premature. The absence of that forcing function left circularity without its most compelling economic argument. → The supply case was necessary but insufficient. Demand-side motivation must carry the weight now. --- [**Leadership in the Time of Enshittification**](https://www.circudyne.com/leadership-in-the-time-of-enshittification/) *Why rigidly managed systems so often end in decay.* This letter examined what linear optimization actually produces when left to run its course. [Cory Doctorow](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/cory-doctorow/)'s concept of [enshittification](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/enshittification/) provided the lens: the systematic extraction of value from users, then business customers, then the platform itself. A feature, not a bug, of linear logic. → Enshittification is what happens when optimization has no regenerative principle. Circularity is the antidote, not the cost center. --- [**Empathy Is a Strategic Capacity**](https://www.circudyne.com/empathy-is-a-strategic-capacity/) *A path to product–market fit before markets, metrics, or demand signals exist.* How do you build for a future that doesn't have established demand signals? This letter argued that [empathy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/empathy/) — the capacity to model another's experience before data confirms it — is not just EQ but strategic infrastructure. It's what enables worldbuilding where time and value are not yet fixed. → Empathy is how you achieve product–market fit for futures that don't yet exist. --- [**From Managers to Diplomats**](https://www.circudyne.com/from-managers-to-diplomats/) *Managing within a system in decline is a form of denial.* This letter turned the lens on leadership itself. Management optimizes within existing frames. [Diplomacy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/diplomacy/) negotiates between frames — between what is and what must become. Circular transformation requires the second skill. Drawing on international relations and statecraft, it distinguished between the two, and argued that circular leaders more closely resemble diplomats than operators. → The circular leader's job is not to manage the existing system better. It is to negotiate the transition to the next one. --- [**Maintenance Is a First Principle**](https://www.circudyne.com/maintenance-is-a-first-principle/) *Why your strategy's relationship with "stuff" determines its limits.* [Stewart Brand](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/stewart-brand/)'s thesis on [maintenance](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/maintenance/) — that how we care for things determines our fate — became the pivot point of the season. This letter connected Brand's thinking to circular strategy, arguing that the relationship a company has with the physical world reveals its actual values, regardless of what the annual report says. → Maintenance is not a cost center. It is the most honest expression of what a company believes. --- [**Transformative Ends, Incremental Means?**](https://www.circudyne.com/transformative-ends-incremental-means/) *The era of incremental change is rapidly coming to a close.* This letter confronted the most common objection: wouldn't a hybrid, incremental approach be safer? The answer, examined in structural detail, was no. Circular transformation and linear optimization are not compatible modes. You cannot incrementally transform a system whose logic runs in the opposite direction. This was the letter that planted its flag hardest. → Incremental change is how you improve a system. Transformation is how you replace one system with another. These are different activities. --- [**Reassurance Is a Strategic Capacity**](https://www.circudyne.com/reassurance-is-a-strategic-capacity/) *The performance economy, at its best, creates the conditions for play. At its worst, it creates the conditions for vigilance.* [John Hench](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/john-hench/), the Disney Imagineer who spent decades thinking about the felt experience of designed environments, meets [Walter Stahel](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/walter-stahel/), the architect of the [performance economy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/performance-economy/). Hench solved a problem Stahel hadn't addressed: how do you make a long-term service relationship feel worth staying in? [Subscription fatigue](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/subscription-fatigue/), in this light, is not a pricing problem. It is a care problem. → Joyless durability is a sentence. [Reassurance](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/reassurance/) — the felt sense that someone is looking after the details — is what transforms obligation into loyalty. --- [**Vendor Dependency and the Loveless Long-Term Relationship**](https://www.circudyne.com/vendor-dependency-and-the-loveless-long-term-relationship/) *In a performance economy, the product is a vessel. The software is the spirit. What happens when the spirit departs?* This letter examined the dark side of product longevity. A durable good in the performance economy is a software-defined good, and software-defined goods die when their makers lose interest, or go away. [Rivian](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/rivian/)'s brand promise — and others like it — illustrated the challenge of the covenant: when companies ask customers to commit for the long term, they assume a responsibility they may not yet be equipped to honor. → Durability is a joint function of the product and the relationship. One without the other is abandonment with extra steps. --- [**Are You a Punk?**](https://www.circudyne.com/20260109-are-you-a-punk/) *When institutions produce the chaos, order becomes the rebellion.* The polarity has flipped. For fifty years, punk meant smashing things. Now the institutions are producing the chaos — enshittification, [planned obsolescence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/planned-obsolescence/), attention extraction — and the counterculture responds with order: repair, conscious non-consumption, saying "no thank you" and building something without you. This letter explored the [conscious non-consumer](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/conscious-non-consumer/): people who communicate through absence, invisible to demand models, powerful beyond measure. → The rebels of 2026 don't sneer. They organize. And the brands that can see them will have first-mover advantage into the largest underserved market in history. --- [**More Joy, Less Work**](https://www.circudyne.com/more-joy-less-work/) *The brand that sells "enough" will own the biggest business opportunity in history.* What you crave tells you what you lack. We crave simplicity — and abundant energy and intelligence are arriving just as the culture demands it. This letter returned to the Joy Hypothesis ([joy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/joy/) is to circularity what quality was to [Lean](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/lean/)) and extended it: the circular economy's ultimate competitive advantage is not efficiency but liberation. Less friction. Less waste of time and attention. More of the life you actually want. → The market for "enough" — abundant, simple, joyful — is the largest unclaimed market opportunity in the world. --- [**Why Self-Disrupt?**](https://www.circudyne.com/why-self-disrupt/) *The environmental imperative is the reason to begin. This is about why you'll be glad you did it.* Part one of a two-part conclusion. This letter catalogued the non-environmental benefits of circular transformation for brands: strategic positioning, organizational health, customer intimacy, design coherence, [cultural leadership.](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/cultural-branding/) The environmental case is real. It is also not what makes executives commit. What makes them commit is seeing that circularity produces capabilities, positioning, and identity that linear firms simply cannot access. → *Have to* versus *get to*. The difficulty is the moat. --- [**A New Deal You Can Acquire For Yourself**](https://www.circudyne.com/a-new-deal-you-can-acquire-for-yourself/) *Personal sovereignty in energy, attention, time, and your relationship with things.* Part two of the conclusion turned the lens toward individuals. If the previous letter was about what brands get, this one was about what people get: sovereignty over energy, attention, time, and their relationship with objects. The Circular Century, framed this way, is not an environmental program. It is a New Deal — the full inheritance of a surplus we were always owed, now finally within reach. → The Circular Century is not something that happens to you. It is something you acquire for yourself. --- ## Parting thought When this season began, the question was: why hasn't the Circular Century arrived? By the end, the question had changed. It became: what would it take for people to *want* it? The answer, it turns out, has been hiding in plain sight. Not in policy papers or lifecycle assessments, but in the lived experience of care, joy, sovereignty, and honest abundance that circular systems make possible. The environmental case opens the door. Everything on the other side of it is what makes people walk through. > 📬 *The Circudyne Letter* returns next week with the start of a new series. Thank you for reading. ### A New Deal You Can Acquire For Yourself URL: https://www.circudyne.com/a-new-deal-you-can-acquire-for-yourself/ Last updated: 2026-05-09T17:48:38.000Z ### What Do You Want Your Life to Look Like? *On the Bubble — Week 12\. Part II of a two-part conclusion.* Last week we asked [why a brand would disrupt itself for circularity transformation](https://www.circudyne.com/why-self-disrupt/). The answer: because it produces capabilities, positioning, and identity that linear firms cannot access. The difficulty is the moat. The ultimate competitive advantage is becoming the kind of company that people need to exist, now. This week: what does life look like on the other side of it? Not the environmental case. That is baked in the circular cake. This is about you. Your money. Your time. Your health. Your attention. What you get back when the system stops *taking*. --- ## The water, again In [*A Future To Look Forward To*](https://www.circudyne.com/a-future-to-look-forward-to/), we borrowed [David Foster Wallace](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/david-foster-wallace/)'s parable about fish who don't know what water is. The water we swim in is the linear economy: fashion-as-novelty, [planned obsolescence](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/planned-obsolescence/), and extractive capitalism, reinforcing one another in a loop so pervasive and complete we mistake it for normal life. That essay was about seeing the water. This one is about the rebels who are leaving the fishbowl, and their prize. Here is the thing about life in the linear economy status quo: it is not merely unpleasant. It is expensive. We pay for it, personally, every day. The [hedonic treadmill](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/hedonic-treadmill/) — the cycle of acquisition, disappointment, and replacement that the linear economy depends on — has a cost structure, and you are paying it. In time. In money. In the quality of your material surroundings. In cognitive bandwidth consumed by managing things that were designed to fail. This is not an accident. It is a pattern that repeats through history. Every dominant industrial paradigm follows the same arc. In the beginning, the producer meets the customer honestly. Ford builds a car people need at a price they can afford. The early internet builds tools of genuine utility. The central constraint defines the strategy — stamping costs, network effects — and the firm manages it in service of the customer. The relationship works. Then the constraint flips. The firm stops managing the constraint in service of the customer and starts managing the customer in service of the constraint. The automaker stops asking "what does the buyer need from this car over its full life?" and starts asking "how do we make them buy another one sooner?" The platform stops asking "how do we serve this audience?" and starts asking "how do we extract more attention per session?" This is the moment when manufactured dependence begins. The relationship inverts. The customer now serves the firm. The arsenal is extensive. Planned obsolescence forces repurchase. Proprietary ecosystems enforce lock-in. [Subscription models capture rent](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/subscription-fatigue/) more than ensure access. Complexity serves as a barrier — you can't understand it, so you can't do it yourself. [Enshittification](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/enshittification/) degrades the product you already depend on. Attention capture monetizes the hours you can't get back. This is not interdependence, which is mutual and chosen. It is not specialization, which is efficient and voluntary. Manufactured dependence is asymmetric, and always favors the seller. You need them more than they need you. They profit from that asymmetry. And they work to maintain it. The pattern isn't out of malice, though. It's in the DNA of linearity. Any business model organized around a scarce resource — stamping capacity, shelf space, human attention — will eventually find it more profitable to manage the customer (or the deal) than to serve them. The serving muscles atrophy. The extracting muscles grow. By the terminal phase, subscriptions are charged for features in the car. A data brokerage turns your habits into someone else's revenue. The firm has fully substituted retention capability for service capability. And the relationship it depends on can no longer be earned — only enforced. [JA Westenberg observed that this terminal phase looks like a casino.](https://www.joanwestenberg.com/everythings-casino/?ref=circudyne.com) The metaphor is apt. The volcano, the fountain, the spectacle a casino puts on the street — that is not decoration for its own sake. It is the business model made visible. When the odds favor the house, the only remaining competitive variable is interruption. You build a better spectacle, which draws more people through the door. The mathematics of the floor does the rest. The internet has replicated this architecture perfectly. The feed is the spectacle. The thumbnail is the volcano. The notification is the free drink carried to your elbow at the slot machine. The smartest engineers at some of the most valuable companies on earth are building better interruptions. Not better products. Better lures. The product *is* the interruption. And the economics are the same. The postwar economic surplus — the extraordinary productivity gains, technological breakthroughs, and accumulated wealth of the past eighty years — is significant. You earned your share of it. But the house has been structured so that you never take it home. Every form of manufactured dependence serves the same function: keeping your winnings in circulation on the floor. Circularity is how you leave the casino. Er, the fishbowl. Not empty-handed. With what you've earned. --- ## What you get back When you change the economic architecture, the benefits are mechanically defined. They fall out of the structure with gravity. Here is what a world without manufactured dependence returns to you — not because the companies are nicer, but because their economics no longer require it. **Your money.** The replacement cycle is a tax you pay for the privilege of participating in the linear economy. A household that replaces appliances on planned obsolescence schedules, upgrades devices on two-year carrier cycles, and furnishes with fast-fashion home goods is hemorrhaging wealth through a system designed to prevent accumulation, and thus independence. That is the business model. The firm that sells you a washing machine engineered to fail in seven years has no economic reason to build one that lasts twenty. The firm whose revenue depends on keeping your washing machine running for twenty years has no economic reason to let it fail. Products that last decades instead of years are not more expensive. They are cheaper — radically — over any reasonable time horizon. The Bell phone worked for forty years. The feature phone that displaced it was landfill in three. The concept is not hard to understand. When the performance economy matures — when you organize mobility, shelter, and material goods as services designed around lifetime value rather than ad hoc unit sales — the economics invert further. Philips demonstrated this with lighting: 50% energy cost reduction for the customer, 37% increase in customer lifetime value for Philips. Both sides won because the incentive structure aligned. The firm got richer by making the product last. The customer got richer for the same reason. You don't need a macroeconomic theory to feel this dynamic. You already know the feeling when purchases are investments and when they are waste. The circular economy makes the investment the default. **Your time.** Every product designed to fail imposes a time cost: researching the replacement, transacting the purchase, disposing of the old one, learning the new one. Multiply this across every category of material life — clothing, electronics, transportation, household goods — and the hours are staggering. They are invisible because they are distributed. But they compound. The hamster wheel spins. You are not failing to find enough time because you aren't working hard enough. You are failing because the wheel is the product. The system converts your effort into its own revenue — not into your progress. Circular systems intentionally return this time to you. When your closet contains pieces that last decades and [coordinate by design](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/systemic-beauty/), the morning becomes curation rather than triage. When your home works like LEGO — modular, interoperable, upgradeable — a broken component is a five-minute swap, not a weekend project. When maintenance is built into the service model, the logistics of upkeep disappear from your calendar. The 50L Home initiative provides an effective demonstration. Water consumption dropped, satisfaction increased, and — crucially — nobody changed their routine. The design absorbed the effort. This is what it looks like when the architecture serves you instead of managing you. **Your health.** This is the dimension that gets the least attention and may matter the most. The anxiety produced by the linear economy is not metaphorical. Financial stress from the replacement cycle. Decision fatigue from manufactured choice overload. The low-grade dread of owning things you know are degrading, and renting things that are appreciating. The cognitive burden of navigating systems designed to confuse — pricing structures, subscription traps, planned incompatibilities. And most of all, the dread for an uncertain future all this brings. These are physiological costs. Cortisol is not a metaphor. The 2,000-watt neighborhoods in Switzerland found something remarkable: when resource sharing was designed into the infrastructure, neighbors became friends. Civic participation increased. The mechanism was not ideology, but proximity and shared interest, enabled by design. The health benefits of community are among the most robust findings in medicine. Circular systems produce community as a structural byproduct because when the extractive pressure lifts, people naturally turn toward each other and find common cause. **Your attention.** This is your ticket out of the fishbowl. Every dollar and engineering hour a linear company spends capturing your attention is a dollar and hour not spent making the product better. That is a tradeoff linear architecture demands. When the model monetizes attention, distraction is the modality. Engineering hours pour into optimizing the interruption. The experience degrades. The linear firm can't stop, because the interruption is what pays the bills. Remove the architectural need for interruption and those resources migrate. The engineers build better products instead of better traps. The designers optimize the experience instead of the engagement metric. You get a better relationship with every brand in your life because they grow richer by serving you than by capturing you. Circular systems have no structural need for your attention beyond engaging you in a moment of genuine service. When a brand profits by keeping your product working rather than selling you a replacement, the incentive to hold your attention diminishes. The relationship becomes one of competence, not compulsion. You engage when you choose to. The rest of the time, the system works quietly and well. You can tell the difference. You already know which brands respect your attention and which ones monetize it. The circular economy makes the former the only viable strategy. --- ## Who you get to be The transformative travel segment discovered a formulation worth borrowing: the benefit isn't where you go, it's who you become. We said as much last week about brands. It applies at least as well to individuals. The 21st century offers accumulated wealth and technology sufficient for human flourishing. Ambient intelligence, renewable energy, manufacturing with molecular precision. These are the birthright of our times. They should not be employed against us. Circularity provides insurance that they won't. That's why the 21st century should be the Circular Century. The circular life is the practice of [*mottainai*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/mottainai/) — the Japanese ethic of reverence for the material world, of treating waste as a form of disrespect — elevated from cultural heritage into a contemporary, accessible luxury. Consider what sovereignty would mean in this world. **Sovereign in energy.** Solar on the roof. In parts of the world, solar panels are now part of the dowry, powering household economics that become cultural infrastructure. The energy bill becomes a relic. The surplus feeds back into the grid or charges the car you access as a service. **Sovereign in attention.** The feeds are gone, as are the products whose business models require your compulsive engagement. You read what you choose. The library card is back. **Sovereign in time.** As a structural matter, the hours you spent managing the replacement cycle — researching, purchasing, disposing, relearning (not to mention earning) — are yours again. **Sovereign in your relationship with things.** Your possessions improve with time. Materials that age into beauty. Repairs that add character. The [kintsugi](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/kintsugi/) principle, applied to daily life. Each object has a history because it was designed to have one. Circular practices that feel fussy, like repair, making, and maintaining, correlate with higher life satisfaction. Not despite the effort, but because of it. Competence is a human need, at least as important as pride in ownership. The pleasure of understanding how things work, of capable participation rather than helpless consumption, is among the most reliable sources of wellbeing the psychology literature has identified. [New punks, different world.](https://www.circudyne.com/20260109-are-you-a-punk/) The counterculture has inverted: when institutions produce chaos, the rebellion responds with order. They are making a New Deal for themselves. They are not waiting for a new FDR. There is no savior and none is needed. They know what the good life looks like. They have chosen rebellion against the conditioning to believe the answer is to work harder, deny their true interests, and keep spinning — hamsters in a wheel instead of human beings at the pinnacle of their collective power. The conditioning is the casino. The sovereignty is the exit. What they need are provisions. The allies — not saviors, allies — whose economic architecture makes them structurally incapable of betraying the relationship. The brands, the systems, the modular infrastructure that makes sovereignty accessible at scale. Last week we described those allies: brands that act as champions, whose prosperity is coupled to their customers' flourishing. This week, we can name what their customers are building. --- ## The new deal Imagine a New Deal you can acquire on your own. A personal compact with the material world that you negotiate for yourself, your family, and your community — using the tools that are now available, with allies whose prosperity depends on your flourishing. The industrial revolution generated an enormous economic surplus. The postwar era compounded it. By any reasonable measure, there is enough; enough energy, enough intelligence, enough productive capacity — for human flourishing at a scale our grandparents could not have imagined. The problem was never scarcity. The problem was the casino. The house took its cut through planned obsolescence, through enshittification, through attention capture, through every mechanism that kept the surplus circulating rather than settling. You worked for it. You earned it. You never got to take it home. Here is why circularity is different — and why the deal holds this time. Every previous industrial paradigm organized itself around something scarce. And every time, the scarcity eventually turned the firm against the customer. We traced the pattern above: the constraint flips, manufactured dependence enters, the casino takes over. It is intrinsic to the linear product cycle. It always happens; just a matter of when. The circular economy rearranges the deal around what is abundant. Energy is becoming a technology rather than a resource — solar capacity doubles every few years, installed now at a pace that would have seemed fictional a decade ago. Intelligence is becoming infrastructure — AI following the same cost curve as electricity, becoming ambient and available. When your business model monetizes abundant energy and intelligence rather than scarce materials and attention, you never hit the phase where serving the customer and managing the constraint diverge. The brand gets richer the longer and better it serves you. No curdling. No expiration date on the relationship. This is the structural promise. It does not depend on kindness or even enlightened leadership beyond the initial transformation: a permanently different architecture where the interests of the firm and the interests of the customer stay aligned because the economics reward the alignment. No extraction required. > 🐹 The cost of stepping off the treadmill has never been lower. The cost of staying on has never been higher. What the circular life offers is not a smaller existence. It is the full inheritance. The surplus you were always owed, finally collected. Invested not in another spin of the wheel, but in a life that compounds: better things, deeper relationships, more time, more health, more sovereignty, more joy. "Enough" is not a ceiling. It is a foundation. And the beauty of it — the part that makes it a luxury rather than a discipline — is that the practice itself is the reward. The maintenance of your material world becomes a craft. The curation of your possessions becomes an art. The relationships with the brands that serve you become covenants — economic partnerships between allies whose interests are structurally aligned. The community that forms around shared sovereignty becomes the neighborhood you actually want to live in. This is a homeward bound evolution of Star Trek's post-scarcity frontier. It is neither degrowth's principled austerity nor the technocrat's optimized efficiency. It is the hearth. The homeward turn. The Circular Century is not an era we need permission to enter. It is the one we build, starting with the next choice. --- *On the Bubble is a Circudyne Letter series taking stock of the macro transition to circularity. Subscribe to follow the full series.* --- ## Practitioner Provocations _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Why Self-Disrupt? URL: https://www.circudyne.com/why-self-disrupt/ Last updated: 2026-03-16T12:03:14.000Z *On the Bubble — Week 11\. Part I of a two-part conclusion.* --- The environmental case for circularity is real. This essay is not about that. For thirty years, the environmental imperative has been the pitch. Reduce waste. Cut emissions. Close loops. For thirty years, the [circularity gap](https://www.circularity-gap.world/?ref=circudyne.com) has moved in the wrong direction. Not because the logic is wrong, but because it's not enough to make people fully commit to change. The environmental imperative foregrounds the obligation that tells a company it *has to* transform. It neglects what the company *gets to* become. There is a precedent to this: the invention of Lean. Toyota *had to* cut costs. That was the assignment. What they *got to* discover was the key to quality. Quality opened doors that cost reduction by itself never would have. The capability they built to eliminate waste on the Corolla line turned out to be what luxury-grade manufacturing requires. Soon, Lexus was outselling BMW. Doing the right thing opens the door to getting more things right. The returns you can't currently model may be larger than the ones you can. This letter is about the *get to*. --- - [The pitch is missing something](#the-pitch-is-missing-something) - [The economic case is real — and pre-empirical](#the-economic-case-is-real--and-pre-empirical) - [What the transformation cultivates](#what-the-transformation-cultivates) - [What the brand gets to be](#what-the-brand-gets-to-be) - [What you become](#what-you-become) - [Practitioner Provocations](#practitioner-provocations) ## The pitch is missing something We've spent ten weeks examining the [macro transition to circularity](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/on-the-bubble/). The [supply-side strategy is exhausted](https://www.circudyne.com/the-supply-mirage/). [Enshittification](https://www.circudyne.com/leadership-in-the-time-of-enshittification/) is structural, not incidental. [Subscription fatigue](https://www.circudyne.com/reassurance-is-a-strategic-capacity/) proves that solving the economics without solving the experience is insufficient. [Conscious non-consumers](https://www.circudyne.com/are-you-a-punk/) are acting — quietly, communicating through absence. Something is missing from the pitch. Neither the data nor the urgency, but the *appeal*. The part that makes a leader say: I want to build that. Not: I suppose I must. ## The economic case is real — and pre-empirical The advantages of circularity transformation are significant. But quantifying them in advance is hard. Not because the returns aren't there, but because [circular product-service concepts](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/performance-economy/) at scale are new-to-world. As Roger Martin aptly put it in his evergreen essay [*Overcoming the Pervasive Analytical Blunder of Strategists*](https://rogerlmartin.substack.com/p/2021-05-17%5Fovercoming-the-pervasive-analytical-blunder-of-strategists-a5a4c52289b4html?utm%5Fsource=publication-search) (emphasis his): > “As a strategist, before you make any decision based on data analysis of any sort, you must ask yourself one simple question: Am I willing to assume that the future will be identical to the past? If the answer is yes, then do what the analysis tells you to do. If the answer is no, then DO NOT USE THE ANALYSIS.” In 2006, there was no proven market for a touchscreen smartphone without a keyboard. No supply chain for capacitive glass at consumer scale. No tested value proposition for mobile internet on a pocket-sized device. Every conventional metric said Blackberry was winning. This is the condition of every category-creating innovation before it succeeds. The evidence for circularity transformation comes from pattern recognition and structural logic, not somebody else's playbook. *Waste elimination* at expanded scope must produce cost advantage. Service revenue from *ongoing relationships* must exceed one-time transaction revenue over the life of the customer. Materials that *cycle rather than deplete* must reduce input costs over time. The pattern is the same one Toyota followed to get to Lean. The scope of circularity is broader than that. Waiting for a completed proof means waiting for someone else to build the iPhone. And when conventional metrics can't cross the knowledge frontier — when your spreadsheet blinks that critical blank cell — what do you navigate by? You navigate by understanding what people actually need. That is what [empathy](https://www.circudyne.com/empathy-is-a-strategic-capacity/) does. It is a strategy superpower; the faculty that lets you anticipate market acceptance for something that doesn't exist yet. [Steve Jobs](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/steve-jobs/) had it. Toyota had it — they listened to American drivers in a way Detroit chose not to. The circularity innovator needs empathy because the customers can't tell you what they want when the category doesn't yet exist. The [say-do gap](https://www.circudyne.com/from-milkshakes-to-meaning/) doesn't close by asking better questions. It closes by [imagining on their behalf](https://www.circudyne.com/toward-imagination-2/). ## What the transformation cultivates Circularity transformation produces capabilities that can't be purchased and resist commoditization. Three of these deserve attention. **Imagination as capital.** Linear accounting treats this generative capacity as an expense. Something consumed in the using. Circular transformation treats it as an investment. Something that contains the seeds of its own replication. [Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/)'s admonition applies here: we husband what's scarce and squander what's abundant. AI is making information about *what is* perfect and cheap. The ability to envision *what could be* is becoming the scarce factor of production. > 🧠 In a world flooded with analytical intelligence, imaginative intelligence is the bottleneck. The bottleneck is where value accrues. This scarcity is compounding. We need [imagination](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/imagination/) to fix crises that spreadsheets helped create. We need it to meet consumers who are [already building a different kind of lifestyle](https://www.circudyne.com/more-joy-less-work/) and waiting for someone to provision them. The organizations that cultivate this faculty will have the scarce thing. The rest will have the abundant thing. Ask Blackberry how that works out. **Organizational health as leading indicator.** The data-proven link between better processes, self-knowledge, and higher enterprise value follows the same pattern observed in Lean. But don't file this under "nice to have." It's a measurable early signal that the transformation is working. Employee engagement. Cross-functional collaboration quality. Talent retention. Decision-making speed. These are observable before the revenue model has fully turned over. They tell leadership to stay the course when the financials haven't caught up yet. The canary is singing, not dying. **Diplomatic capability.** Circular ecosystems require [statecraft, not management](https://www.circudyne.com/from-managers-to-diplomats/). They require empathy and [reassurance](https://www.circudyne.com/reassurance-is-a-strategic-capacity/) as institutional capacities. They reward outcome-oriented metrics — weight, not reps — over process compliance. These are human capabilities. Hard to develop. Impossible to automate. And the organizations that build them will have something their linear competitors will find hard to acquire on any timeline. ## What the brand gets to be The cultural positioning that circularity transformation unlocks is historically rare. It only becomes available during ideological transitions — when how people live falls out of alignment with how they want to live. We are in such a transition. [The counterculture has inverted.](https://www.circudyne.com/are-you-a-punk/) When institutions oppress through chaos, the rebellion responds with order. [Douglas Holt](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/douglas-holt/)'s research is clear: iconic brands achieve their status by crossing over to the counterculture's side. Always. No exceptions. The brands that cross over during this transition — siding with order, craft, sovereignty — will be to the [Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/) what Carrier and GE were to the suburban century. Here is the structural reason they can pull it off. [Lee Clow](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/lee-clow/) said that everything a brand does is media, and the sum of all its media is the brand. Most companies can't act on this. Siloed organization makes incoherence structural. The messaging says "we care." The business logic says "we're extracting." That contradiction — the one [John Hench](https://www.circudyne.com/reassurance-is-a-strategic-capacity/) diagnosed as the source of environmental anxiety — is a structural misalignment. Rhetoric can't fix it, because the customer can always tell. Circular product-service models demand profound reorganization. Lifecycle management. Reverse logistics. Ongoing service. Cross-functional integration. These require the kind of functional organization that makes incoherence structurally difficult. The brand story isn't bolted on. It's emitted by the system. That is why greenwashing fails. And why circular enterprises won't need it. > 🔄 Brands occupy a unique position — between captured governments and atomized individuals. The brand that builds provisions for the ascending counterculture owns the commercial opportunity of the era. Not government. Government moves too slowly and has been captured. Not individuals. Willpower doesn't scale. The brand that builds provisions for the ascending counterculture of [intentional sufficiency](https://www.circudyne.com/more-joy-less-work/) owns the commercial opportunity. And the loyalty that follows is not transactional. [Rivian](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/rivian/) owners report the highest satisfaction in the industry despite below-average reliability and persistent financial losses. The loyalty comes from somewhere other than the spec sheet. It comes from the *feeling* among its customers that the covenant is real. That the company is in it for the long run, even if they’re facing a long struggle. That the relationship is worth staying in. When a relationship ends and you feel grief, the coherence was genuine. When you feel relief, the contradiction was always there. That's the line between a covenant and a contract. ## What you become Everything above describes what circular transformation *gives* you. This is the part about what it *makes* you. The capabilities that only circular firms need to build are invisible to linear competitors. They have no reason to develop them. They won't see them coming. - Intelligent reverse logistics. Knowing where every asset is. Managing each unit's return, refurbishment, and redeployment individually. This takes years of data, infrastructure, and organizational learning. - Comprehensive digital twins. A complete model of every physical asset in the system — its condition, its history, its remaining useful life, its optimal next use. The intelligence layer that makes the performance economy actually *perform*. It gets smarter every year. - Material passports. The full composition and provenance of every component, enabling intelligent disassembly and reuse. - Predictive maintenance at scale. Anticipating service needs before failure. [The leather-strap suspension](https://www.circudyne.com/reassurance-is-a-strategic-capacity/) — at industrial scope. [Maintenance as message](https://www.circudyne.com/maintenance-is-a-first-principle/). - Cross-lifecycle product design. Designing not for one life but for the second, third, and fourth — each generation informed by data from the ones before. Such capabilities share four properties. Invisible to the customer. Hard to build. Impossible to shortcut. Compounding over time. > 🏷️ The difficulty is the moat. Volkswagen has been building cars for nearly a century. Rivian has existed for about fifteen years. VW had to license Rivian's electrical architecture and software platform. Not because Rivian knows more about making cars, but because Rivian was built from inception around a longer planning horizon. Rivian's organization assumes the vehicle is a relationship. VW's assumes something else. A century of institutional muscle memory can't be retrained by memo. Rivian lives further in the future than VW does. That is the moat in action. And the loop reinforces itself. Functional organization enables longer planning horizons. Longer planning horizons make covenant-keeping actionable. Keeping covenants produces organizational health. Organizational health builds functional muscle. The whole system spirals upward. Linear organizations spiral the other direction. Siloed structure. Short planning horizons. Broken promises. Organizational dysfunction. Shorter horizons still. The distance between the two spirals widens with every turn. --- When you integrate these capabilities with the economic advantages, the organizational capacities, and the cultural positioning described above, the circular enterprise crosses a threshold. It becomes a different kind of entity. Not a linear brand doing business differently. A different species of enterprise. The linear brand succeeds by creating need. The circular brand succeeds by resolving it. The linear brand profits from the treadmill. The circular brand profits from stopping it. > 💎 The ultimate competitive advantage of circular transformation is becoming the kind of company that people need to exist. This enterprise is a champion. An economic ally whose prosperity is structurally coupled to its customers' flourishing. Not through goodwill. Not through corporate social responsibility. Through incentive alignment. It builds the [little ships](https://www.circudyne.com/dunkirk-spirit-and-circular-transformation/) that citizens captain for themselves. It makes sovereignty accessible. It catalyzes the metamorphosis of its customers into [the quiet punks](https://www.circudyne.com/are-you-a-punk/) who bring order to the world. The ultimate competitive advantage of circular transformation is becoming the kind of company that people need to exist. *Next week: what does the customer get to experience on the other side of it?* --- *On the Bubble is a Circudyne Letter series taking stock of the macro transition to circularity.* [*Subscribe*](https://www.circudyne.com/#/portal/signup) *to follow the full series.* --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### More Joy, Less Work URL: https://www.circudyne.com/more-joy-less-work/ Last updated: 2026-03-09T12:03:32.000Z What you crave tells you what you lack. The courts of Versailles craved splendor. Their lives were cold, violent, and short. Splendor was the fantasy, the escape, the thing that couldn't be had cheaply. So they gilded everything. Midcentury American men craved rugged independence. They were accountants and middle managers and insurance adjusters from the suburbs. So they watched John Wayne westerns on Saturday nights and felt, for two hours, like men who answered to no one. *We* crave simplicity. Why? Because we are drowning. The noise has become absurd. The feed refreshes and the options multiply and the inbox fills and the subscription renews and the notification pings and the algorithm suggests and somewhere underneath all of it is a person who just wanted to read a book tonight. There is a market signal here. A big one. And most brands are ignoring it. ## The Counterculture Already Knows [Last week](link-to-20260109) I described an emergent counterculture that doesn't look like the last one. Today’s [punks](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/punk/) are repairing their dishwasher. Growing food. Choosing quality over quantity. Opting out of systems that treat them as inputs. This week, we name the rebellion’s objective. They want *enough.* That word does more work than it appears to. "Enough" is not "less." It is the precise amount that satisfies without burdening. A well-made meal for four people. A home that fits. A tool that lasts. Enough is what you arrive at when you subtract everything that exists to serve someone else's business model instead of your life. The rebellion has an advantage: "enough" is closer at hand than at any point in human history. And the need for it is more urgent than ever. ## Two Arcs, One Moment ### The first arc: abundance is arriving. This is the *new* abundance — not more stuff, more options, or more noise. Instead, a structural shift. **Energy** is becoming a technology rather than a resource. [Bill McKibben reports](https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/46-billion-years-on-the-sun-is-having-a-moment?%5Fsp=1df80070-3078-412c-8dfd-9ebeb392f249.1752779237927&ref=circudyne.com) that a gigawatt of solar capacity — roughly one coal plant's worth — is now installed every fifteen hours. In Pakistan, ninety-five percent of farmland in some regions has switched to solar, and a set of photovoltaic panels is now routinely included in a bride's dowry. The fuel cost, the biggest line item in a farmer's budget, is simply gone. **Intelligence** is following the same curve. It will become infrastructure, the way electricity did — invisible, ambient, available. [Bill Nussey frames it like this](https://www.freeingenergy.com/bill-nussey-ted-tedx-talk/?ref=circudyne.com): abundance happens when you convert a resource into a technology. That conversion is happening to energy right now, and to intelligence right behind it. ### The second arc: the culture of intentional constraint is ascendant. [People are building replicas of Thoreau's cabin across America](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/realestate/walden-cabin-thoreau-replica-building.html?searchResultPosition=1&login=apple&auth=login-apple&ref=circudyne.com). [Swiss communities are designing 2,000-watt neighborhoods where people work less, share more, and report higher satisfaction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9NiMHuHd%5Fg&t=14s&ref=circudyne.com). [In Los Angeles, the 50L Home coalition retrofitted thirty-one households with water-efficient fixtures and appliances](https://50lhome.org/los-angeles-pilot/?ref=circudyne.com). Nobody was asked to take shorter showers. Nobody changed their routine. Water and energy use dropped dramatically. Satisfaction went *up*. Some participants said they now take pleasure in chores they used to resent. In the 2,000-watt neighborhoods, the curated sharing of resources deepened civic participation and turned neighbors into friends. Most observers see these two arcs as contradictory. Abundance on one side. Constraint on the other. They are not contradictory. They are complementary. But their intersection benefits from creative management. ## The Treadmill Has Reached the Point of Absurdity Here is what stands between those two arcs and their natural convergence: the hedonic treadmill. You know the treadmill. You get the raise. You feel good for a little while. Then the new baseline sets in and you need the next raise. You buy the bigger house. It feels spacious for a little while. Then it feels normal and you need the renovation. The psychologists have documented this phenomenon for decades. Satisfaction from acquisition is temporary. The desire for more is permanent. The industrial economy didn't just tolerate the treadmill. It *required* it. Planned obsolescence was the fuel for the process. And the bait. The factory needed output. Managers couldn't measure quality from across the floor, but they could spot idleness. So activity became the proxy for productivity, and then the proxy for virtue, and then the proxy for a life well lived. You can't see flourishing with your eyes, but you can see busyness. We optimized for the thing we could see and called it success. That error is now playing out at civilizational scale. We measure GDP — output — because it's easier to measure than joy. And then we mistake the metric for the goal. The treadmill was *always* a bad deal. But it was an understandable one when material scarcity was acute. Today the treadmill has reached the point of self-parody. Algorithmic feeds sell you solutions to problems the previous algorithm created. Subscription tiers multiply to capture every marginal dollar of willingness to pay. The McMansion stands as the architectural expression of the treadmill: more square footage, more complexity, more cost, less taste, less coherence, less peace. It is everything that Thoreau's cabin was not. And here is the thing about Thoreau's cabin, or Chōmei's ten-foot hut: they are *implicitly tasteful* in the way that things built with clear purpose are. The absence of excess *is* the design. A McMansion has no such clarity. It is a style of building that doesn't know what it's for, expressed in architectural language it doesn't understand. The treadmill built it, and the treadmill is the only reason anyone would live in it. ## The Jevons Trap Jevons paradox is the most reliable pattern in resource economics: when you make something more efficient, people use more of it. Coal. Bandwidth. Attention. The rebound effect has held for a hundred and sixty years. [Clay Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/) put it like this: we husband what’s scarce, and squander what’s plentiful. If energy becomes essentially free through renewables, and intelligence becomes essentially free through AI, Jevons predicts we will squander both. More energy means more consumption. More intelligence means more optimization of extraction. The abundance that could liberate us from the treadmill could just as easily accelerate it. In other words: McMansions of energy and intelligence. The simplicity advocates can't solve this alone. Thoreau went to the woods by himself. The monks formed communities of the deeply committed. The Swiss 2,000-watt neighborhoods require an infrastructure of civic consensus that doesn't travel. Individual willpower doesn't scale. Human nature never changes. Right? Jevons paradox is just that: a paradox, not a law. We have broken supposedly immutable links before. The most powerful human drive met the most elaborate governance system in history — thousands of years of religious, legal, and cultural architecture, all built on the assumption that the consequences of sex were inseparable from the act. And then a small pharmaceutical advance decoupled them in a generation. Nobody's nature changed. The system changed, and behavior followed. All at once. Incipient advances in energy and intelligence will decouple the link between efficiency and excess the same way. And circularity will enable the business models that thrive in that new set of circumstances. When materials cycle instead of deplete, when energy regenerates instead of exhausts, the drive for *more* doesn't produce the consequence of *less*. You don't change human nature. You design a system where that nature stops causing damage. But technology alone is not enough. It needs fashioning into a compelling solution. Design, marketing, packaging, and organization all need to fit the new purpose. That’s what [Steve Jobs](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/steve-jobs/) did for computing. As [Lee Clow](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/lee-clow/), Steve Jobs’ advertising partner, understood: [everything a brand does is media](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-of-integration/). The technology of circularity needs to be brought to life for people — or it remains an abstraction. ## The Privilege We Won't Take We accept longer, healthier lives as a gift. No one argues that modern medicine is an affront to the character-building virtues of dying young. No one insists that antibiotics make us soft. The compounding advances in healthcare are a privilege of living in this era, and we receive them gratefully. So why do we treat the hedonic treadmill as though stepping off it were a moral failure? Why do we treat overwork as dedication, overconsumption as ambition, and burnout as the price of seriousness? Industrial-era programming. Nothing more. Chōmei arrived at his ten-foot hut through years of philosophical reflection — [after loss, after failure, after the long work of understanding what actually mattered to him](https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/how-to-live-in-a-hut/?ref=circudyne.com). Thoreau went to Walden with the intellectual preparation of the entire Transcendentalist movement behind him. The path *to* the insight was hard. But the destination they found — a life of intentional sufficiency, rich in beauty and quiet and thought — was materially modest even by the standards of their own centuries. Today, the path of philosophy is harder than ever. Information overload makes sustained self-examination feel impossible. The noise floor has risen so high that the Socratic conversation — the one that helps you discover what you actually want — can barely be heard. 🏷️ Constraint is the price of joy. It always has been. But that tradeoff has never been more favorable. But the destination Chōmei and Thoreau reached? That has never been easier to build. Imagine the ten-foot hut with photovoltaic panels and a heat pump. Imagine Walden with an [induction cooktop](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/impulse-labs/) and an e-bike. Imagine the monk's cell with a view of the stars *and* a complete library of every civilization's accumulated knowledge, accessible from a device that fits in your hand. The material infrastructure for the intentional life is better, cheaper, and more available than at any point in history. The cost of stepping off the treadmill has never been lower. The cost of staying on has never been higher. Constraint is the price of joy. It always has been. But that tradeoff has never been more favorable. ## Provisions for the Journey The philosophical path to the intentional life is harder. The material path is easier. The desire is there — the counterculture of repair and restraint and quality is already growing. And the coming abundance of energy and intelligence could fund the transition beautifully, if it's directed toward making the simple life *better* rather than making the complex life *more*. But the object of this desire doesn't sell itself. The greatest upgrade in history — more joy, less work, more beauty, less noise — has no sales force. The entire commercial apparatus is optimized to keep people on the treadmill. Every ad, every feed, every notification exists to sell *more.* Stepping off is anti-revenue by every conventional measure. Except one. [Circular business models are the only economics where "buy less" is a growth strategy](https://www.circudyne.com/the-technology-of-matter/). When your revenue comes from ongoing service rather than unit sales, you *want* fewer, more durable products in the field. When your design targets satisfaction rather than replacement, you *want* customers to stop shopping. When your materials cycle rather than deplete, selling less means wasting less means earning more per unit of matter. This is the mediating institution between abundant resources and constrained living. Not government — governments have been captured, and they move too slowly. Not individuals alone — the philosophical path is too hard without support, and willpower doesn't scale: Brands. Brands that build the provisions for people who have already chosen the path — or who would choose it if someone made it accessible. Brands that embed the restraint into the product so the customer doesn't have to exercise willpower. The 50L Home participants didn't decide to use less water. The engineering decided for them, and they were happier. Fewer things. More durable. More beautiful. Serving needs higher on the pyramid of human aspiration. Earning more by making less. This is not austerity. It is the most sophisticated form of value creation available. The ascending counterculture — the quiet punks of repair and intention and enough — already know what they want. They are the new Chōmei. The new Thoreau. They need provisions. 💎 This is not austerity. It is the most sophisticated form of value creation available. The brand that provides them will own the largest commercial opportunity in history. Not because it's easy. Because it's hard, and the difficulty is the moat. --- *On the Bubble is a Circudyne Letter series taking stock of the macro transition to circularity.* [*Subscribe*](link) *to follow the full series.* --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Are You a Punk? URL: https://www.circudyne.com/20260109-are-you-a-punk/ Last updated: 2026-03-25T21:03:11.000Z **Rebellion is afoot. But not where you think.** - [Have you noticed a shift?](#have-you-noticed-a-shift) - [Look around. Who is producing the chaos now?](#look-around-who-is-producing-the-chaos-now) - [The polarity has flipped](#the-polarity-has-flipped) - [Same defiance. New world.](#same-defiance-new-world) - [Operation Dynamo: a bunch of punks](#operation-dynamo-a-bunch-of-punks) - [A lesson for brands that care](#a-lesson-for-brands-that-care) - [You can only cross over to a counterculture you can *see*.](#you-can-only-cross-over-to-a-counterculture-you-can-see) - [The rebels are out there.](#the-rebels-are-out-there) - [Practitioner Insights](#practitioner-insights) ## Have you noticed a shift? For fifty years, the word "punk" meant chaos. It meant smashing things. Tearing things up. Refusing the rules. This made perfect sense, because for fifty years, the big institutions — the corporations, the governments, the systems people depended on — were the ones imposing order. Sometimes helpful order. Sometimes suffocating order. But order. The deal was clear. Accept our terms. Wear the suit. Buy the product. Stay in your lane. In return, we'll give you stability. And the rebels said: no. They ripped their jeans. They smashed guitars on stage. They made noise and mess and art out of refusal. Chaos was the weapon, because order was the cage. That world is gone. ## Look around. Who is producing the chaos now? Your candy bar is not chocolate anymore. Confectioners quietly swapped the cocoa butter for vegetable fat and changed the label from "milk chocolate" to "chocolatey candy." They are betting you won't read the wrapper. That is one way to manage costs. It is also contempt. Your subscription costs more than it did last year and does less. Your phone is slower than it was before the update. Your airline seat is smaller than it was a decade ago. The product that lasted ten years now lasts two, and everyone in the boardroom knows it, and they shipped it anyway. 🖕 They are telling you — in every language except plain English — to go to hell. The power grid fails when it's hot. It fails when it's cold. The utility sends you a bigger bill either way. The platform that was useful three years ago is an advertising swamp today. The government makes a decision on Tuesday and reverses it on Thursday, and millions of people rearrange their lives both times. None of this comes with a warning. It comes with a label change you're meant not to read. A press release about "delivering enhanced value." A quarterly earnings call that celebrates the margin improvement without mentioning what was taken from whom. The private equity operator who buys a beloved company and strips it for parts calls it "value creation." The food scientist who replaces your chocolate with wax calls it "recipe optimization." The government that levies a tax on a whim. They are telling you — in every language except plain English — to go to hell. 🌀 The institutions are not imposing order anymore. They are producing entropy. **They* are the mess. The contempt is in the business casual. The chaos is in the suit. The institutions are not imposing order anymore. They are producing entropy. *They* are the mess. ## The polarity has flipped If the institutions (brands, the government) are dumping chaos from above, then the rebellion has no choice but to percolate order from below. You want to know what a punk looks like in 2026? The neighbor on her knees in the garden at 6 AM, coffee going cold on the fence post. The guy at the hardware store asking about replacement parts for a fifteen-year-old dishwasher. The family with the compost bin and the cast iron pan and the boots that have been re-soled twice. The woman who sharpens her kitchen knives instead of buying new ones. The kid who learned to solder from a YouTube video and fixed his own headphones. The couple who cancelled three subscriptions last month and didn't miss any of them. They don't look like punks. They are unassuming. They look boring. They look — and here is the important thing — *orderly*. Cables labeled. Garden beds measured. Meals planned from what's in them. Things maintained instead of replaced. Systems designed to last, in a world where nothing is designed to last. That's why you can't see them. If you suspect counterculture is having a moment, you’re right. But if you're scanning for the smashed guitar and the ripped jeans and the mohawk, you’re going to miss it. You're expecting the counterculture to look like chaos, because the last time, it did. But the last time, the establishment was orderly. This time, the establishment is the mess. So the rebellion changed its medium. The punk of 1977 smashed a guitar to refuse the bargain. The punk of 2026 labels a cable run to replace it. ## Same defiance. New world. The punk of 1977 was impossible to ignore. That was the whole point. The screamed lyrics, the torn clothes, the sneer — it was all *signal*. Loud signal. The establishment could see the rebellion coming. They could study it. React to it. Co-opt it. Market to it. Even fight it, if they wanted to lose slowly. Today's punk is polite. Today's punk doesn't boycott your product. A boycott is a gift — it tells you something is wrong and gives you a chance to fix it. But today's punk just leaves. No letter. No tweet. No dramatic exit. They stop buying the candy bar. Not because they read an article about compound coatings — though some did — but because it stopped tasting right and they'd rather make something from scratch. They cancel the subscription. They repair the appliance. They walk away from your brand quietly, politely, resolutely — and they don't tell you why. This is the part the instruments can't handle. Every demand model ever built works like a metal detector. It scans the ground for signals — clicks, conversions, intent data. It finds pockets of demand you can mine. Deposits you can squeeze harder. It is very good at finding what's there. It cannot find what walked away. The conscious non-consumer is economic dark matter. They don't emit a signal. They don't reflect your ad spend back to you. They don't register in your funnel because they've left. You only sense their presence by the growth that should be there that isn't. The galaxy should be expanding. Something invisible is holding it back. Your dashboards say everything is fine. Your KPIs are green. But the numbers are soft, and nobody in the room can explain why, because the people who left didn't slam the door. Bain estimates conscious non-consumers could be as much as 32% of the U.S. market. They aren’t coming. But they are taking names. ## Operation Dynamo: a bunch of punks In May of 1940, the British Army was trapped on the beach at [Dunkirk](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/dunkirk/). The Royal Navy had destroyers. Big, powerful ships — built for exactly this kind of crisis. But the destroyers drew too much water. Their armor, their guns, their institutional heft — the very things that made them formidable in deep ocean — made it impossible to reach the beaches. The Navy didn't send them and fail. They couldn't send them at all. The institution looked at the problem, looked at its own capabilities, and was helpless. So the small boats went instead. Fishing boats. Pleasure craft. Ferries. Little boats with shallow draft, piloted by civilians who had no military training and no grand strategy. > The captains of the Little Ships were punks. When institutions fail, that’s who shows up. And show up they did. Organized, orderly, and brave, they went into the space the institution couldn't reach. They had no armor. They didn't need it. They had presence, and purpose, and a willingness to sail into the gap. They built a rescue out of what they had. And they saved 338,000 lives. ## A lesson for brands that care We’ve discussed the work of [Douglas Holt](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/douglas-holt/) and his theory about how brands become icons — not big brands, or merely successful brands, but *iconic* brands, the ones that define an era and outlive it. His conclusion is simple. They side with the counterculture. Every time. Not every countercultural brand is iconic, but every iconic brand has at one point or another enabled the cause of rebellion. Consider Levi Strauss. Blue jeans were workwear. Tough pants for laborers and miners. The bohemians of the 1950s and the rebels of the 1960s adopted them precisely because jeans were the opposite of the gray flannel suit — the uniform of the institutional order they were rejecting. Levi's didn't invent the counterculture. The counterculture picked Levi's off the shelf. Levi Strauss & Co. had the sense to see what was happening and lean into it instead of running from it. They crossed over. They sided with the rebellion. And they became the most iconic brand in their segment of the twentieth century. Volkswagen did the same. As did Harley-Davidson. That's how it always works. The brand doesn't create the rebellion. The rebellion adopts the brand, and the brand has a choice. Cross over, or get left behind. Here is something to think about: can you name a single brand — one — that became iconic by fighting the counterculture of its moment? I can't either. When has that ever been a winning strategy? The brands that clung to the old order in every previous cultural shift are either forgotten or became business school cautionary tales. The winners saw the energy, recognized the shift, and crossed over. ## You can only cross over to a counterculture you can *see*. And you won’t see it if you’re looking for the trappings of the last one. The last counterculture was loud, visual, chaotic. It showed up on the news. You could see it coming. This one is quiet. Polite. Orderly. It looks like someone repairing a dishwasher and growing tomatoes and choosing quality over quantity. It doesn't march. It doesn't protest. It builds. And it is invisible to every instrument you have, because your instruments were designed to detect signal, and this counterculture's defining move is *the absence of signal*. ## The rebels are out there. They are ahead of you. They are already living by their principles. And they are not waiting for your marketing campaign. They are not waiting for your sustainability report. They are waiting for you to *join them*. The polarity has flipped. The institutions bring chaos. The counterculture responds with order — in the form of craft, durability, sovereignty, and care. They are building a life that doesn't depend on systems that have stopped caring. That is the counterculture of this moment. It is where the energy is. It is where the iconic brands of the next era will come from — the ones with the sense to cross over. The only question is whether you can see it. And if you can — whether you have the courage to cross. > *Are you a punk?* --- This piece sits at a confluence point in the [*On the Bubble*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/on-the-bubble/) series. If you have been reading along, you may recognize threads from earlier essays now woven into a single argument: [*Leadership in the Time of Enshittification*](https://www.circudyne.com/leadership-in-the-time-of-enshittification/) introduced institutional entropy and the space between chaos and manufactured order. This essay flips that framework outward — from diagnosis to portrait. [*The Supply Mirage*](https://www.circudyne.com/the-supply-mirage/) argued that the circular economy plan was always supply-side, and that it failed. This essay asks: if [supply-side](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/supply-side/) transformation cannot generate circularity, what does the demand side look like? The conscious non-consumer is one answer. [*Empathy Is a Strategic Capacity*](https://www.circudyne.com/empathy-is-a-strategic-capacity/) identified [empathy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/empathy/) as the capability most needed for imaginative, [disruptive innovation](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/disruption/). This essay shows why: without it, you cannot perceive a counterculture that communicates through absence rather than signal. [*Dunkirk Spirit and Circular Transformation*](https://www.circudyne.com/dunkirk-spirit-and-circular-transformation/) developed the Little Ships metaphor at length. Here it serves as illustration, not argument. The full treatment lives in that earlier essay. [*Maintenance Is a First Principle*](https://www.circudyne.com/maintenance-is-a-first-principle/) described what today's punks actually *do* — the practices of care, repair, and stewardship. If "Are You a Punk?" is the cultural frame, [Stewart Brand](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/stewart-brand/)'s"On Maintenance" is the field guide. [*Transformative Ends, Incremental Means?*](https://www.circudyne.com/transformative-ends-incremental-means/) covered [Zeno's Paradox](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/zeno/) — the asymptotic failure of incremental supply-side improvement — at length. That structural impossibility is the reason the counterculture exists: they can see the paradox playing out, even if they wouldn't use that language. And looking ahead: once a brand crosses over, the next question is: [what does it look like on the other side](https://www.circudyne.com/a-future-to-look-forward-to/)? What does it feel like to build something the quiet ones would choose? That is where we are going. --- *On the Bubble is a* Circudyne Letter *series taking stock of the macro transition to circularity. Subscribe to follow the full series.* --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Vendor Dependency and the Loveless Long-Term Relationship URL: https://www.circudyne.com/vendor-dependency-and-the-loveless-long-term-relationship/ Last updated: 2026-02-23T13:03:57.000Z The circular economy asks companies to build goods that last. But a durable good in the performance economy is a software-defined good, and a software-defined good lives only as long as its maker keeps the lights on. What happens when the maker walks away? - [Vendor Dependency and the Loveless Long-Term Relationship](#vendor-dependency-and-the-loveless-long-term-relationship) - [The spirit departs](#the-spirit-departs) - [The covenant problem](#the-covenant-problem) - [Two kinds of failure](#two-kinds-of-failure) - [Durability is a joint function](#durability-is-a-joint-function) - [The mythology of staying](#the-mythology-of-staying) - [Designing for the covenant](#designing-for-the-covenant) - [The customer will know](#the-customer-will-know) - [PRACTITIONER INSIGHTS](#practitioner-insights) - [SOURCES](#sources) ## The spirit departs On January 31st of this year, Belkin shut down its Wemo cloud services. Overnight, millions of smart home devices lost the features that made them worth buying. Remote access, voice assistant integrations, app control: gone. Devices sold as recently as 2023 became, in the language of the industry, "bricked." Belkin isn't bankrupt. It simply decided that Wemo was no longer worth maintaining. After years of declining investment and ceasing new product development, the company reallocated resources elsewhere in its portfolio, and its customers absorbed the cost. The Fisker Ocean tells a darker version of the same story. When Fisker filed for bankruptcy in June 2024, roughly 7,500 owners of a $70,000 software-defined electric vehicle found themselves orphaned. No factory support. No software updates. No warranty. No one to pick up the phone. What followed was a year-long scramble. A company called American Lease bought the remaining Fisker inventory and struck a deal to maintain cloud services, only to discover the vehicle data couldn't be ported to new servers. A second deal was negotiated for $2.5 million. Fisker owners formed their own nonprofit association. Then American Lease and the owners' association fell into a billing dispute, and the services were cut off again. A subsequent software update bricked ten percent of the cars it was supposed to fix. 🏺 In the performance economy, the product is a vessel. The software, the data relationship, the ongoing service are the animating spirit. When the vendor disappears or simply loses interest, you are left with an expensive, inert object. As of now, Fisker Ocean owners can still drive their cars and charge them. But the connected features that justified the premium and constituted the product's ongoing relationship with its maker are gone. The vehicle remains. The spirit has departed. ## The covenant problem These are structural vulnerabilities of how software-defined products work. The [performance economy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/performance-economy/), introduced by Swiss economist [Walter Stahel](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/walter-stahel/), holds that the value of products should be captured through their performance, not their ownership. Sell use, not objects. Retain ownership. Internalize maintenance. This realignment of incentives is the circular economy's most powerful structural idea: it makes the producer responsible for the full life of the good, which means less wasteful production, longer product lives, and closed material loops. In B2B markets, the logic is already mainstream. For consumer products, adoption is slower and harder, because consumers take comfort from ownership and resist the subscription models that performance economics tend to produce. But the direction is clear. The performance economy is how circularity scales. Which makes its central vulnerability all the more urgent to resolve. In the performance economy, the product is a vessel. The software, the data relationship, the ongoing service are the animating spirit. When the vendor disappears or simply loses interest, you are left with an expensive, inert object. A car that can't update. A switch that can't be controlled. A thing that has become a burden. [Joy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/joy/), which we've explored in this letter as [the secret ingredient of the circular century](https://www.circudyne.com/sparking-joy-the-secret-ingredient-of-the-circular-century/), is what you get when a durable good is also a loved good: when the relationship between user and object, and between consumer and producer, is warm, intentional, and aligned. Vendor dependency is the dark mirror of that joy. It is what happens when a product promises a relationship and then breaks the promise through bankruptcy, acquisition, strategic pivot, or neglect. The customer is left in a long-term relationship with something that has stopped caring. The performance economy asks us to trust that the relationship will last at least as long as the product. This is a covenant. And right now, almost nobody is designing for it. ## Two kinds of failure The Belkin and Fisker cases represent different failure modes, and the distinction matters for anyone designing circular solutions. Fisker is a *capital* failure. A startup that burned through its funding before it could sustain the ecosystem its product required. The VC model that funded it was optimized for rapid growth and exit, not for the multi-decade support obligations that come with selling a car. When the capital ran out, so did the covenant. This is particularly sobering for companies like [Impulse Labs](https://www.circudyne.com/from-managers-to-diplomats/), whose battery-equipped, software-defined induction cooktop depends on ongoing first-party support to deliver its most differentiating features. Impulse is building something remarkable: a consumer appliance that doubles as permissionless energy infrastructure. But the brilliance of the product deepens the covenant it implies. Customers are buying more than a cooktop; they're subscribing to a vision of distributed energy that requires the company to be around, updating firmware, maintaining integrations, honoring the promise embedded in the object. The Belkin case is a *commitment* failure. An established company with ample resources that chose to walk away from a product line because maintaining it was no longer a strategic priority. No one went bankrupt. The resources existed. The will didn't. This is, if anything, the more troubling pattern. Startups flame out, and we accept that, however painfully. But when an incumbent with a billion-dollar parent company decides that the cloud services underlying your light switches aren't worth the server costs, you confront a different kind of betrayal. The product didn't fail. The promise did. ## Durability is a joint function The durability of a performance economy good is not a property of the object alone. It is a joint function of two things: the physical durability of the good (how long it can keep performing its core function) and the durability of the relationship (how long the vendor can and will sustain the animating software, service, and care). Joy requires both. A loveless long-term relationship, whether with a partner, an institution, or a product, is not neutral. It is a tax. Time, attention, and money spent on something that neither delights nor serves, but which you cannot easily leave. 🔌 It's the latest form of planned obsolescence. The product doesn't break. The promise does. This is what makes vendor dependency a circularity problem, not merely a consumer protection problem. The entire premise of circular design is extending the useful life of goods. But if the useful life of a software-defined good is bounded by the vendor's attention span rather than the product's physical durability, we haven't solved the problem. We've moved it. It's the latest form of planned obsolescence. The product doesn't break. The promise does. ## The mythology of staying [Douglas Holt](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/douglas-holt/)'s research on [cultural branding](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/cultural-branding/) reveals something important about the companies that earn lasting loyalty. In what Holt calls "myth markets," brands don't compete on features or price. They compete on their ability to resolve a tension people feel between how they live and how they aspire to live. The brands that win these markets become icons, and they do so by speaking with what Holt describes as a "rebel's voice," drawing on the credibility of people who actually live according to alternative ideals rather than merely borrowing their trappings. What makes a rebel voice credible? Holt is clear: it requires an intimate and authentic relationship with the world the brand claims to represent. You cannot mimic the language and expect to be believed. *You have to inhabit the commitment.* 🏴 What makes a rebel voice credible? Holt is clear: it requires an intimate and authentic relationship with the world the brand claims to represent. You cannot mimic the language and expect to be believed. **You have to inhabit the commitment.* In the circular economy, the mythology gap is vast. People want regeneration over extraction, abundance over scarcity, connection over isolation. As [Hugo Warner and I have written](https://medium.com/@hugo.warner/separating-signal-from-noise-to-make-circularity-work-564db71fcc69?ref=circudyne.com), nearly a third of the consumer market is waiting to buy from companies that demonstrate genuine commitment to sustainability, held back not by indifference but by uncertainty about whether the commitment is real. Hugo and I identified them as "conscious non-consumers": a dormant segment whose activation may represent the single greatest lever for consumer-facing business growth. 🌱 Hugo and I identified them as "conscious non-consumers": a dormant segment whose activation may represent the single greatest lever for consumer-facing business growth. Unlocking these consumers requires what Holt would recognize as cultural leadership. Not green claims on packaging or Panglossian sustainability reports. A brand that leads culture, as Holt argues, creates "charismatic visions of the world to make sense of confusing societal changes." The rebel act in the circular economy is not adding a recycling program to an otherwise linear business. The rebel act is *staying*. Committing to the product's full life. Keeping the software alive. Honoring the covenant when it would be cheaper, quarter by quarter, to let it lapse. When a company makes that commitment legible, it reads as identity. Conscious non-consumers don't need more data about carbon offsets. They need to see a company that, by its behavior, resolves the tension between how they live (surrounded by disposable, unsupported products) and how they want to live (in relationship with things that last and makers who care). That is how first-movers in longevity commitments earn brand equity. The mythology of staying accumulates over time, the way trust accumulates in any real relationship. The company that can point to a decade of honoring its covenant possesses cultural authority that no marketing campaign can manufacture after the fact. Leadership, in this sense, includes knowing when and how to stay, and making succession clear when circumstances require transition. ## Designing for the covenant The answer cannot be "no more software-defined products." Software definition is how modern performance economy goods deliver ongoing value, adapt to users, and improve over time. The problem is the absence of structural assurances that the relationship will be honored. For the performance economy to earn its promise, it must assure the relationship. That means: **Longevity commitments.** Service lives that match product lives. If you sell a cooktop built to last twenty years, your firmware commitment should be legible in those same terms. The EU's emerging right-to-repair frameworks signal where regulation is heading, but the brands that get ahead of regulation, and stay ahead of it, will earn trust that compliance alone cannot. **Graceful degradation.** If the cloud goes away, the product should still work at its core function. Some Belkin Wemo devices survived the shutdown because they operated locally through Thread, the mesh networking standard, and continued performing basic switching and sensing tasks. But survival through a third-party protocol is different from a graceful exit by the maker. A genuine commitment would have looked like a final firmware upgrade to Matter, the broader interoperability standard built on Thread, giving every Wemo device a home in the wider smart home ecosystem before the lights went out. **Succession architecture.** Open firmware. Escrow agreements. Interoperability standards. Structural provisions that allow a community, a successor company, or the customer to sustain the product if the original maker cannot. The Fisker Owners Association is building this retroactively, at great cost and pain. It should have been designed in from the start. **Transparent intent.** Being clear about what happens if circumstances change. Not buried in terms of service, but communicated as a feature of the brand relationship. ## The customer will know [Walt Disney](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/walt-disney/) and his Imagineering lead [John Hench](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/john-hench/) shared a conviction about what they called "[the architecture of reassurance](https://www.circudyne.com/reassurance-is-a-strategic-capacity/)": the idea that designed environments communicate care through coherence, and that every detail, even ones the visitor never consciously notices, contributes to whether the experience feels trustworthy. Hench once questioned whether Disney had gone too far with the leather-strap suspension on Main Street's stagecoaches, an authentic period detail that no guest would consciously identify. "People aren't going to get this," he told Walt. "It is too much perfection." Disney's answer was immediate: "Yes, they will. They will feel good about it. And they will understand that it's all done for them." [Steve Jobs](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/steve-jobs/) learned a version of the same principle from his father, Paul, while building a fence around the family home in Mountain View. Paul insisted that the back of the fence be finished with the same care as the front. When young Steve asked why, since nobody would ever see it, Paul's answer was plain: *you will know.* Jobs carried that conviction through his entire career. He insisted that the circuit boards inside a Macintosh be beautiful, that the unseen interior of the machine reflect the same standard as the screen the user touched. These two stories converge on a single insight. Walt's stagecoach suspension and Steve's fence both say: the care you invest in the parts the customer cannot *see* is the care the customer can *feel*. This is the deepest argument for the vendor covenant. Establishing the commitment to keep the spirit alive for the duration of a product's physical life is the back-office equivalent of finishing the back of the fence. It is the operational infrastructure that customers will never see: the capital structure decisions, the firmware maintenance budgets, the succession provisions. And the customer will know. Not because they audit your server uptime. Because they feel good about the purchase, or they don't. Because they trust you, or they don't. Because something in the product's bearing, in the company's posture, communicates whether the relationship is built to last. Rivian is an interesting case here. The company has topped Consumer Reports' owner satisfaction survey for three consecutive years, with 86% of owners saying they would buy from the brand again, even as Rivian ranks near the bottom for predicted reliability and continues to operate at a significant loss. By any conventional analysis, this loyalty is irrational. The vehicles have problems. The company hasn't turned a profit. The service network can't keep pace with demand. And yet. Owners report *feeling* something. A sense that Rivian is in it for the long run. That the people making the vehicle care about the relationship with the people driving it. The VW joint venture, the expanding Adventure Network, the over-the-air updates that keep arriving: Rivian cares about the back of the fence. Their structural decisions communicate covenant without saying the word. How do I know Rivian has this right? I don't. Nobody can be certain about the long-term durability of any company's commitment. But as Walt explained to Hench: I *feel* good about it. And that feeling, far more than any spec sheet or warranty card, is what the performance economy must learn to earn. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Reassurance is a Strategic Capacity URL: https://www.circudyne.com/reassurance-is-a-strategic-capacity/ Last updated: 2026-02-16T15:11:02.000Z Part of the reality of this moment is the epistemic blindness against good things that are intangible or hard to measure. That is why we have made analytical arguments in defense of otherwise self-evident virtues such as [joy](https://www.circudyne.com/sparking-joy-the-secret-ingredient-of-the-circular-century/), [imagination](https://www.circudyne.com/toward-imagination-2/), and [empathy](https://www.circudyne.com/empathy-is-a-strategic-capacity/). Today’s letter is about the requirement for *reassurance*. - [Meet John Hench](#meet-john-hench) - [The survival thesis](#the-survival-thesis) - [Contradiction as threat](#contradiction-as-threat) - [Order produces freedom, not control](#order-produces-freedom-not-control) - [Decision architecture as care](#decision-architecture-as-care) - [Perfection as message](#perfection-as-message) - [Play precedes culture](#play-precedes-culture) - [The Performance Economy's missing piece](#the-performance-economys-missing-piece) - [Reassurance is a strategic capability](#reassurance-is-a-strategic-capability) - [The meaning of perfection](#the-meaning-of-perfection) - [PRACTITIONER INSIGHTS](#practitioner-insights) - [SOURCES](#sources) ## Meet John Hench You may not know his name, but you know his work. John Hench was one of the original Imagineers at Disney who created, among other things, the idea of the theme park. Frank Gehry said this about Hench: > “There are certain people, and John is one of them, who bring a really special quality, one that’s almost indefinable, one that can take “good” and make it “great.” John’s ability to do this, I think, is rooted in his curiosity and his love of people…. Even when the specialists have given up, John will come in and suggest a simple and elegant solution – one that has never even occurred to anyone else.” Hench was a designer and draftsman, a gifted generalist who bravely tackled and licked problems of all sizes. The logic behind his approach is an enduring legacy. Hench believed in the primacy of *reassurance*. ### The survival thesis Hench's approach to design starts not with aesthetics but with biology. He believed humans are constantly, subconsciously scanning environments for threats. "Audiences respond to our animated movies because they are about survival," he told a small group at a luncheon, the details of which were captured for posterity. "Survival is the basis for all games." His design philosophy flows from this: if the default human state in an unfamiliar environment is low-grade vigilance, then the designer's first job is to resolve that vigilance; to communicate there is nothing to fear before asking anyone to engage, learn, buy, or play. "What we are selling is not escapism but reassurance." ### Contradiction as threat Hench identified visual contradiction as the primary trigger for environmental anxiety. He used a specific example: a Gothic tower on a Los Angeles street with a gasoline sign in front of it. The emotional image of the tower is destroyed; the sign doesn't benefit either. "When there are contradictions, when there is chaos, we feel threatened." Disneyland's power comes from eliminating these contradictions. Every element reinforces every other element. There are no competing messages. ### Order produces freedom, not control The common critique of Disney’s approach to theming is that it's controlling; scripted, managed, sanitized. But Hench's observation was the opposite: guests experience more freedom in an ordered environment. A frequent visitor to Disneyland explained its appeal: "Because I can jaywalk and talk to strangers without fear." When the environment communicates coherent care, people relax enough to be spontaneous. Chaos produces defensive withdrawal; order produces openness. ### Decision architecture as care Hench cited the state fair in contrast: "everything clamors for you, so you look and look and try to make sense out of all these chaotic images. You are forced into making a lot of judgments." His design principle: at each decision point, offer only two choices. "We don't give seven or eight so that you really have to work hard to decide which is the best of those choices." You still get all seven or eight eventually, but they “unfolded gradually in segments to be less overwhelming." ### Perfection as message Hench learned the purpose of perfection from Walt Disney himself. At one point he had complained to Walt that the leather-strap suspension Walt wanted on new stagecoaches was excessive. "People aren't going to get this, it is too much perfection." Walt's response: "Yes, they will. They will feel good about it. And they will understand that it's all done for them." ### Play precedes culture Hench drew on Schiller's *Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man* to argue that *play may precede human culture* and "is vital to our survival as human beings." Disneyland was a disruptive innovation. Hench’s understanding of human nature and the ability of people to absorb stimuli in a productive way is an enduring lesson for other purveyors of radically new things. Circularity transformation is another radical new thing that could benefit from this lesson. ## The Performance Economy's missing piece One of the pillars of circular economy thinking is the concept of performance economy introduced by Swiss economist Walter Stahel. The core idea is that the value of products should be captured by their performance, not ownership. This approach better aligns incentives and results in environmental and economic costs being incurred at the time of consumption. Hence, less wasteful production. Stahel’s idea has become mainstream in the B2B context, where buy decisions are backed by analysis and well considered use cases. It underlies the groundswell towards operationalizing capital costs. Among consumers, there are barriers to adopting this approach. Capital intensity is low for consumer products, which means the economic argument for access over ownership is less apparent. Consumer products are sold and bought on emotional grounds. Consumers take comfort from ownership. One of the ways consumer preference towards ownership reveals itself is in subscription fatigue. This is particularly evident in entertainment, with renewed interest in physical media emerging over frustration with the streaming model. Stahel solved the economics of ongoing relationships by selling use rather than objects, retaining ownership, and internalizing maintenance. But for consumers, the *experience* of these performance economy implementations produces fatigue, not reassurance. Hench would have diagnosed that fatigue as a result of these services’ contradictions. The messaging says "we're here for you" while business logic says "we're optimizing your engagement." That contradiction, even subconscious, produces the low-grade vigilance Hench identified. Recall the Innovation/Knowledge matrix from [*Empathy Is a Strategic Capacity*](https://www.circudyne.com/empathy-is-a-strategic-capacity/). Netflix sits in Signal Harvesting—exquisitely tuned to revealed preference, extracting value from demand already in motion. No reassurance architecture. Its subscribers are more likely to feel surveilled than reassured. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2026/02/20260103-2x2.jpg) The problem of subscription fatigue is evidence that solving economics without solving the architecture of the relationship is insufficient. ## Reassurance is a strategic capability In that essay, we argued empathy is the capability that unlocks the Worldbuilding quadrant, where disruption and imagination reinforce one another, and product–market fit must be imagined because markets and metrics don't yet exist. Empathy gets you *into* that quadrant. But empathy alone is not sufficient for the long run. Reassurance is the capability that *keeps* you on the imagination side of the matrix over time. It's what makes imagined futures habitable. This is how to understand Disney's position in Worldkeeping. No longer disruptive, it extends and preserves worlds it once built. But reassurance is so deeply embedded in its operations that it functions long after the founder's death, even after the disruptive impact has faded. The parks go on eliminating contradiction. Every sightline still resolves. The stagecoach still has its proverbial leather-strap suspension. Reassurance has become institutional capability. Apple and Dyson remain in Worldbuilding because they still have both: the empathetic imagination to envision futures on behalf of users *and* the reassurance architecture that makes those futures feel coherent and trustworthy once they arrive. This approach was on display last week when Ferrari controversially revealed elements of its new EV in isolation, to be considered and judged on their own merits. The steering wheel, instrument binnacle, even individual switchgear panels were displayed on tables like objects in a gallery. The public is being given, in accordance with Hench’s doctrine, a series of small choices rather than one radical new reality to judge at once. Not a coincidence considering the designer of those elements is Jony Ive. ![The Ferrari Luce steering wheel is a retro-inspired aluminum wheel designed by Jony Ive, featuring physical controls and a moving instrument cluster.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2026/02/FERRARI-LUCE_STEERING_ASSEMBLY_EVENT_PHOTO_sRGB_4K_72DPI_16X9.jpg) Image credit: Ferrari ## The meaning of perfection Recall Hench’s story about Walt’s point about the stagecoach: "People aren't going to get this, it is too much perfection." Walt's response: "Yes, they will. They will feel good about it. And they will understand that it's all done for them." This story reminds me of the lesson Steve Jobs learned from his father about finishing both sides of the fence: > “Even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” [Craft](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/craft/) communicates relationship. Perfection isn't about making a favorable impression so much as signaling that someone cared enough to get it right, *for you.* I have argued that [joy is to circularity as quality was to lean](https://www.circudyne.com/sparking-joy-the-secret-ingredient-of-the-circular-century/): what looks like a knock-on benefit is actually the outward expression of the philosophy. Lean’s resolution of variance *feels* like quality. Joy is what imagination plus reassurance *feels like from the inside.* It's the experiential evidence that contradiction has been eliminated; that the relationship is coherent all the way down to the leather-strap suspension. Or the back of the fence. ❇️ Joy is what imagination plus reassurance **feels like from the inside.* Joyless durability is the performance economy's version of the Gothic tower with the gasoline sign. Sound structure, contradictory experience. The opportunity cost of that joylessness scales with the duration of the relationship, even as Stahel's model demands longer relationships. The longer you ask someone to stay, the more the absence of reassurance compounds. Circularity transformation needs Stahel's economics *and* Hench's architecture. Without both, you get either linear extraction dressed as service (subscription fatigue) or beautiful experiences without economic foundation. The integration is the point. --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Transformative Ends, Incremental Means? URL: https://www.circudyne.com/transformative-ends-incremental-means/ Last updated: 2026-02-09T13:03:21.000Z I've been told that a question comes up with increasing regularity among professionals in the circularity community: would a hybrid approach be preferable to radical transformation? It's a reasonable question. Transformation hurts. It disrupts what's working. It asks people to abandon competencies they've spent careers developing. An incremental approach layering circular practices onto existing operations might appear prudent. Achievable, even. But the hybrid approach won’t work. Here's why. - [Transformative Ends, Incremental Means?](#transformative-ends-incremental-means) - [Einstein’s admonition](#einsteins-admonition) - [The commoditization is coming](#the-commoditization-is-coming) - [It’s too late for the hybrid approach](#its-too-late-for-the-hybrid-approach) - [What transformation makes possible](#what-transformation-makes-possible) - [Seeing is leading](#seeing-is-leading) - [Practitioner Insights](#practitioner-insights) ## Einstein’s admonition The partially apocryphal statement attributed to Einstein is: > “Problems cannot be solved at the level of thinking that created them.” The linear economy created the problems that circularity aims to solve: resource depletion, externalized costs, extraction of all kinds that has led to [enshittification](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/enshittification/) everywhere. Sustaining innovation within linear models doesn't address these problems. It refines *ad absurdum* the engine that produces them. Each incremental improvement makes the next incremental improvement more appealing than real change. This is how path dependency works. You're choosing a trajectory instead of a tactic. And the trajectory of linear optimization leads somewhere specific: toward a more efficient version of what's already failing. [Zeno's paradox of Achilles against the tortoise](https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/zeno-elea/?ref=circudyne.com#:~:text=3591%29%20discovered%20in%20the%20Etrurian%20city%20of,first%20known%20%E2%80%9Cresponse%E2%80%9D%20to%20the%20Achilles%20paradox.) illustrates the folly of depending exclusively on incremental improvement. If you keep halving the distance to your goal, you approach it infinitely without ever arriving. By aiming close to, but never squarely at, a categorically different outcome, the hybrid approach cannot cross the threshold. To cross the finish line, you have to get radical. ## The commoditization is coming We're entering an era of increasingly perfect information, delivered immediately and personally. Anything that can be modeled will be modeled. Look at what companies like [System](https://www.system.com/?ref=circudyne.com) are doing: applying immense computational power to “create the first systems model of the world.” Does anyone doubt that goal is suddenly within reach? The building blocks of incremental improvement are about to become thoroughly commoditized. Best practices, efficiency hacks, market data down to the individual—all will be available to anyone with the resources to implement what the models recommend. When everyone can optimize, optimization ceases to differentiate. 🌽 The building blocks of incremental improvement are about to become thoroughly commoditized. What remains scarce? - [**Imagination**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/imagination/): [the capacity to conceive what doesn't yet exist](https://www.circudyne.com/toward-imagination-2/). - [**Empathy**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/empathy/): [the capacity to feel what others need before they can articulate it](https://www.circudyne.com/empathy-is-a-strategic-capacity/). These cannot be modeled because they generate the new rather than optimizing the known. They're the source code, not the output. Circular transformation requires both. Sustaining innovation requires neither. This is the structural reality that hybrid approaches fail to overcome. ## It’s too late for the hybrid approach The case against hybrid isn't that incremental progress is wrong. It's that incremental progress within linear systems perpetuates the conditions that make the destination invisible. Linear metrics evaluate opportunities against existing norms. Circular opportunities exist outside those norms. They require different ways of seeing, measuring, and valuing. You can't measure your way to what you can't imagine. And linear systems have been systematically designed to eliminate imagination from the places where it could have impact. ✨ You can't measure your way to what you can't imagine. Transcending this trap in the manner Einstein suggested requires a shift in mindset, not skills. It's structural. Performance management that makes organizations efficient blinds them to possibilities that don't fit existing categories. [Julian Bleecker](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/julian-bleecker/)'s mission "to make imagination respectable in business again" names the deficit. The word "again" tells you what has been lost. ## What transformation makes possible Those are the sticks of the argument. Here come the carrots. **Abundant lives in an imaginative ecosystem.** Circular transformation doesn't require sacrifice. It enables extraction-free abundance; lifestyles in harmony with natural systems rather than in opposition to them. It “husbands,” in [Clay Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/)’s use of the word, the capacities that will remain scarce commodities: imagination, empathy, the ability to feel and respond to what's needed. [An economy that develops these capacities rather than eliminating them is an economy worth building.](https://www.circudyne.com/a-future-to-look-forward-to/) **Ateliers of democracy.** John Hench, Disney's legendary designer, called his approach "the architecture of reassurance.” He designed environments that communicate care. Every detail says: you're in good hands, we've anticipated your needs, you can trust this experience. Circular economy can deliver this at scale. Imagine Hermès-level craftsmanship, distinction, and relationship with the customer—but accessible like the old automat was. Not luxury for the few or commodity for the many. Quality of care as the baseline. [This is what becomes possible when you stop optimizing for extraction and start designing for relationship.](https://www.circudyne.com/maintenance-is-a-first-principle/) (More on this in future essays.) **Reconciliation with “the horror of existence.”** [Joseph Campbell](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/joseph-campbell/) identified this as a pillar of mythological function: every culture needs a way to make peace with mortality, suffering, entropy. The linear economy's answer is accumulation: acquire enough surplus to insulate yourself from vulnerability. It doesn't work. You can't stockpile your way out of impermanence. Try as we might. The circular economy offers a different answer: participate in flows that continue beyond you. Contribute to systems that regenerate. Find meaning not in what you accumulate but in what you enable. Solving this ancient anxiety is a worthy place to spend the abundance that's coming. ## Seeing is leading We're so used to transformative change being thrust upon us for unsympathetic reasons. Restructuring that destroys livelihoods. Disruption that serves shareholders while displacing workers. It’s the story of the planned highway going through grandmother’s house, over and over. “Transformation" has earned its reputation as the euphemism for extraction with new branding. But this time can be different. It's understandable that most people can't see what circular transformation makes possible. The pattern-matching says: this is another version of that. Another story about change that benefits someone else. It's not. The ability to see, act, and communicate what circular transformation makes possible so others can see it is what leadership in this era requires. Hybrid competencies are not enough. You can't half-see a different future. Einstein's level shift; Zeno's finish line; Campbell's reconciliation. All require crossing a threshold that incremental progress approaches but never reaches. The question isn't whether to transform. It's whether to lead the transformation or be transformed by it. --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Maintenance Is a First Principle URL: https://www.circudyne.com/maintenance-is-a-first-principle/ Last updated: 2026-02-02T13:03:27.000Z Stewart Brand's new book advances a simple thesis: how we care for our stuff determines our fate. The *Whole Earth Catalog* publisher and Long Now Foundation founder has written an authoritative treatment of an elemental idea. In this letter we draw out what it means for product, service, and business model strategy. - [Maintenance Is a First Principle](#maintenance-is-a-first-principle) - [The Paradox Persists by Design](#the-paradox-persists-by-design) - [Maintenance Conserves](#maintenance-conserves) - [The Progression](#the-progression) - [The Loop Must Close](#the-loop-must-close) - [Five Diagnostic Questions](#five-diagnostic-questions) - [Practitioner Insights](#practitioner-insights) [*Maintenance: Of Everything—Part One*](https://press.stripe.com/maintenance-part-one?ref=circudyne.com) opens with a quote from Pete Seeger: > “You should consider that the essential art of civilization is maintenance.” Brand presents his thesis as a paradox. > "Maintenance is absolutely necessary *and* maintenance is optional." The stakes are high. “\[Maintenance\] is easy to put off, yet it has to be done. Defer now, regret later. Neglect kills." He resolves this paradox with what he refers to as a “softening” of perspective. "Let 'maintenance' mean ***the whole grand process*** \[my emphasis\] of keeping a thing going. From that perspective, occasional repair is part of the process. Close monitoring is part of the process. Changing the oil is part of the process. Eventually replacing the whole thing is part of the process." Circularity demands we account for (and promote) *the whole grand process*. ## The Paradox Persists by Design How does something "absolutely necessary" remain "optional"? Because it’s compulsory under the linear economy. In a linear model, value is captured at the point of sale. What happens after—use, care, repair, disposal—belongs to someone else: the customer, or the repair shop, or the landfill, or the atmosphere. That is the business model. As industries "mature," any necessary thing that cannot be directly monetized gets externalized. The return on maintenance is indirect. It requires ongoing management. It incurs costs without generating immediate results. So it gets pushed outside the model's boundary. Deferred maintenance is an externality. And the circular economy abhors externalities. ## Maintenance Conserves Brand cites the work of two contemporary philosophers who share a common medium: motorcycle maintenance. Robert Pirsig rode his motorcycle across America and wrote *Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.* Observes Brand: "He had to acquire a certain nondivided relationship between mechanic and motorcycle, a craftsmanlike feeling for the work." The essence of that relationship, Pirsig found, is *caring.* Matthew Crawford left a think tank to open a motorcycle repair shop and wrote *Shop Class as Soulcraft.* His insight was the same. Thinking and making, using and maintaining—these are not separate activities. They are one activity, artificially divided. Both men found joy by internalizing the process of maintenance. Brand finds a commonality in their approach: "Tidiness, like cleanliness, is a social signal, as much to oneself as to others. It's visible evidence that something is respected." [Marie Kondo](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/marie-kondo/) would say that the signal also moves in another direction: to and from the object itself. [She points out that the energy between owner and beloved object is joy.](https://www.circudyne.com/sparking-joy-the-secret-ingredient-of-the-circular-century/) But joy requires relationship. And relationship requires *the whole grand process*—not a fragment of it. The linear economy promises convenience by externalizing maintenance. What it delivers is alienation. From our objects. From the systems that produce them. From the consequences of their disposal. ## The Progression Brand traces the history of vehicle maintenance from Rolls-Royce to Tesla. The progression is revealing: **Object.** Rolls-Royce built machines of such craftsmanship that only specialists could maintain them. The relationship was between artisan and artifact. Beautiful, but unscalable. **Components.** Ford's Model T introduced interchangeable parts. Maintenance became democratized. Anyone with a wrench could replace what broke. An ecosystem grew around the platform—including the hot rod culture that transformed the act of repair into an expression of joyful self-reliance. **System.** Tesla integrated software and hardware into a unified whole. Maintenance became invisible: over-the-air updates, predictive diagnostics, data-driven optimization. Brand notes that by 2011, the auto industry was "enormous, intensely competitive, and asleep." Car manufacturing had become "highly efficient and perfectionist but also conservative." Sound familiar? **Relationship.** Brand’s progression can be extended further. Consider analyst [Ben Thompson’s account of his first Waymo ride](https://stratechery.com/2024/taking-waymo-uber-and-waymo/?ref=circudyne.com). The car greeted him by name. It explained the process. It dropped him off with a cheery "Happy Friday." "I felt a twinge of—what is this?!—sadness as it drove away," Thompson wrote. "I felt like I had just made a new friend." Thompson didn't maintain the Waymo. He didn't own it. Yet the experience of it filled him with joy. Someone, somewhere, had designed Waymo’s *whole grand process* with care. The maintenance was invisible, but its effects were palpable: the car worked, it was clean, it remembered him. The Relationship stage separates the *act* of maintenance from the *experience* of its benefits. But it preserves the emotional resonance. ## The Loop Must Close Here is where circular economy thinking completes the progression. Pirsig, Crawford, and Brand show that relationship comes from engaging with the *whole grand process*. But the answer is not simply "more maintenance." That would be ideology, not strategy. Not to mention laborious. The answer is that maintenance must be *designed from the beginning*—as a first-class citizen in product strategy, service strategy, and business model strategy. Lean manufacturing's limitation was not its principles. It was its boundaries. Lean optimized brilliantly within factory walls, value chains narrowly defined. But those walls permitted everything outside them to be someone else's problem. Lean could coexist with planned obsolescence because end-of-life was beyond its jurisdiction. [Circular economy extends the jurisdiction.](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/) The value chain stretches far enough—upstream to design, downstream to end-of-use—that nothing gets externalized. When you cannot push maintenance outside the model, you must design for it from the start. The right maintenance posture depends on what the object calls for. A cast iron skillet calls for seasoning. A Waymo calls for fleet operations. The burden may be high or nearly zero. What matters is that the choice is deliberate. The value is captured or shared fairly. And the relationship remains intact. Your view on maintenance will determine how much circularity potential exists in your enterprise. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### From Managers to Diplomats URL: https://www.circudyne.com/from-managers-to-diplomats/ Last updated: 2026-02-22T18:48:18.000Z [Last week's letter](https://www.circudyne.com/empathy-is-a-strategic-capacity/) ended with a claim: that leadership towards circular transformation resembles statecraft more than management. This week, I want to explain what I mean by that; and why business leaders, specifically, are the ones who need to learn the difference. - [From Managers to Diplomats](#from-managers-to-diplomats) - [The best teacher I ever had](#the-best-teacher-i-ever-had) - [Context prescribes conceptual framework](#context-prescribes-conceptual-framework) - [Managers and diplomats](#managers-and-diplomats) - [Geiger's framework, mapped to enterprise](#geigers-framework-mapped-to-enterprise) - [A case in point: Impulse Labs](#a-case-in-point-impulse-labs) - [The Circudynamics connection](#the-circudynamics-connection) - [The work ahead](#the-work-ahead) - [Provocations](#provocations) ## The best teacher I ever had [Ted Geiger](https://prabook.com/web/theodore.geiger/3780313?ref=circudyne.com) taught at Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service during my time there. I got to know him and study under him towards the end of his life. Early in his career he had played a significant role in the shaping of the Marshall Plan. Present at the creation of the post–World War II order, he became an academic observer of how such systems hold together. What Geiger spent his career studying was a deceptively simple question: How do societies and intersocietal systems maintain cohesion over time? Not in the abstract, but in practice. His answer was a framework I've carried with me ever since. Durable systems, he argued, depend on the ongoing alignment of three interacting domains: *identity*, *institutions*, and *culture*. When those domains fall out of alignment — when the tensions among them are ignored or mismanaged — systems decay *even while appearing functional.* The metrics still move. The incentives still clear. But legitimacy erodes, trust thins, and collapse arrives long after the conditions for it were set. This is a framework built for moments like the one we're in now. ## Context prescribes conceptual framework When you're operating within an established system, optimization is the appropriate mode. You tune. You improve. You compete on margins. The rules are known, the players are mapped, and the work is to perform better within that architecture. But when the system itself is what needs to change, optimization stops working. Not because it fails on its own terms, but because it succeeds at the wrong task. [You can optimize beautifully inside a structure whose premises no longer hold.](https://www.circudyne.com/leadership-in-the-time-of-enshittification/) You can hit every target while the ground shifts beneath you. This is what I see happening across circular economy efforts today. The work is treated as a series of disputes to be resolved — over costs, over incentives, over compliance — rather than as a system to be rebuilt. Leaders approach the challenge like advocates in a courtroom: marshaling evidence, arguing positions, seeking favorable rulings within a given order. Call that mode *advocacy*. It has its place. But advocacy assumes continuity. It works within the architecture. It seeks wins inside rules that remain stable. What circularity requires is the redesign of the order itself. The reconciliation of competing interests — [producers, consumers, capital](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/iron-triangle/) — into arrangements that can hold. Durability that flows not from the hegemony of any one or subset of actors, but because the settlement itself is legitimate. That is what I mean by statecraft. ## Managers and diplomats This distinction matters especially now because the leaders who will build the next system are not governments. They are not NGOs. They are not citizen movements, however necessary these all remain. It is business leaders. The infrastructure of daily life — how goods are made, sold, used, and recirculated — is shaped by enterprise decisions. If the circular economy is going to exist at scale, it will be because businesses designed it as a system that generates profits. Which means business leaders face a choice about what kind of actors they want to be. The default mode is *manager*: optimize returns, manage risk, compete within known rules. This is honorable work. It is also insufficient to the moment. The alternative is *diplomat*: design lasting settlements, reconcile interests, build legitimacy across constituencies whose reasons for cooperation are nonobvious. This is harder. It requires a conceptual framework that treats alignment as the work, not the precondition. Circular transformation is an invitation for business leaders to punch up their game. From managers to diplomats. From advocacy to statecraft. ## Geiger's framework, mapped to enterprise Geiger's three domains translate directly to the stakeholders that circular strategy must reconcile: **Identity systems** correspond to *producers and brands*: leadership, intent, values, and the trust that accumulates or erodes over time. [This is where courage lives](https://www.circudyne.com/dunkirk-spirit-and-circular-transformation/) — or doesn't. **Institutional systems** correspond to *business models and capital*: ownership structures, [incentive designs](https://www.circudyne.com/the-supply-mirage/), contractual arrangements, and the time horizons that govern investment. [This is where durability gets encoded](https://www.circudyne.com/building-circular-ecosystems/) — or undermined. **Cultural systems** correspond to *consumers and meaning*: norms, [mythology](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/cultural-mythology/), [jobs to be done](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/jtbd/), and the stories people tell themselves about what a good life looks like. [This is where legitimacy is conferred](https://www.circudyne.com/closing-the-mythology-gap/) — or withheld. These three domains are interdependent. Pressure in one shows up in the others. A brand that signals circular intent (identity) but operates an extractive business model (institutions) will eventually face consumer skepticism (culture). A subscription model that captures value for capital while stripping sovereignty from consumers will erode trust regardless of how efficient it becomes. Durable outcomes require alignment across all three. Not optimization of any single constituency. Alignment. ## A case in point: Impulse Labs I've been watching [Impulse Labs](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/impulse-labs/) for this reason. The company builds a battery-equipped, software-defined induction cooktop: a durable good. Their approach to incorporating batteries into white goods is their start of an energy distribution disruption on behalf of consumers. For the price of an appliance that does miraculous things, Impulse enables their customers to permissionlessly roll their own virtual power plants. To capture the benefits and allay the costs of their software development over time, Impulse has chosen a subscription strategy. That raises a question I suspect many consumers feel: does this disruption mean energy sovereignty, or monthly payment serfdom? Subscriptions applied to durable goods signal customer lock-in. The pattern is familiar enough to trigger suspicion on contact. From an advocacy standpoint, this looks like territory to be won or lost. A moat to be dug. Zero-sum. From a statecraft standpoint, it looks like a positive-sum negotiation in progress. It calls for the delicate balancing of optionality between parties. The ongoing subscription obligation introduces what you might call an *optionality debit*: a claim on the consumer's flexibility. The permissionless VPP model introduces an *optionality credit*: an expansion of what the consumer can do. Consumer sovereignty is preserved when the optionality balance is positive. It needs to be designed into the DNA of the strategy. For that, Impulse needs a diplomat. ## The Circudynamics connection Consider the five domains of [Circudynamics](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudynamics/) in the context of statecraft. [**Horizons**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horizons/) asks: What would have to be true for this arrangement to hold across time? What conditions must obtain for producers, consumers, and capital to remain aligned as the system scales? [**Living Futures**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/living-futures/) asks: Can people experience what this arrangement feels like before it fully exists? Can the case be made for the future it proposes? [**Catalysts**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/catalysts/) asks: Are the enabling conditions present — technological, economical, regulatory — for this settlement to become viable? [**Connection**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/connection/) asks: Does this resonate culturally? Does it tap into existing desires and emerging norms, or does it ask people to become something they don't recognize? [**Craft**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/craft/) asks: Is the execution beautiful? Does every touchpoint reinforce the legitimacy of the whole? Is the organization designed to fulfill its obligations over time? Statecraft, in Geiger’s sense, is what happens when you hold all five of these questions simultaneously and design for their intersection rather than optimizing any single dimension. ## The work ahead Circular initiatives keep stalling because they aim too low. They argue within the system when the system itself is what's under negotiation. If the task is to build arrangements that endure between producers, consumers, and capital, then diplomacy is not a metaphor. It is the appropriate mode of leadership. In moments of systems change, the work is not to advocate harder for better outcomes. It is to design settlements that support their own weight, and withstand the unexpected. That is what statecraft looks like in enterprise form. And it is what the circular economy is waiting for its leaders to learn. --- *For Dynamo members: provocations that illuminate statecraft as a strategic capacity for circular transformation. Thank you for your support. You make this work possible.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2026/01/futurama_interior-illustration-1-1.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Empathy Is a Strategic Capacity URL: https://www.circudyne.com/empathy-is-a-strategic-capacity/ Last updated: 2026-02-22T17:24:33.000Z It enables worldbuilding where time and value are not yet fixed, providing a path to product–market fit before markets, metrics, or demand signals exist. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Leadership in the Time of Enshittification URL: https://www.circudyne.com/leadership-in-the-time-of-enshittification/ Last updated: 2026-03-25T21:04:50.000Z [Last week’s letter](https://www.circudyne.com/the-supply-mirage/) argued that circularity’s early economic case rested on an expectation: that rising material scarcity and persistent price volatility would create an unavoidable [supply-side](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/supply-side/) pressure for redesign. That expectation was reasonable in the early 2010s. It also proved insufficient. In aggregate, scarcity signals did not compound into a forcing function strong enough to dislodge a fully amortized, highly optimized linear status quo. When that pressure failed to materialize, circularity remained compelling in principle, but optional in practice. And in the absence of a forcing function, systems tend to revert to what they know: optimization, incrementalism, and short-horizon extraction that can be justified quarter by quarter. - [The triumph of managerial logic](#the-triumph-of-managerial-logic) - [The Iron Triangle](#the-iron-triangle) - [Mindless optimization is not leadership](#mindless-optimization-is-not-leadership) - [It doesn’t have to be this way](#it-doesnt-have-to-be-this-way) - [Provocations](#provocations) - [Provocation 1 — Exiting the Treadmill](#provocation-1-exiting-the-treadmill) - [Provocation 2 — Optimization’s Limiting Factors](#provocation-2-optimizations-limiting-factors) - [Provocation 3 — Time Horizons as Design Variables](#provocation-3-time-horizons-as-design-variables) - [Provocation 4 — Circularity as Alliance](#provocation-4-circularity-as-alliance) - [Provocation 5 — Making Space for Imagination](#provocation-5-making-space-for-imagination) ## The triumph of managerial logic This dynamic of status-quo self-perpetuation is what the linear economy shares with enshittification. Cory Doctorow’s colorful term describes an economic arc that is all too familiar: systems begin by serving users generously, then reallocate value toward business customers, and eventually turn inward — extracting from all sides in an attempt to satisfy capital through optimization alone. In the short run, this can appear to work. Over time, however, the degradation of the experience undermines the system’s appeal to everyone involved, including capital itself. What looks like value maximization from the inside becomes value destruction in the aggregate. Because enshittification undermines everyone, it is aptly seen as a systems problem, and therefore a leadership failure. The root causes of enshittification are not bad actors or a lack of intent. When managerial logic becomes the primary way systems are governed, early gains are almost guaranteed. Metrics improve. Growth accelerates. But optimization without stewardship does not expand value indefinitely; it reallocates it. Over time, systems resolve their internal tensions not through alignment, but through extraction. What looks like decline from the outside is, from the inside, the logical conclusion of success measured too narrowly, for too long. This same pattern helps explain why circular economy efforts have struggled to move from promise to performance. Circularity set out to reconcile the interests of producers, consumers, and capital by promoting systems in which value could be created and sustained without resorting to the extractive dynamics of linear models. That ambition remains sound. But when alignment across those three constituencies is treated as an optimization problem to be managed rather than a stewardship responsibility to be led, the system defaults to what it knows how to do: prioritize near-term returns, push costs outward, and tolerate degradation as long as the metrics remain defensible. ## The Iron Triangle At the heart of both enshittification and stalled circularity lies the same structural challenge: sustaining alignment between producers, consumers, and capital over time. Each vertex of the triangle has legitimate interests. Producers seek efficiency and stability. Consumers seek affordability, reliability, and fair treatment. Capital seeks predictable, competitive returns. Optimizing for any two, absent stewardship-minded leadership, almost always comes at the expense of the third. Linear systems resolve this tension in a familiar way. Early on, value is shared broadly: prices are low, experiences are generous, margins are thin but improving. Over time, pressures mount. Optimization intensifies. Costs are pushed outward — to labor, to users, to the environment — while returns are pulled inward. Eventually, the system stabilizes not through alignment, but through extraction. Enshittification is simply the late-stage expression of a system that has run out of ways to hold the triangle together without degrading one of its vertices. Circular economy thinking emerged as a response to this kind of dynamic, even if it was not always understood in these terms. “Closing the loop” is more than a materials strategy. By its nature, it seeks to align the interests of producers, consumers, and capital. In practice, it functions less like optimization and more like diplomacy: an ongoing effort to reconcile competing interests without collapse. By preserving value in products, components, and materials, circular systems aim to reduce the need to choose between acceptable prices, viable margins, and externalized harm. In this sense, navigating a viable path to circularity and navigating a viable path through the iron triangle are the same challenge. 🕊️ In practice, it functions less like optimization and more like diplomacy: an ongoing effort to reconcile competing interests without collapse. ## Mindless optimization is not leadership But reconciling the iron triangle cannot be achieved through optimization alone. Metrics can improve while alignment subtly decays. Efficiency gains can mask value shifts that are achieved by externalizing costs rather than preserving alignment. When circularity is pursued as an exercise in optimization, whether through better materials, tighter logistics, or higher recycling rates, it inherits the same failure mode as platforms optimized relentlessly for engagement. In both cases, a locally sensible objective is pushed past the point of judgment, until gains in one dimension quietly produce decay everywhere else. In the linear value logic that governs most systems today, each vertex of the triangle is caught on a treadmill largely set by the others. Producers are pressured to shorten product lifecycles and extract margin through volume. Consumers are conditioned into patterns of premature replacement and dependence. Capital, responding rationally to both, shortens its planning horizon, favoring liquidity and near-term performance over durability. No single actor chooses this outcome outright. It emerges from the system as it is currently governed. ## It doesn’t have to be this way Circularity offers a way out, but only if it is understood as leadership work rather than a technical fix. For producers, this means extending the profitability horizon: investing in offerings designed to perform, adapt, and endure rather than churn. For consumers, it means supporting deeper [jobs to be done](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/jtbd/): reliability over novelty, agency over dependence, continuity over planned obsolescence. Circularity succeeds here not by asking consumers to sacrifice, but by freeing them from cycles that no longer serve them. Capital, in turn, benefits when these shifts occur together. Systems that preserve value rather than liquidate it restore legibility and control to investment. Risk becomes easier to price when assets last, relationships endure, and demand is earned rather than manipulated. Planning horizons can lengthen. Liquidity no longer depends solely on exit velocity, but on the steady performance of systems built to last. Stepping off this extractive endgame is not a surrender by any one side of the triangle. It is an alliance. Producers, consumers, and capital move together toward systems that reward long-term stability and growth; systems that make space for imagination to breathe, rather than suffocating it under one-dimensional managerial logic. That is the promise circularity still holds, and the leadership challenge now squarely in front of us. If leadership is the work of redesigning systems, *empathy* — understood as sensitivity to what producers, consumers, and capital each genuinely care about — is where that work has to begin, and it will be the focus of the next *Letter*. --- For Dynamo members: a set of provocations that translate this essay into leadership questions about optimization, alignment, and long-term value. Your support helps sustain this work and the thinking behind it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2026/01/futurama_interior-illustration-1.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Supply Mirage URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-supply-mirage/ Last updated: 2026-01-05T13:04:00.000Z - [Winter 2026 Series Begins](#winter-2026-series-begins) - [Circular Economy Origins](#circular-economy-origins) - [An Unanticipated Future Arrived](#an-unanticipated-future-arrived) - [Diagnosis](#diagnosis) - [Prognosis](#prognosis) - [Prescription](#prescription) - [Provocations](#provocations) ## Winter 2026 Series Begins Today we start our third series: *On the Bubble*. [*Introduction to Circudyne*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/introduction-to-circudyne/) was about architecture: why circularity requires a coherent transformation framework rather than a loose collection of principles or best practices. [*A Circudyne Odyssey*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudyne-odyssey/) stepped back further, adventuring under a constellation of thinkers and ideas that have informed the development of that framework. *On the Bubble* takes a different perspective. This series is about taking stock. Its purpose is to establish the ground truth of the circular economy as it exists today — judged both on its own original terms and against the needs, constraints, and expectations that have emerged since. The question is no longer whether circularity is compelling as an idea, but whether it is equipped, in its current form, to deliver on what it promised for the world as it now is. ## Circular Economy Origins By any reasonable measure, the circular economy arrived as an exemplary act of marketing. It did not attempt to invent a new worldview from scratch, but instead embraced and extended existing bodies of work — [Performance Economy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/performance-economy/), Cradle to Cradle, Biomimicry — bringing them together under a single, legible banner. The concept itself was unusually compelling. Circles are friendly, tidy, and intuitively complete; “closing the loop” compresses complex material, industrial, and economic processes into a phrase that feels both rigorous and reassuring. Its global debut was equally well timed. When circularity was introduced to business leaders at Davos, it spoke directly to a moment when sustainability needed a language that de-emphasized sacrifice. It framed environmental responsibility in economic terms — the word *economy* was right there in the name — and for a time, that framing carried real momentum. ## An Unanticipated Future Arrived Yet more than a decade on, circularity has not advanced in the way that early momentum suggested it might. In practice, the circular share of the global economy continues to decline, [down 2.2% in the last 10 years to 6.9% in 2025](https://www.circularity-gap.world/updates-collection/global-circularity-rate-fell-to-6-9---despite-growing-recycling?ref=circudyne.com). At the level of the firm, we are still waiting for widespread examples of brands that have transformed themselves such that they can profitably deliver circular solutions at scale, rather than pilot them at the margins. And in the broader culture, the mood has shifted. Regular people do not know what circularity is or why it is necessary. Sustainability no longer carries the optimism it once did; consumer attention is fragmenting, regulatory pressure is amped, and fatigue is setting in. ## Diagnosis These are not failures of intent. They are signals that the conditions under which circularity first took hold have changed; and that the idea must now be evaluated not by its elegance or appeal, but by its ability to perform under pressure. When the circular economy entered the mainstream in the early 2010s, it was responding to a specific set of conditions. Material costs were volatile and widely expected to rise. Waste was increasingly visible as an economic inefficiency, not just an environmental externality. Global supply chains appeared stable enough to support just-in-time optimization, but brittle enough to make resource efficiency a competitive concern. Circularity promised to resolve these tensions by redesigning material flows so that value could be preserved, recovered, and compounded rather than lost. Many of the assertions that animated circularity’s early momentum were reasonable at the time. Commodity prices were expected to trend upward. Scarcity — particularly of energy- and resource-intensive inputs — was framed as a long-term structural constraint. 📉 Prices have fluctuated, rents have risen and fallen, but neither has exhibited the sustained upward trajectory that would force systemic redesign. Efficiency, reuse, and substitution were positioned as rational hedges against a more expensive, resource-constrained future. Circularity offered a way for firms to respond without abandoning growth or competitiveness. But the landscape has not evolved in a straight line. Material prices have fluctuated unevenly rather than steadily risen. Globalization extended some efficiencies even as it masked new vulnerabilities. Meanwhile, risks that were underweighted in circularity’s early framing have moved decisively to the foreground. The international trade regime has frayed. Geopolitical fragmentation has turned certain materials like rare earths, critical minerals, and energy inputs into strategic assets rather than commodities. Resilience, not just efficiency, has become a board-level concern. Commodity prices and resource rents tell a story of stasis. In the years leading up to circularity’s mainstream debut, both price levels and volatility appeared to be trending upward across a wide range of materials. That context made the economic case for circularity feel urgent and intuitive. Since then, however, those trends have not persisted in aggregate. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2026/01/real-commodity-price-index-metals.png) Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado (2024) - “Metals and Minerals” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: '[https://ourworldindata.org/metals-minerals](https://ourworldindata.org/metals-minerals?ref=circudyne.com)' \[Online Resource\] Prices have fluctuated, rents have risen and fallen, but neither has exhibited the sustained upward trajectory that would force systemic redesign. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2026/01/natural-resource-rents.png) Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado (2024) - “Metals and Minerals” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: '[https://ourworldindata.org/metals-minerals](https://ourworldindata.org/metals-minerals?ref=circudyne.com)' \[Online Resource\] This matters because it clarifies circularity’s role. Material scarcity and price volatility are risks circularity can mitigate, but have proven insufficient, on their own, to drive transformation at scale. ⚖️ Material scarcity and price volatility are risks circularity can mitigate, but have proven insufficient, on their own, to drive transformation at scale. It is worth acknowledging why the first wave of circular economy thinking focused so heavily on the supply side. Following price signals is a familiar and seductive strategy. Rising input costs create clear incentives; efficiency gains can be quantified; redesigns can be justified internally without asking markets or consumers to change their behavior. Compared to the [harder work of inventing new solutions](https://www.circudyne.com/toward-imagination-2/), new business models, and new [jobs to be done](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/jtbd/) for the consumer, responding to supply-side pressure is comparatively straightforward. That this was the dominant expectation in the early 2010s reflects prudence, not naïveté. ## Prognosis But the failure of sustained price pressure to materialize changes the calculus. In a comparatively stable supply environment, there are no efficiency gains from circularity sufficient to offset an amortized and optimized linear status quo. If circularity is to advance under these conditions, it cannot rely on cost pressure alone. It must turn to the demand side by creating offerings that people actively choose, with business models capable of serving that demand at scale. There is also a deeper distinction at work here, one that helps explain why this shift has proven so difficult. Price signals are something managers follow. Demand, by contrast, is something [leaders generate through invention, judgment, and an evolving understanding of what people actually need](https://www.circudyne.com/toward-imagination-2/). ## Prescription That distinction matters. Circularity’s next phase will depend less on optimization and more on [imaginative leadership](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/systemic-imagination/). What that entails, and why it has been so elusive, will be the focus of the next *Circudyne Letter*. --- Below, for DYNAMO members: three provocations that move beyond diagnosis toward possibility, designed to help leaders think more clearly about what circularity must now deliver. Your support helps sustain the mission behind *The Circudyne Letter*. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2026/01/futurama_interior-illustration-2.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### A Circudyne Odyssey URL: https://www.circudyne.com/a-circudyne-odyssey/ Last updated: 2025-12-29T13:02:59.000Z ## Autumn 2025 series conclusion Breaking *The Circudyne Letter* into quarterly seasons was my way of resolving a fundamental tension: how to go both broad and deep on a subject as expansive as circularity, and of circular transformation in particular. The previous season, [*Introduction to Circudyne*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/introduction-to-circudyne/), surveyed the core ideas that have emerged over the roughly half decade I’ve been working on circularity as a transformation objective. That arc culminated in the [Circudynamics](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudynamics/) framework, which now serves as the architectural backbone of this work. This season, [*A Circudyne Odyssey*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudyne-odyssey/), took a different approach. Rather than advancing my own ideas directly, it traced a path through a set of thinkers, makers, and moments that shaped how I came to see the problem in the first place. It is not an exhaustive lineage. It is closer to a personal thought experiment: who, from across history, would I invite to the table to think this through together? And what would we talk about? As the season unfolded, a unifying theme became clearer — one that was not planned at the outset. [Storytelling](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/storytelling/) emerged not merely as a topic within the letters, but as a connective tissue between them. More importantly, it became evident that storytelling itself is having a moment again in the broader cultural conversation. That convergence mattered. Stories shape not just what we believe, but what we perceive as possible. They condition how we coordinate, what futures we can imagine, and which paths feel viable before the analysis ever begins. 🔜 With the new year comes the beginning of the next series: **On the Bubble.* Circularity is on the bubble: rich with promise, heavy with expectation, and now under pressure to prove what it can deliver. Before we turn the page, it’s worth pausing to take stock of what this Odyssey set out to do—and what it made visible along the way. - [What Would Have To Be True?](#what-would-have-to-be-true) - [From Milkshakes to Meaning](#from-milkshakes-to-meaning) - [Modularity Theory: The Compass for Circular Innovation Strategy](#modularity-theory-the-compass-for-circular-innovation-strategy) - [Beyond Organizational Charts](#beyond-organizational-charts) - [Sparking Joy](#sparking-joy) - [The Overview Effect](#the-overview-effect) - [Toward Imagination](#toward-imagination) - [Dunkirk Spirit and Circular Transformation](#dunkirk-spirit-and-circular-transformation) - [Closing the Mythology Gap](#closing-the-mythology-gap) - [“Something Goes Wrong!”](#something-goes-wrong) - [You Don’t Need Better Storytellers](#you-dont-need-better-storytellers) - [McLuhan, Perception, and the Role of Brands Today](#mcluhan-perception-and-the-role-of-brands-today) --- ## What Would Have To Be True? *Beginning with the future, not the present* The season opened by rejecting incrementalism. Drawing on [Roger Martin](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/)’s future-back logic, this letter reframed strategy as a discipline of imagination—working backward from a future worth choosing rather than forward from present constraints. → Replacing optimization with future-first reasoning. [“What Would Have To Be True?”You cannot A|B test your way to system change. Why circular transformation requires asking ‘What Would Have to Be True?’ instead of ‘How Might We?’![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-22.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250401c-1-1.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/what-would-have-to-be-true/) --- ## From Milkshakes to Meaning *Demand is not a force to be harnessed, but a *job to be done** Building on that strategic stance, this letter revisited [Jobs To Be Done](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/jtbd/) theory as articulated by [Clayton Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/), showing why many sustainability and circular initiatives stall: they misunderstand demand as preference rather than purpose. → Demand as purpose, not preference. [From Milkshakes To MeaningClay Christensen showed us how to understand consumer preference beyond the A|B test. That key unlocks product-market fit for the Circular Century.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-23.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250402-1-1.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/from-milkshakes-to-meaning/) --- ## Modularity Theory: The Compass for Circular Innovation Strategy *Structure determines possibility* This essay extended Christensen’s work into [modularity theory](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/modularity/), revealing how system architecture governs innovation, resilience, and adaptability — and why circularity cannot simply be layered onto existing designs. → System architecture as a primary strategic lever. [Modularity Theory: The Compass for Circular Innovation StrategyChristensen’s modularity theory applied to circular economy. Why integration vs. modular is the wrong question—completion is everything.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-24.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250403d-2.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/modularity-theory-the-compass-for-circular-innovation-strategy/) --- ## Beyond Organizational Charts *Self-disruption is cultural before it is operational* Returning again to Christensen’s thinking — this time on [self-disruption](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/self-disruption/) — the focus shifted from structure to capability. The letter argued that genuine transformation depends on vision, culture, and shared values, not just incentives or reorgs. Together, these three Christensen essays formed a little mini-cycle within the season: *demand*, *structure*, and *self-disruption*. → Culture as enabling infrastructure, not ornament. [Self-DisruptionWhat practitioners miss about Christensen’s self-disruption theory—and why it matters for scaling circular innovation![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-25.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250404d-2.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/beyond-organizational-charts-why-self-disruption-requires-vision-culture-and-values/) --- ## Sparking Joy *Why circular futures must feel desirable* With the strategic groundwork laid, the series turned toward experience. Drawing inspiration from [Marie Kondo](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/marie-kondo/), this letter challenged the assumption that seriousness and austerity are the only credible registers for sustainability. [Joy](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/joy/), here, became a diagnostic for what futures people will actually choose. → Joy as a functional design constraint. [Sparking Joy: The Circular Century’s Secret IngredientMarie Kondo was right. Why joy is the enabling condition of the circular economy.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-27.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250405c-2.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/sparking-joy-the-secret-ingredient-of-the-circular-century/) --- ## The Overview Effect *A moral context larger than any market* This essay widened the aperture, introducing [Frank White's](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/frank-white/) [Overview Effect](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/overview-effect/) as a way to situate circularity within a moral and temporal frame larger than any single organization or economy. → Enlarging the moral and temporal horizon of decision-making. [Overview Effect: Objective Moral Context for CircularityAstronaut testimony from space reveals an objective truth about Earth’s preciousness—and why circular economy is the response that proves our worthiness.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-28.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250406b-1.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/the-overview-effect-an-objective-moral-context-for-the-circular-century/) --- ## Toward Imagination *Why imagination has been systematically constrained* At the midpoint of the season, this letter examined how [imagination](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/imagination/) itself has been narrowed by modern institutions and incentives, and why restoring it is a collective design challenge, not a personal failing. → Imagination as a capability that can be designed for. [Toward ImaginationScientific management made imagination possible. Then it made imagination impossible.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-29.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250407b.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/toward-imagination-2/) --- ## Dunkirk Spirit and Circular Transformation *Coordination without command* Using [Dunkirk](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/dunkirk/) as a historical lens, this letter explored how distributed actors can coordinate effectively when formal institutions are no longer fit for purpose — offering a powerful analogy for circular transformation under real-world constraints. → Coherence as the precondition for collective action. [The Dunkirk Spirit: Why Circular Economy Needs Small BoatsLike the Royal Navy at Dunkirk, corporations are unfit for circular transformation. We need distributed action: 1,000 small boats. Find yours.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-30.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250408a.jpg)](https://www.circudyne.com/dunkirk-spirit-and-circular-transformation/) --- ## Closing the Mythology Gap *When stories lag behind reality* Here the series turned explicitly to [mythology](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/cultural-mythology/), drawing on [Joseph Campbell](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/joseph-campbell/), as interpreted through [George Lucas](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/george-lucas/), to diagnose what happens when inherited stories no longer match lived conditions. → Narrative misalignment as systemic risk. [Closing the Mythology GapWhen change outpaces our stories, organizations lose coherence. Here we explore how cultural renewal shapes fitness for the Circular Century.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-31.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250409-1.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/closing-the-mythology-gap/) --- ## “Something Goes Wrong!” *Why familiar story structures no longer work* This letter examined breakdown itself, drawing on the cinematic sensibility of [Wim Wenders](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wim-wenders/) to question whether traditional narrative arcs are capable of holding contemporary complexity. → Linear stories obscuring nonlinear change. [Something Goes Wrong! Rethinking Story for a Circular FutureHow modern storytelling limits our ability to imagine circular futures—and what Perfect Days reveals about building worlds people can believe in.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-32.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250410c-2.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/20250410-something-goes-wrong-7/) --- ## You Don’t Need Better Storytellers *You need better structures for meaning* The critique sharpened here. The problem, the letter argued, is not a shortage of narrative skill, but the absence of coherent structures within which stories can function truthfully. → Structural coherence matters more than narrative polish. [You Don’t Need Better StorytellersBrands need coherent stories. Why perception, leadership, and joy shape the future.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-33.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250411b-2.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/you-dont-need-better-storytellers/) --- ## McLuhan, Perception, and the Role of Brands Today *Perception comes before awareness* The season concluded with [Marshall McLuhan](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/marshall-mcluhan/), grounding the entire Odyssey in a final insight: perception shapes behavior before understanding. Brands, therefore, play a formative role in shaping what circular value can even be seen to be. [Steve Jobs](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/steve-jobs/) proved how to blend these elements in practice. → Perception as the primary lever of transformation. [McLuhan, Perception, and the Role of Brands TodayWhy experience shapes behavior before understanding—and what this means for brand leadership, perception, and agency today.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-34.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250412d-2.jpg)](https://www.circudyne.com/mcluhan-perception-and-the-role-of-brands-today/) --- > Happy New Year! 🥳 ### McLuhan, Perception, and the Role of Brands Today URL: https://www.circudyne.com/mcluhan-perception-and-the-role-of-brands-today/ Last updated: 2025-12-22T13:03:52.000Z ## The *Circudyne Odyssey* Concludes This final stop in the [*Circudyne Odyssey*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudyne-odyssey/) returns to a foundational question: how do people come to see clearly enough to act? McLuhan's missing link between experience and behavior serves as a fitting end point to this season of the *Letter*. - [McLuhan, Perception, and the Role of Brands Today](#mcluhan-perception-and-the-role-of-brands-today) - [The *Circudyne Odyssey* Concludes](#the-circudyne-odyssey-concludes) - [A New Modality: From Awareness to Perception](#a-new-modality-from-awareness-to-perception) - [Practicing Perception](#practicing-perception) - [Framing: What Is This, Really?](#framing-what-is-this-really) - [Salience: What Deserves Attention?](#salience-what-deserves-attention) - [Sequencing: What Comes First?](#sequencing-what-comes-first) - [Coherence: Does This Hang Together?](#coherence-does-this-hang-together) - [Orientation: How Does It Feel to Act Here?](#orientation-how-does-it-feel-to-act-here) - [Systemic Perception and Its Sisters](#systemic-perception-and-its-sisters) - [Courage When Institutions Falter](#courage-when-institutions-falter) - [The Role of Brands Today](#the-role-of-brands-today) - [Wisdom Already at Hand — and the Return Home](#wisdom-already-at-hand-and-the-return-home) - [Provocations](#provocations) - [One question above the others:](#one-question-above-the-others) - [Framing](#framing) - [Salience](#salience) - [Sequencing](#sequencing) - [Coherence](#coherence) - [Orientation](#orientation) In the previous essay, we surfaced a modest truth: there is not a shortage of stories, but a failure of seeing. When perception degrades — as ours has, flattened by overload, abstraction, and noise — meaning erodes. And when meaning erodes, action soon follows. This helps explain the paucity of leadership and decisiveness in our present context. Consumers and producers alike are weary and stuck. [Storytelling alone cannot repair this.](https://www.circudyne.com/you-dont-need-better-storytellers/) Story assumes a viewer who can see well enough to receive it. But what happens when perception itself has been compromised? That is why this final stop on the *Circudyne Odyssey* is the essential Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan observed: > **People experience far more than they understand; and it is experience, not understanding, that shapes behavior.** This was a statement about how humans adapt to environments. Experience happens first. Understanding follows, if it comes at all. Behavior aligns with experience, not argument. If we want different outcomes, we must intervene earlier. Before awareness, before meaning, before argument, we must work at the level of perception itself. For brands, this reframes the task. The responsibility is to facilitate perception. To restore the conditions under which something can be seen clearly enough to matter. And that starts with experience. ### A New Modality: From Awareness to Perception For decades, marketing strategy has been built on a familiar sequence: awareness leads to consideration, which leads to preference, which leads to action. This model assumes that the primary constraint is information: if people only knew more, they would decide better. That assumption no longer holds. The current moment is defined not by ignorance, but saturation. People are surrounded by messages, metrics, dashboards, narratives, and all kinds of noise. There is no fight or flight option in this environment. We're trapped here. The natural human response is to shut down and become passive. Purpose, intentionality, and courage provide sporadic relief. But we need help. This is why we propose a different modality for serving human beings in this moment. If McLuhan is right, we have to reconsider the marketing funnel. ``` Perception → Awareness → Meaning → Behavior ``` Perception is the pre-cognitive field in which something becomes legible at all. Before people can become aware of a product, an idea, or a future, they must be able to see what kind of thing it is, where it belongs, and whether it is worth their attention. Awareness, in this sequence, is no longer the entry point of the funnel. That is already downstream. This shift matters because it relocates responsibility. If perception comes first, then leadership must operate earlier; at the level of environment, framing, and experience, not message optimization. ### Practicing Perception Perception is often treated as subjective or ineffable. In practice, it can be cultivated with discipline, restraint, and care. Let’s return to our exemplary practitioner. [Steve Jobs](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/steve-jobs/) remains the clearest modern example of how perception can be wielded with discipline. His “reality distortion field” was more than a hard sell. It was scene-setting. Jobs did not begin by making claims. He began by reducing noise. His introductions were spare, deliberate, and paced. They created a perceptual clearing. There was no fat on them. In tone, they were closer to Rod Serling than Madison Avenue: “submitted for your approval.” What if you could hold 1,000 songs in your pocket? How about a computer for the rest of us? The product was allowed to appear, rather than be argued into existence. To understand how this worked, and how to better facilitate it systemically, perception can be broken down into five practical elements. #### Framing: What Is This, Really? Before features or benefits, perception answers a more basic question: what kind of thing is this? Jobs was meticulous about framing. He set forth categories. He placed the product into a mental world where it could be understood without explanation. Framing precedes evaluation. If the frame is wrong or missing, nothing else can compensate. #### Salience: What Deserves Attention? Perception requires subtraction. More than an aesthetic minimalism, Jobs’ obsession with focus was salience engineering. By removing competing signals, he clarified what mattered. This is where courage counts. Facilitating perception means choosing what not to say, what not to ship, what not to foreground. It requires restraint in a culture that rewards addition. It creates space where others would fill it. Salience is not created by amplification. It is created by silence in the right places. #### Sequencing: What Comes First? Perception is temporal. Order matters. Jobs understood that context must precede capability. Scene-setting must come before demonstration. Experience must arrive before explanation. This sequencing is what made Apple launches feel natural rather than persuasive. By the time awareness arrived, the perceptual groundwork had been laid. Understanding felt like recognition, not persuasion. #### Coherence: Does This Hang Together? Perception collapses when systems contradict themselves. Design, language, interface, pricing, posture: everything had to cohere to the same [job to be done](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/jtbd/). Anything that did not fit, no matter how clever or attractive, was excluded. This clarifies the deeper meaning of Jobs’ famous line: > “We’re as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.” This was not austerity for its own sake. It was respect: for the product, for the user, and for unrealized possibilities that did not belong to the job at hand. Here, Steve Jobs’ example complements [Clayton Christensen’s](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/). [Christensen revealed jobs to be done through post hoc analysis of adoption.](https://www.circudyne.com/from-milkshakes-to-meaning/) Jobs, by contrast, set the conditions for a priori perception of the job, so that value could be felt before it was articulated. #### Orientation: How Does It *Feel* to Act Here? Finally, perception orients agency. Good perceptual environments make people feel competent, invited, and unembarrassed by participation. They communicate care. This is where [Marie Kondo](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/marie-kondo/) helps our understanding. She gave us a foundation for trusting our perception of joy as a legitimate guide for our choices. Joy is a signal. It reveals the truth that noise conceals. In a circular context, this becomes critical. The more durable a product or system becomes, the higher the opportunity cost of joylessness. If something will be with us for a long time, it must be worthy of that time. Joy, in this sense, becomes a criterion of fitness. ### Systemic Perception and Its Sisters Systemic Perception does not stand alone. It forms a triad with two other capabilities Circudyne has explored: - Systemic Imagination, which makes futures thinkable - Systemic Perception, which makes those futures legible and actionable - Systemic Beauty, which makes them desirable and worthy of care Imagination without perception remains abstract. Beauty without perception becomes cosmetic. Perception is the bridge that allows possibility to become preference. This is why better storytelling alone is insufficient. Stories assume legibility. Perception creates it. And brands need to take responsibility for it. ### Courage When Institutions Falter Two historical images help clarify what is at stake. In 1939, one in three Americans visited the [World’s Fair](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/worlds-fair/). [They came to experience a future worth building.](https://www.circudyne.com/building-cultural-momentum/) [The Fair functioned as a perceptual rehearsal for a shared dream that later cohered into the American Century.](https://www.circudyne.com/the-road-to-a-circular-future-runs-through-brands/) At [Dunkirk](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/dunkirk/), the situation was reversed. There was no dream, no plan, no institutional competence to rely on. [And yet, the Little Ships came.](https://www.circudyne.com/dunkirk-spirit-and-circular-transformation/) Ordinary citizens acted not because they had been persuaded, but because the situation had become perceptually undeniable. Courage emerged from clarity. These examples are complements. The World’s Fair shows how perception mobilizes hope. Dunkirk shows how perception unlocks courage. Both demonstrate that when institutions falter, people act, if they can see what matters. ### The Role of Brands Today This is the context in which brands now operate. Institutions underperform. Attention is saturated. People are not patiently waiting for better arguments. They are stunned into passivity by the absence of clarity. Facilitating perception is therefore no longer optional. It is the work. This work requires courage. It requires restraint. It requires a point of view strong enough to exclude what doesn't matter. Brands that succeed will not be those that explain more clearly, but those that restore the conditions under which meaning can form at all. Stewardship will be the new sales. ### Wisdom Already at Hand — and the Return Home None of this requires new ideas. The wisdom is already in circulation. McLuhan showed us how experience shapes behavior. [Wenders](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wim-wenders/) reminded us that [seeing is a moral act](https://www.circudyne.com/20250410-something-goes-wrong-7/). Christensen [clarified value](https://www.circudyne.com/modularity-theory-the-compass-for-circular-innovation-strategy/). Kondo restored [joy as signal](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/sparking-joy/). [Joseph Campbell](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/joseph-campbell/) revealed the power of shared meaning. Steve Jobs composed and orchestrated with all of it, and proved it works. The task now is integration. The *Circudyne Odyssey* ends like Homer’s, and even more like Kubrick and [Clarke’s](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/arthur-c-clarke/): with a return home, but with rebirth. Our planet is that home, and the Circular Century is the rebirth. We can do it. We just need to see. --- Enjoy the holidays! *The Circudyne Letter* returns with a new series in the new year. Between now and then, there will be a free summary of the *Odyssey* series. It has been a joy to get reenergized by the ideas we encountered on this trip. 🎁 Here is Marshall McLuhan's immortal cameo in *Annie Hall:* If McLuhan was right that experience shapes behavior before understanding, then perception is where leadership begins. Below, for DYNAMO members: provocations that translate this insight into practical exercises for brands today. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/12/futurama_interior-illustration-1-1.jpeg) --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### You Don't Need Better Storytellers URL: https://www.circudyne.com/you-dont-need-better-storytellers/ Last updated: 2026-03-25T21:05:06.000Z ## Stories work when they are coherent — and joyful In the [previous Letter](https://www.circudyne.com/20250410-something-goes-wrong-7/), we asked what happens when our stories over-rely on rupture to create meaning. Today, we examine the consequences of that habit in business. As storytelling becomes a buzzword, the real work may lie elsewhere: in coherence, perception, and the futures organizations are choosing. - [You Don’t Need Better Storytellers](#you-dont-need-better-storytellers) - [Stories work when they are coherent — and joyful](#stories-work-when-they-are-coherent-and-joyful) - [A hunger that isn’t really about content](#a-hunger-that-isnt-really-about-content) - [The quiet category error](#the-quiet-category-error) - [Why this is surfacing now](#why-this-is-surfacing-now) - [Campbell’s point, applied with intention](#campbells-point-applied-with-intention) - [The instinct behind the storyteller rush](#the-instinct-behind-the-storyteller-rush) - [Wenders, perception, and coherence](#wenders-perception-and-coherence) - [Where story really begins](#where-story-really-begins) - [Steve Jobs, the liberal arts, and integration](#steve-jobs-the-liberal-arts-and-integration) - [Integration makes the story](#integration-makes-the-story) - [Joy as the test](#joy-as-the-test) - [A quiet conclusion](#a-quiet-conclusion) - [Diagnostics for DYNAMO members](#diagnostics-for-dynamo-members) - [The Orientation Test](#the-orientation-test) - [The Perception Barrier](#the-perception-barrier) - [The Joy Test](#the-joy-test) Lately, it seems like everyone in business is [talking about the need for storytellers](https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-are-desperately-seeking-storytellers-7b79f54e?reflink=desktopwebshare%5Fpermalink&ref=circudyne.com). The word shows up in job descriptions, earnings calls, and strategy decks. Companies are reorganizing communications teams around “storytelling.” Executives talk about needing to “tell their story better” to cut through a fragmented, distrustful attention economy. At one level, this all makes sense. Attention is fractured, trust is harder to earn, and many of the channels companies relied on for decades no longer work the way they once did. But I don’t think storytelling itself is the real problem being named here. ### A hunger that isn’t really about content When leaders say they need storytellers, they’re reaching for something more basic: coherence. They want customers, employees, and investors to understand what the company is doing, why it exists, and where it’s headed—without needing a fresh explanation every time. They want the pieces to add up intuitively. In other words, they’re hungry for good *stories*. Not campaigns. Not clever copy. Not more content. Stories that make sense of the world people already inhabit, and help them locate a product or brand within the texture of their own lives. That hunger is real. The diagnosis is wrong. ### The quiet category error Most responses to this hunger focus on the telling. Hire better writers. Produce more content. Launch podcasts. Put executives on stage. All of this treats storytelling as an output problem: something you apply at the end. But stories don’t begin with communication. They begin much earlier, with orientation: what an organization is actually organized around, and what it assumes about value, progress, and the future. If that underlying orientation is unclear, or internally inconsistent, no amount of storytelling will fix it. You can polish the language, but the dissonance still leaks through. Storytelling doesn’t start at the end of the process, and it doesn’t live in marketing. It starts at the beginning. And it starts at the top. Every story has a moral. The purpose of a story, or its lack thereof, is set by leadership. It can’t be delegated to marketing. What an organization believes about the future — what it assumes is possible, desirable, or worth building — shows up everywhere. In its investments. In its trade-offs. In what it treats as non-negotiable. By the time a story reaches communications, the course has already been set. ### Why this is surfacing now It’s tempting to assign this trend to the rise of social media or the decline of attention spans, but that explanation feels incomplete. We’re living through a period of genuine transition. It’s the beginning of what I’ve elsewhere called the [Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/): a new era in which linear assumptions about growth, ownership, and value no longer hold, and new forms of coherence are required. The shift from linear to circular systems is a fundamental shift. It touches supply chains, service models, customer expectations, and cultural norms all at once. It changes how value itself is understood. Transitions like this strain old narratives. The metaphors that once explained the world begin to wobble. Many leaders correctly sense that the old stories no longer quite fit the moment. The metaphors they’ve been living inside — disruption as virtue, crisis as catalyst, infinite growth as default — fail to furnish a future we would choose. ### Campbell’s point, applied with intention [Joseph Campbell](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/joseph-campbell/) once said, “[If you want to change the world, you need to change the metaphor.](https://www.circudyne.com/closing-the-mythology-gap/)” That line is often understood as a call for better messaging. But Campbell meant something more fundamental. He was arguing that the structure of a story shapes what a culture can imagine in the first place. Certain narrative forms make some futures feel plausible, even inevitable, while quietly ruling others out. The Hero’s Journey is one such form. It has its place. But it isn’t the only mythological pattern available to us, and it isn’t neutral. When a culture over-relies on a single story structure, it narrows its imaginative range, often without realizing it. ### The instinct behind the storyteller rush Seen this way, the rush to hire storytellers looks less like a fad and more like an instinct. Leaders can feel that the old metaphors aren’t carrying them forward. They know they need a different story to orient themselves and their organizations. That’s why so many storytelling efforts feel busy but unsatisfying. They operate at the surface, while the deeper structure remains unchanged. ### Wenders, perception, and coherence This is where [Wim Wenders](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wim-wenders/)’ perspective becomes especially useful. In *Inventing Peace: A Dialogue on Perception*, Wenders suggests that peace isn’t primarily a political or economic condition. It’s a perceptual one. We act extractively, he argues, because we’ve lost the ability to see the world clearly — and to dwell in what already works. His response isn’t urgency or argument. It’s attention. Slowness. Fidelity to lived reality. You can see (and enjoy) that logic at work in [*Perfect Days*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/perfect-days/)*.* By subverting the expectation that “something goes wrong,” the film suspends our reflexive scanning for crisis, and makes space for our deeper perception. [Meaning doesn’t arrive through rupture.](https://www.circudyne.com/20250410-something-goes-wrong-7/) It emerges through coherence. Through a world that works consistently enough to be trusted. That insight matters now, at the beginning of the Circular Century. You can’t bargain your way to a circular future. And you can’t assemble it from disconnected parts. It has to be perceived first: felt, experienced, and reinforced across systems. Think of it in terms of the marketing funnel. Concern about consumer awareness is premature without awareness. And without perception, how can the consumer develop awareness? Perception should be the new entry point. ### Where story really begins This is why story doesn’t start with messaging. It starts with orientation. One way to think about this is through [Circudynamics](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudynamics/): - [Horizons](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horizons/) clarifies and grounds a winning aspiration: the future an organization is trying to bring into being. - [Living Futures](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/living-futures/) makes that aspiration tangible, offering emotional evidence rather than abstract claims. - [Catalysts](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/catalysts/) orchestrates the enabling technologies and capabilities that make the story plausible. - [Connection](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/connection/) anticipates customer needs through a proactive reading of lived experience, not reactive feedback. - [Craft](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/craft/) unifies the organizational architecture that delivers the story consistently, everywhere. It’s like [Lee Clow](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/lee-clow/) said [that day at the taco stand](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-of-integration/): everything a company does is media, and the sum of all its media is the brand. A brand isn’t what it says. It’s what it repeatedly does. ### Steve Jobs, the liberal arts, and integration [Steve Jobs](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/steve-jobs/) famously said that Apple lived at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. That phrase is often remembered as a design sensibility. But in Jobs’ hands it was a method of divining product-market fit, and an organizational commitment. Jobs didn’t believe customers could reliably tell you what they wanted from a future they had never experienced. John Sculley once described this as Jobs’ defining trait: he always started from the user’s experience, but rejected the idea that you could get there by asking people what they wanted. The leap was too large. The vocabulary didn’t yet exist. Instead, Jobs applied the liberal arts. He used forms like typography, music, photography, and narrative as tools of perception. They helped him understand the utility of his products. Beauty and coherence weren’t decorative; they were functional. They carried information value about future utility. But perception alone wasn’t enough. Jobs also understood that seeing unmet needs created an obligation. The organization had to be capable of responding coherently. Product, design, engineering, marketing, retail, and support couldn’t be loosely coupled without breaking the experience. Seen this way, Jobs’ real “hack” of the Innovator’s Dilemma wasn’t defiance of customers, but a deeper form of listening paired with an integrated architecture that could act on what it heard. Jobs didn’t treat story as a message to be told; he treated it as a future to be chosen. ### Integration makes the story This is a place where ideas from Lee Clow, Ana Andjelic, [Roger Martin](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/), and [Clayton Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/) converge. Clow’s observation that “everything a company does is media” is really an argument for integration. If every action communicates, fragmentation causes narrative collapse. [Andjelic makes the same case operationally.](https://andjelicaaa.substack.com/p/holistic-brand-mngement-is-the-new) Marketing can’t be separated from product, operations, or customer service without losing credibility. Meaning only accrues when those functions move together toward the same future. [Martin collapses the distinction altogether.](https://rogermartin.medium.com/its-time-to-accept-that-marketing-and-strategy-are-one-discipline-17f0140521c9?ref=circudyne.com) If marketing is about understanding customers and strategy is about choosing how to win with them, then they aren’t separate disciplines. They’re different vocabularies for the same work. [Christensen grounds it in lived reality.](https://hbr.org/2005/12/marketing-malpractice-the-cause-and-the-cure?ref=circudyne.com) The job a customer is trying to get done is never just functional. It’s social and emotional too. Meeting it reliably requires coordination across the whole organization, not insight isolated at the front end. All of this points to a simple but demanding idea: a good story in business is inseparable from the system that delivers it. ### Joy as the test In [*Sparking Joy,*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/sparking-joy/) I argued that joy isn’t a soft byproduct of circularity. It’s the threshold of success. Quality was the dividend of Lean. [Circularity is Lean 2.0](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/). Circularity’s dividend is joy. Joy is the lived test of circular transformation. If a circular system doesn’t spark joy in experience, it won’t scale. Helping the customer access their joy through heightened perception is the task of the circular marketer. [Marie Kondo](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/marie-kondo/)’s question — *does this spark joy?* — cuts through good intentions and theoretical benefits. A good story in business has to pass the same test. ### A quiet conclusion When people say storytelling is important, they mean something other than more and better influencer messages. 🧭 In business, those stories don’t begin with words. They begin with choices: what leaders decide to build, how they organize, and what kind of world they’re willing to support. They’re expressing a hunger for *coherence*. For stories that make sense of the moment we’re in and point toward a future that feels durable, humane, and worth choosing. In business, those stories don’t begin with words. They begin with choices: what leaders decide to build, how they organize, and what kind of world they’re willing to support. You don’t need better storytellers. You need internal coherence. Everything else follows. --- 💬 Discuss this post: mention **@christian@circudyne.com** on Mastodon or your favorite fediverse app. [Identity verification](https://www.circudyne.com/) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/12/futurama_interior-illustration-2.jpeg) > Behind the paywall, I share practical diagnostics for narrative coherence, from leadership choices to lived experience, and why this work matters now. If this essay resonates, your support helps make more of it possible. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### "Something Goes Wrong!" URL: https://www.circudyne.com/20250410-something-goes-wrong-7/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T20:29:26.000Z ## Why our stories won't contemplate the circular future we need — and how a quiet little film lights the way. [Last week's letter](https://www.circudyne.com/closing-the-mythology-gap/) explored the role cultural mythology plays in telling meaningful stories that effectively shift public perspective. Today we dive deeper into why the selection of metaphor can mean success or failure. We begin where we left off: Joseph Campbell's observation "if you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor." --- - [Something Goes Wrong!](#something-goes-wrong) - [Why our stories can’t imagine the circular future we need — and how a quiet little film lights the way.](#why-our-stories-cant-imagine-the-circular-future-we-need-and-how-a-quiet-little-film-lights-the-way) - [I. The Vending Machine That Never Breaks](#i-the-vending-machine-that-never-breaks) - [II. Why Circularity Needs a Different Story Form](#ii-why-circularity-needs-a-different-story-form) - [Three Dominant Story Blueprints](#three-dominant-story-blueprints) - [III. *Tomorrowland*: The Right Ingredients, the Wrong Structure](#iii-tomorrowland-the-right-ingredients-the-wrong-structure) - [Why *Tomorrowland* Looked Like a Guaranteed Success](#why-tomorrowland-looked-like-a-guaranteed-success) - [The Core Issue](#the-core-issue) - [IV. *Perfect Days* Shows the Structure We Need](#iv-perfect-days-shows-the-structure-we-need) - [The Emotional Logic of *Perfect Days*](#the-emotional-logic-of-perfect-days) - [V. How to Tell Stories This Way](#v-how-to-tell-stories-this-way) - [*2001: A Space Odyssey*](#2001-a-space-odyssey) - [*Star Trek: The Motion Picture*](#star-trek-the-motion-picture) - [*WALL-E* (Act I)](#wall-e-act-i) - [VI. Why This Matters Now](#vi-why-this-matters-now) - [VII. When Systems Hold](#vii-when-systems-hold) - [Why This All Matters for the Circular Century](#why-this-all-matters-for-the-circular-century) - [Living Futures and the Power of Emotional Evidence](#living-futures-and-the-power-of-emotional-evidence) - [What Brands Can Do That Governments Cannot](#what-brands-can-do-that-governments-cannot) - [The Leadership Question](#the-leadership-question) --- ### I. The Vending Machine That Never Breaks Wim Wenders’ [*Perfect Days* (2023)](https://www.perfectdays-movie.jp/en/?ref=circudyne.com) is a small story told with confidence. It follows Hirayama, a toilet cleaner in Tokyo, as he moves through his days with quiet precision: pruning trees, listening to cassette tapes, photographing shadows, and repeating the same steady rituals. One part of that ritual stands out. Every morning, he stops at the same vending machine for the same canned coffee. It’s an unremarkable beat — so ordinary it feels invisible. Yet watching it, something feels strangely tense. The moment the coins go in, the audience waits for the modern story pivot: the rupture that kicks the “real plot” into motion. Except here, it never arrives. The machine works, every time. As you might expect in a functioning world. **Nothing goes wrong.** And because nothing goes wrong, the viewer begins to notice everything else: the softness of the morning light, the geometry of shadows, the care in Hirayama’s gestures. The reliability becomes the revelation. This is a quietly radical move. In a culture whose dominant stories rely on rupture, *Perfect Days* reminds us of the emotional power of a world that works — a world that holds itself together long enough for us to feel its meaning. And it points to a problem that transcends film, and explains the [mythology gap](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/mythology-gap/) that presents an opportunity for brands. 📐 Campbell meant something deeper: **the* ***structure** *of a story sets the boundaries of what a culture can* ***imagine**. ### II. Why Circularity Needs a Different Story Form [Joseph Campbell](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/joseph-campbell/) said, “If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.” One might interpret this as advice purely about messaging. But Campbell meant something deeper: *the *structure* of a story sets the boundaries of what a culture can *imagine**. Today, three narrative structures define the stories we consume. They show up everywhere — movies, theme parks, marketing, leadership keynotes, and strategy decks. The unifying theme: **"something goes wrong."** #### Three Dominant Story Blueprints | Blueprint | Core Pattern | What It Assumes | | -------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------- | | The Hero’s Journey | A stable world is broken → a hero responds → the world is repaired or remade | Meaning begins with rupture | | Pixar’s Story Spine | Once upon a time… Every day… Until one day… Because of that… Until finally… | A rupture is required to launch the story | | Imagineering’s “Something goes wrong!” Trope | Build the world → let guests enjoy it → then introduce a crisis | The exciting part starts when stability ends | These structures work brilliantly for many storytelling goals. They are not the problem. The shared assumption underneath them—that stories “activate” *only* when something breaks — is the problem. For circularity, this is a structural mismatch. A world built on continuity, stewardship, and regeneration cannot be imagined — much less desired — through metaphors optimized for rupture. Roger Martin offers the operative insight: the future cannot be analyzed into existence. [Says Martin](https://rogermartin.medium.com/what-is-strategic-thinking-b0173112bb3d?ref=circudyne.com): > Strategic thinking requires facility with a different kind of information than is normally used in business decisions. The object is to influence behavior of customers *in the future*. That means that there is no data because all data comes from the past. [There is no data about the future](https://rogermartin.medium.com/singing-the-data-analytics-blues-58fdf93b27bf?ref=circudyne.com). Thus, [a strategic thinker needs to be comfortable with something other than statistically significant quantitative data](https://rogermartin.medium.com/how-to-prevent-data-analytics-from-wrecking-your-strategy-d8c242dd5fb3?ref=circudyne.com)… > > One important form of qualitative information is analogy/metaphor, which Aristotle called the highest form of thinking: “The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor…it is the mark of genius.” ([Aristotle, Poetics](https://www.amazon.com/Poetics-Penguin-Classics-Aristotle/dp/0140446362?ref=circudyne.com)) Today, we need stories that not only entertain, but enlighten us about our destiny as emotional evidence. Tomorrowland once did this. EPCOT once did this. The 1939 World’s Fair did this at national scale. ### III. *Tomorrowland*: The Right Ingredients, the Wrong Structure Disney’s 2015 film *Tomorrowland* should have been a cultural touchstone, yet it disappointed critically and commercially. The ingredients were unusually strong: #### Why *Tomorrowland* Looked Like a Guaranteed Success | Creative Asset | Why It Mattered | | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Brad Bird (director) | One of Pixar’s finest structural thinkers; expert at the story spine | | Damon Lindelof (writer) | A modern myth-maker skilled at building mystery and world logic | | George Clooney | Global star power with cross-generational appeal | | Michael Giacchino | A sweeping, emotionally rich score | | Production Design | A vivid, aspirational future perfectly suited to world-inhabiting storytelling | | Beloved IP (Tomorrowland) | A cultural shorthand for optimism and possibility | Everything about the project signaled promise. But *Tomorrowland* faltered — not because it was executed poorly, but because it obeyed the wrong metaphor. It used all three rupture-driven story structures described above. #### The Core Issue Tomorrowland promises utopia. But *Tomorrowland’s* structure requires crisis. It follows a classic rupture arc: a gifted hero is jolted out of her ordinary world (Hero’s Journey), the story turns on a sudden disruption that propels the plot (Pixar spine), and when the characters finally reach Tomorrowland, they discover that something has gone wrong! — a once-utopian world now in crisis, requiring them to fix the break. The film does exactly what our dominant story forms reward — and in doing so, *cancels its own premise*. Had the story form been closer to *Perfect Days* — dwelling, observational, experiential — the audience might have received what they came for: two hours in a future worth believing in. ### IV. *Perfect Days* Shows the Structure We Need Where *Tomorrowland* defers its world until crisis, *Perfect Days* lets us inhabit one from the first frame. A rupture-first structure says: “You won’t feel meaning until the break.” A dwelling structure says: “You will feel meaning because the world holds.” #### The Emotional Logic of *Perfect Days* | Narrative Element | What It Produces | Why It Matters | | ------------------- | ---------------------- | ------------------------------------- | | Repetition | Familiarity and rhythm | Makes the world feel lived-in | | Continuity | Trust | Helps the viewer relax into the world | | Competence | Respect for craft | Centers care and stewardship | | Attention to detail | Beauty | Shows meaning in maintenance, nature | | No rupture | Space for reflection | Allows coherence to become narrative | The constancy of the vending machine is the symbol of this logic’s success. The viewer’s expectation of failure — and the story’s refusal to satisfy it — reveals how deeply rupture has shaped our sense of what stories “require.” In that refusal, a new metaphor emerges: a world that works. This is the kind of story the [Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/) needs. ### V. How to Tell Stories This Way *Perfect Days* isn’t the only film to succeed on this level of narrative + world creation. Others have built meaning from coherence rather than collapse. #### *2001: A Space Odyssey* Early in my career I got to meet Fred Ordway, one of the scientific advisors on *2001*. He summarized Kubrick’s mandate this way: “Everything must work. No magic. No gaps in logic — only in practical knowledge.” This principle — designing a world that feels internally consistent and fully functional — is why *2001* still shapes our visual imagination of the future. #### *Star Trek: The Motion Picture* Unlike most *Trek* films, TMP combines a unique blend of ingredients: The full force of “the Roddenberry Box,” which forbade villains, malice, and easy dramatic shortcuts; a generous budget; and aerospace designers on the production team, who built the Enterprise as if it were a functioning institution in a spacefaring society. Together, these forces produced something rare in the franchise: a world that feels operational. The Enterprise presents as a working system — procedural, credible, and alive. *TMP* stands alone in the canon for its approach to drama without conflict in a functionally realized world. #### *WALL-E* (Act I) This is the exception that proves the rule about the Pixar spine. By stretching Act I far beyond typical length — and making it largely silent — Pixar allowed a world to form before the rupture arrived. WALL-E’s competence within that world is what generates empathy. His understanding of his environment, his mastery of routine, and his devotion to small acts of care place him in the same lineage as Dave Bowman in *2001* and Captain Kirk in *TMP*: protagonists defined by capability, not crisis. WALL-E resembles Hirayama this way too. The first act’s coherence makes the later rupture matter. It demonstrates that competence is its own form of emotional evidence. ### VI. Why This Matters Now We are living in a moment of consequence. We need planet-friendly systems that work — materially, culturally, economically. We need narratives that make such systems desirable. That desire is what will shift demand to circularity. But desire requires [imagination](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/imagination/). And imagination requires a story form that allows the future to be *felt*. If every narrative requires collapse, audiences will never believe in the possibility of continuity. If the vending machine must break for the plot to “start,” then a world built on maintenance and care cannot feel dramatic, let alone aspirational. The Circular Century needs stories where coherence is interesting, where rituals matter, where competence is emotionally satisfying, and where systems earn trust. It needs the *Perfect Days* structure. ### VII. When Systems Hold The vending machine in *Perfect Days* is a metaphor for a future built on stability, attention, and care. Each morning, it works. And because it works, meaning accumulates. A world that works becomes a world worth living in. Trust is a function of coherence. A world that works does not lack narrative. It establishes belief. If we want to change the world, we do have to change the metaphor. In *Perfect Days*, Wenders gives us one: a vending machine that never breaks. If you are working on building the Circular Century: ***What’s* your *metaphor?*** *DYNAMO members get the full breakdown: how to adapt these story forms for your own projects and use worldbuilding as a strategic lever for the Circular Century. Join us below.* --- 💬 Discuss this post: mention **@christian@circudyne.com** on Mastodon or your favorite fediverse app. [Identity verification](https://www.circudyne.com/) — ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/12/futurama_interior-illustration-1.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Closing the Mythology Gap URL: https://www.circudyne.com/closing-the-mythology-gap/ Last updated: 2025-12-01T13:03:57.000Z [Last week’s *Letter*](https://www.circudyne.com/dunkirk-spirit-and-circular-transformation/) was about applying [Dunkirk Spirit](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/dunkirk/) in today’s world. Now we cover the role mythology plays in cultural regeneration (and building iconic brands). For this we go to the source: Joseph Campbell, George Lucas and… Coca-Cola. We also refer to topics covered in [*The Overview Effect: An Objective Moral Context for the Circular Century*](https://www.circudyne.com/the-overview-effect-an-objective-moral-context-for-the-circular-century/). - [Closing the Mythology Gap](#closing-the-mythology-gap) - [The Moment George Lucas Realized He Was Making Things Worse](#the-moment-george-lucas-realized-he-was-making-things-worse) - [Cosmology Shifts First — Then Mythology Must Follow](#cosmology-shifts-first-then-mythology-must-follow) - [What “Hilltop” and Star Wars Had in Common](#what-hilltop-and-star-wars-had-in-common) - [Campbell’s Cookbook: Recipes for Cultural Regeneration](#campbells-cookbook-recipes-for-cultural-regeneration) - [The Parallel Crisis: 1970s vs. 2020s](#the-parallel-crisis-1970s-vs-2020s) - [Circudynamics: Operationalizing the Mythology](#circudynamics-operationalizing-the-mythology) - [Why This Moment Contains *A New Hope*](#why-this-moment-contains-a-new-hope) - [Provocations](#provocations) - [Horizons — Cosmological Function](#horizons-cosmological-function) - [Living Futures — Mystical Function](#living-futures-mystical-function) - [Catalysts — Technological Function](#catalysts-technological-function) - [Connection — Sociological Function](#connection-sociological-function) - [Craft — Architectural Function](#craft-architectural-function) - [Synthesis](#synthesis) ## The Moment George Lucas Realized He Was Making Things Worse In 1973, George Lucas understood something he could no longer ignore: he was contributing to the collapse of hope. He was working on *Apocalypse Now* while still carrying the bleak residue of *THX 1138*, and every headline reinforced the same cultural mood — Vietnam, Watergate, economic shocks, and a nation dissolving into cynicism. Hollywood’s new wave had perfected the language of disillusionment, and Lucas was one of its rising voices. But one afternoon, staring at material that felt less like storytelling and more like emotional corrosion, he recognized the truth: he was amplifying the despair. He later put it plainly: “All *THX* did was make people more pessimistic, more depressed, and less willing to get involved in trying to make the world better.” If he wanted to tell a story with a happy ending — one that healed rather than hollowed out — he would have to stop operating within the emotional logic of the moment. He turned to Joseph Campbell, the authority on cultural mythology. His work provided Lucas with a cultural operating system that explained how cultures regenerate meaning when their existing myths fail. 📜 “Mythology is an organization of symbolic images and narratives that bring a sense of coherence to a people.” — Joseph Campbell, **Creative Mythology* Lucas realized that healing doesn’t come from information, persuasion, or critique. It comes from myth—specifically, myth that generates a shared emotional experience strong enough to pull a fragmented society back toward coherence. ## Cosmology Shifts First — Then Mythology Must Follow To understand what Lucas intuited, we have to rewind to December 24, 1968\. Orbiting the Moon, astronaut Bill Anders looked out the window of Apollo 8 and saw Earth rising above a dead lunar horizon. He snapped the photograph now known as Earthrise, and it delivered a cosmological correction: Earth was no longer an infinite stage for human activity, but a finite, interconnected, vulnerable sphere suspended in blackness. 🌍 “The first function of mythology is to reconcile waking consciousness to the **mysterium tremendum* of this universe as it is.” — Joseph Campbell, **The Power of Myth* Campbell understood that when humanity’s cosmology changes—from geocentric to heliocentric, from divine right to democratic equality—our myths must update to match the new reality. When they don’t, cultures fracture. ![Earth rises above the gray lunar surface against the blackness of space, viewed from a spacecraft window that frames the foreground in soft shadow and blurred red edging.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/11/Christmas-Eve-Earthrise-4-of-4.jpeg) NASA. “Earthrise.” Photograph taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders during lunar orbit, December 24, 1968\. NASA Image AS08-14-2383. Earthrise was our Copernican moment. Yet the myths governing modern economics never updated. Boardrooms still operate on a pre-Earthrise cosmology: | Pre-Earthrise Boardroom | The Earthrise Reality | | --------------------------------- | ---------------------------- | | Earth as infinite source and sink | Earth as finite & vulnerable | | Humans as separate from nature | Humans interconnected | | Growth as score | Growth as regeneration | The result is the **Mythology Gap**: the dissonance between what we know about the world and the stories through which business organizes itself. Eco-anxiety rises. Polarization deepens. People crave meaning but are offered planned obsolescence instead. This resembles the cultural wound Lucas saw in the 1970s — the same wound Coca-Cola attempted to heal, unexpectedly, with a 60-second ad. 🕊️ “The old gods are dead or dying, and people everywhere are searching, asking: what is the new mythology to be — the mythology of this unified Earth as of one harmonious being?” — Joseph Campbell, **The Power of Myth* ## What “Hilltop” and *Star Wars* Had in Common In 1971, Coca-Cola aired “Hilltop,” a simple scene of young people from different cultures singing about harmony. There were no product features, no arguments, no claims. It was a snapshot of resolution. Hilltop didn’t describe a solution; it generated the *feeling* of the solution. George Lucas had the same goal: > “I realized after THX that people don’t care how the country’s being ruined. All that movie did was to make people more pessimistic, more depressed, and less willing to get involved in trying to make the world better.... **We’ve got to regenerate optimism.**" To do this, he turned to mythology. As Cass Sunstein puts it: > “Joseph Campbell, Lucas’s Yoda, pointed to people’s need to ‘feel the rapture of being alive, that’s what it’s all finally about, and that’s what these clues help us to find within ourselves.’ Star Wars contains those clues.” He applied Campbell’s narrative model — a monomyth, popularly known as the Hero’s Journey — as the structure that would reliably produce that sense of renewal. After four years of worldbuilding, he released *Star Wars* (later *A New Hope*) in 1977\. The shared sense of relief and optimism among the millions who watched it that summer shifted the national mood. Both Hilltop and *Star Wars* succeeded for the same reason: they activated Campbell’s mythic functions, organizing cosmology, values, identity, and possibility. They resolved despair rather than describing it. And for a moment, they let audiences feel themselves living inside a better world. ✨ “Myths hold us in touch with the experience of being alive. They give us the rapture.” — Joseph Campbell, **The Power of Myth* ## Campbell’s Cookbook: Recipes for Cultural Regeneration Campbell discovered more than the Hero’s Journey. He uncovered a set of archetypal “recipes,” each designed to resolve a specific cultural wound by generating a specific emotional outcome. 🔑 “Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of human life.” — Joseph Campbell, **The Power of Myth* A sampling of his recipes that apply to circular transformation: | Recipe | Expression | Application | | -------------- | --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Regeneration | Death & Rebirth | For legacy firms shedding linear identity without shame. | | Reconciliation | Separated Twins | For brands trapped in the profit vs. planet dichotomy (Hilltop uses this one). | | Abundance | Cornucopia | For industries gripped by scarcity, showing circular flow as generous. | | Homecoming | Odyssey | Reframing circularity as a return to right relationship. | | Cosmological | Creation Myth | For companies building circular categories that didn’t previously exist. | Lucas chose the Hero’s Journey because 1970s America needed heroic success achieved with friends. Circular transformation requires choosing the recipe that resolves the wound your industry actually carries. 🪞 “If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.” — Joseph Campbell, **The Power of Myth* ## Parallel Crises: 1970s vs. 2020s We are living through a similar narrative structure of crisis. The stakes are the same, but the cosmology is bigger: | The 1970s Wound | The 2020s Wound | | ---------------------- | --------------------------------------- | | Vietnam & Watergate | Climate Crisis & Institutional Distrust | | Oil Shocks | Energy Transition Anxiety | | **Mythology Collapse** | **Mythology Gap** | In the 1970s, America needed a national mythology. Today, humanity needs a planetary one. It is within the reach of brands to provide one, just like Coca-Cola did. The journey to the Circular Century is that mythology — if we tell it not as guilt or compliance but as regeneration and hope for a better life. 🌱 “The function finally of mythology is to foster the centering and unfolding of the human spirit.” — Joseph Campbell, **The Power of Myth* ## Circudynamics: Operationalizing the Mythology Lucas proved Campbell's discovery could heal a culture. But modern brands need a system for implementation, not just inspiration. Circudynamics provides such a system. Each of its domains mirrors one of Campbell’s mythological functions, giving leaders a practical architecture for regeneration. | Domain | Mythic Function | The Operational Shift | | -------------- | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Horizons | The Cosmological Function | *Strategic alignment with Earthrise reality.* Reverse-engineer the future (“What would have to be true?”) in a way that matches the cosmology of a finite planet. | | Living Futures | The Mystical Function | *Experiential worldbuilding.* Circular abundance must be lived, not argued—prototypes, exhibitions, and “Overview Effect” moments. | | Catalysts | The Technological Function | *”Imagination and a pile of junk.”* Use today’s real technologies — AI optimization, material passports, IoT — as the believable substrate of tomorrow’s circular worlds. | | Connection | The Sociological Function | *Culture and momentum.* Diagnose which mythological recipe your audience requires and build for that feeling. | | Craft | The Architectural Function | *Integration into identity.* Every touchpoint, every cue, every detail reinforces the mythic coherence—protecting against fragility and greenwashing. | ## Why This Moment Contains *A New Hope* The crisis we face is real, but the despair surrounding it is not fixed. Fragmentation is not fate. It is simply what happens when myths fail to match reality. The good news — visible in *Star Wars*, Hilltop, and the view from Apollo 8 — is that cultures can heal quickly when the right story appears at the right moment. Circularity provides the system that gives coherence to a post-Earthrise world. Our work is to regenerate optimism rather than document decline. To give people the emotional experience of life beyond the wound. Lucas did it with myth. Coca-Cola did it with a chorus. We can do it with circularity. The destination is the same as it was in 1977: the shared feeling that the world can be made whole again. And that feeling — regeneration — is how the future begins. 🌟 “The world is full of clues to the spiritual adventure.” — Joseph Campbell --- If the next era belongs to organizations that become fit for purpose in a post-Mythology Gap world, then our task is transformation into the story our future requires. **Below the fold: catalytic questions designed to help you build for that world, not the one we’re leaving behind.** --- 💬 Discuss this post: mention **@christian@circudyne.com** on Mastodon or your favorite fediverse app. [Identity verification](https://www.circudyne.com/) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/11/futurama_interior-illustration-2-1.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Dunkirk Spirit and Circular Transformation URL: https://www.circudyne.com/dunkirk-spirit-and-circular-transformation/ Last updated: 2025-11-24T13:03:38.000Z [Last week](https://www.circudyne.com/toward-imagination-2/), we covered the crisis of—and opportunity for— [imagination](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/imagination/) in business. Our next stop on the [Circudyne Odyssey](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudyne-odyssey/) is Dunkirk: the movie, and the historical event. In which we explore how cultural momentum shifts when formal institutions become unfit for purpose, and how distributed action fills the gap. It builds on insights from previous *Letters* about why circular transformation requires new forms of fitness. - [Dunkirk Spirit and Circular Transformation](#dunkirk-spirit-and-circular-transformation) - [The Deep Draft Problem](#the-deep-draft-problem) - [Structure, Not Psychology](#structure-not-psychology) - [The Trap of Past Success](#the-trap-of-past-success) - [In Automotive](#in-automotive) - [In Airlines](#in-airlines) - [For Circular Transformation](#for-circular-transformation) - [Welcome to Our Operation Dynamo](#welcome-to-our-operation-dynamo) - [Finding Your Boat](#finding-your-boat) - [Practitioner Insights: What Makes a Boat Seaworthy](#practitioner-insights-what-makes-a-boat-seaworthy) - [The Destroyer Delusion](#the-destroyer-delusion) - [Finding Your Craft](#finding-your-craft) - [The 1,000 Question](#the-1000-question) - [What "Fit for Purpose" Means](#what-fit-for-purpose-means) - [Possible and Necessary Relief](#possible-and-necessary-relief) ## The Deep Draft Problem In late May of 1940, the British Royal Navy faced a problem that had nothing to do with courage and everything to do with design. The British Expeditionary Force was trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk. The Royal Navy possessed the mightiest fleet in the world. They had destroyers, cruisers, and battleships capable of projecting power anywhere on the globe. But for the specific mission at hand, the Navy was functionally useless. The problem was their draft. A British destroyer required nearly 15 feet of water to float. The beaches at Dunkirk were shallow and gently sloping. A destroyer trying to reach the men would run aground hundreds of yards out. This is a critical lesson from Dunkirk: An institution can be perfect for one mission and fatally unfit for another. The Royal Navy was fit for the purpose of deep-sea domination; it was physically unfit for shallow-water rescue. In the hours they had to close the gap, the Admiralty couldn't build new destroyers. So they summoned the "Little Ships"—civilian yachts, fishing trawlers, lifeboats. Vessels that were fit for the specific purpose of navigating the shallows. This historical lesson became part of the foundation of my thinking on circularity. Years ago, I watched an interview with Kenneth Branagh during the publicity tour for the film *Dunkirk*. He spoke about the hard lesson Britons learned regarding the paralysis of their institutions and the heroism of the civilian mariners. To find my own place in the Circular Economy, I used that historical example as a lens. I realized we were seeing the exact same misalignment of purpose playing out today. We see this paralysis at work today not in the English Channel, but the Say–Do Gap. ## Structure, Not Psychology The Say–Do Gap is the obsession of every sustainability conference. The data is consistent: customers say they want sustainable products. They claim they care about the climate. But when the moment comes to buy, they don't follow through. They stick to the cheap, linear, disposable option. The standard interpretation of this gap is psychological. We blame the customer. We say they are hypocritical, or unrealistic, or simply price-sensitive. We treat the customer like a soldier on the beach who refuses to swim out to the destroyer. But the older I get, the more I am convinced that the Say–Do Gap isn't psychological. It is structural. The customer is not being inconsistent. The customer is a soldier waiting on the beach, and the linear economy won't stop sending deep-draft destroyers. The current industrial system is optimized for massive scale, standardization, and throughput. It is fit for the purpose of feeding consumption for its own sake, not the needs of a customer living a sustainable lifestyle. The "Gap" is simply the distance between what the institution was built to do and what the reality now requires. ## The Trap of Past Success Why can't the big institutions just re-fit themselves for the new purpose? In 1940, the Navy's draft was determined by the weight of its armor and guns—assets that were indispensable for deep-sea combat, but which rendered the ships unfit for a shallow-water rescue. In 2025, the "draft" of a linear corporation is determined by a similar heavy burden. Its "armor" consists of the capital and capabilities that are essential for the linear economy, but which become stranded assets—unfit for purpose—in the [Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circular-century/). These companies are paralyzed by the economic forces bound to protect the status quo. But these assets aren't just physical infrastructure like oil pipelines. They are the economic models themselves. Consider a fast-fashion giant. Their factories are efficient, but they are optimized to produce goods that are disposable—products designed for planned obsolescence. The company's entire value proposition, brand positioning, and unit economics rely on the customer throwing that product away and buying a new one. To align with consumer preferences informed by environmental realities, they would have to dismantle the very engine that generates their profit. The producers with the most success at the linear model have the most to lose from changing it. They are immobilized not by a lack of desire, but by their previous success. They are so perfectly fitted to the old world that they cannot move in the new one. I have seen this "fitness trap" before. ### In Automotive Growing up, I was obsessed with the car industry. In the 1970s and 80s, Detroit executives would shrug off low quality as a reality of doing business. 'Customers don't pay for quality,' they said. As I explored in [*Circularity is Lean 2.0*](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/), what Detroit couldn't see was that quality wasn't an add-on cost—it was a systematic competitive advantage. Toyota's Lean methodology didn't ask customers to pay more for quality; it made quality cheaper than defects by building it into the system itself. The fitness trap works the same way. Detroit's institutions were fit for volume manufacturing at the cost of precision. Toyota proved you could have both—but only by fundamentally redesigning what 'fitness' meant. ### In Airlines I encountered this again in the 1990s, from two different vantage points. First, I worked marketing airliners to major carriers. My team had data proving passengers valued comfort, but the airline CFOs refused to pay for it. Their procurement models were built for a commodity market; they literally didn't know how to position a superior product because they couldn't imagine, and therefore calculate, the revenue lift. They were stuck in the status quo. Then, I crossed the table to join the early team at JetBlue. We proved the commodity thinking of legacy carriers wrong. We built more than a better product: we built a better world for customers to inhabit. JetBlue succeeded because we made 'coach service that doesn't suck' an aspirational thing before customers had language for wanting it. We created [cultural mythology](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/cultural-mythology/) around deserving dignity in air travel. The legacy carriers were fit for a commodity world. We built a world where dignity was the baseline. ### For Circular Transformation In both cases, the incumbents were optimized for the wrong problem. This is where reverse engineering becomes essential. In [*Strategic Reverse Engineering*](https://www.circudyne.com/strategic-reverse-engineering/), I explored how Roger Martin's [What Would Have To Be True](https://www.circudyne.com/what-would-have-to-be-true/) methodology helps organizations escape these fitness traps. Instead of asking 'How do we adapt our current capabilities?' you ask: 'What would have to be true for circular business models to be better than linear ones?' The answer reveals what 'fit for purpose' actually means in the Circular Century. And often, it requires abandoning the very capabilities that made you dominant in the Linear Century. ## Welcome to Our Operation Dynamo This brings us back to the Circular Transformation. We are currently waiting for the "Royal Navy" of global corporations to bring their best to the planetary crisis. We expect them to redesign supply chains, eliminate waste, and reverse carbon emissions overnight. But their "keels" run too deep. They are fit for extraction. They are not fit for regeneration. What is needed is the modern equivalent of 1,000 valiant Little Ships. That is worth more than a million carbon-neutral OKRs. Circular transformation won't come from institutional doctrine. It will come from distributed action. I am interested in the archetype that Mark Rylance's character in Dunkirk portrays. He is a civilian mariner with a pleasure craft. No fuss. No heroics. Just a man who understood that his boat was fit for the moment in a way the destroyer was not. The Little Ships succeeded not despite their small size but because of it. They were fit for purpose in ways the mighty destroyers could never be. The Circular Century will be built the same way—not by retrofitting the giants, but by launching the thousand boats. By going to war with the navy we have. ## Finding Your Boat The implication for us—for the readers of this Letter, for the strategists, for the entrepreneurs—is uncomfortable but liberating. We cannot wait for the big ships to retrofit themselves. If you are working in this space, you have to ask yourself: *What is my boat?* For years, I tried to help steer the destroyers. But I realized that my specific set of skills—strategy, entrepreneurship, empathy for the underserved—is a shallow-draft vessel. I sense the nuances that big organizations are incentivized to miss. I can help leaders navigate the shallows where the real friction of transformation happens. This is why I call the premium tier of this publication Dynamo. It is not a velvet rope; it is a homage to that Tiny Armada. Operation Dynamo succeeded because of about 850 to 1,000 civilian boats. That is the goal of this practice: to find and serve 1,000 people who are ready to put their boats in the water. The Circular Century will not be ushered in by a single legislative act or a corporate decree. It will be built by the thousand small boats—the startups, the internal changemakers, the policy hackers—who are fit for the purpose of building a better future. The Say–Do Gap is real. But it is not a failure of customer will. It is a failure of institutional fit. The big ships are stuck. The water is shallow. And the relief—the real relief—is looking out and seeing that the thousand boats are already in the water. You just need to find yours and launch it. --- *The rest of this essay explores how to identify your specific "boat"—the craft that makes you fit for circular transformation—plus practitioner insights on building the civilian navy we need.* --- 💬 Discuss this post: mention **@christian@circudyne.com** on Mastodon or your favorite fediverse app. [Identity verification](https://www.circudyne.com/) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/11/futurama_interior-illustration-1-2.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Toward Imagination URL: https://www.circudyne.com/toward-imagination-2/ Last updated: 2025-11-17T13:03:34.000Z From last week’s stop on the [*Circudyne Odyssey*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudyne-odyssey/) at [*The Overview Effect*](https://www.circudyne.com/the-overview-effect-an-objective-moral-context-for-the-circular-century/), today we turn our attention to the subject of Imagination. Next week: DUNKIRK. - [Toward Imagination](#toward-imagination) - [The Tool That Forgot Its Purpose](#the-tool-that-forgot-its-purpose) - [The Measurement Trap](#the-measurement-trap) - [The Conceptual Substitution](#the-conceptual-substitution) - [The Outsourcing Excuse](#the-outsourcing-excuse) - [The Structural Failure](#the-structural-failure) - [Bleecker — Making Imagination Respectable](#bleecker-making-imagination-respectable) - [Disney — Imagination as Cultural Infrastructure](#disney-imagination-as-cultural-infrastructure) - [Disney's Failure — When the Goal Changes](#disneys-failure-when-the-goal-changes) - [McDowell — Coherent Worldbuilding](#mcdowell-coherent-worldbuilding) - [Three Traditions as Complete Infrastructure](#three-traditions-as-complete-infrastructure) - [Imagination as Renewable, Accessible, Systematic](#imagination-as-renewable-accessible-systematic) - [For Immediate Reflection](#for-immediate-reflection) - [For Strategic Diagnosis](#for-strategic-diagnosis) - [For Practical Application](#for-practical-application) - [For Building Imaginative Capacity](#for-building-imaginative-capacity) # Toward Imagination Picture this: Your sustainability team just got the research back, and it's everything you hoped for. Customers *care* about the environment. They *want* sustainable products. They'll even pay more for circular solutions. The focus groups were passionate. The survey data sparkles with promise. You've got charts, quotes, statistical significance—everything that says "green is good, circular is compelling, and people are ready." So you build it. Clever materials. Circular design. Complex return logistics. You pour resources into exactly what the research says customers want. Then launch day arrives. And then... crickets. A few early adopters. Some polite press coverage. Then silence. Meanwhile, customers keep reaching for the conventional options—the ones with worse environmental profiles, no circular benefits, the products your research suggested they didn't want. You're back in the boardroom, staring at disappointing numbers. What happened? Two possibilities emerge at the post mortem: ***Customers don't understand.*** They're confused by the value proposition. They need more education, clearer messaging, better communication. Let's tell them again, louder, with more data points. Or: ***Customers don't mean it.*** They tell researchers what sounds good, but when it's time to open their wallets, their true preferences emerge. They don't actually care about sustainability. Let's get back to giving them what they really want. Both feel pragmatic. Both keep you safely inside the lines. Both leave that maddening gap between what customers say and what they do completely intact. But see what both explanations share: **they assume the worst**. 🪤 This creates a trap that locks from both sides. You won't build transformative futures because you don't think customers can handle them. Customers can't prove they'd choose transformative options because you never offer any. They assume customers are either too muddled to grasp circular value or too dishonest to act on it. They assume your team has already pushed as far as possible—that incrementally better products in greener packaging are the limit of what you can build. This creates a trap that locks from both sides. You won't build transformative futures because you don't think customers can handle them. Customers can't prove they'd choose transformative options because you never offer any. The Say-Do Gap isn't showing you that customers are broken. It's showing you that everyone—you, them, the whole system—has quietly agreed to expect less than what's actually possible. --- ## The Tool That Forgot Its Purpose Here's the twist: the system that gave us imagination is the same system that took it away. Think about what made the [1939 World's Fair](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/worlds-fair/) possible—not just the art deco pavilions or Norman Bel Geddes's Futurama, but the conditions (even during the Great Depression) that let millions of people take time off work, travel to New York, and spend days walking through exhibitions of tomorrow. The prosperity, leisure time, technical capability, and transportation infrastructure all resulted from the economic surplus that lets societies dream instead of subsisting. [Brands once built the American Dream. Now they must build the Circular Century.From the 1939 World’s Fair to the Circular Century, brands must stage the future and make circularity our shared dream.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-21.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/a-circular-worlds-fair-of-tomorrow-in-pixels-b-1-1.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/the-road-to-a-circular-future-runs-through-brands/) All of that came from Frederick Taylor's scientific management: the systematic optimization that made factories efficient, products affordable, and modern life possible. The industrial revolution created the imagination economy. The same methodologies that measured every motion on assembly lines generated the wealth and capacity that funded World's Fairs and gave us space to wonder what comes next. Scientific management made imagination possible. Then it made imagination impossible. ### The Measurement Trap Imagination can't be measured. You can track what it costs—the salaries, the studio space, the prototypes gathering dust—but you can't create a KPI that captures what imaginative work produces, at least not in quarterly reports or in ways that satisfy CFOs or justify budget allocations. As scientific management matured, it got better at what it was designed to do: measure, track, and optimize. Revenue growth became the north star, cost savings justified every decision, and efficiency gains and conversion rates became the vocabulary of business legitimacy. If you could measure something, you could manage it, and if you could manage it, you could improve it. The system was beautiful, but it had a fatal flaw. When your instruments can detect only certain types of value, everything else becomes invisible—not worthless but invisible. The measurement bias doesn't just ignore intangible value; it makes that value illegitimate. What can't be measured can't be justified, and what can't be justified gets cut. Imagination produces intangible value, so imagination got cut. ### The Conceptual Substitution Companies still needed to talk about newness, about progress, about staying ahead of change. They needed language that sounded forward-thinking without requiring unmeasurable work. Phil McKinney gave them a cleaner formulation: "Innovation equals Invention plus Execution." The formula offered two components, both manageable and both trackable. Invention produces patents and prototypes, while execution produces launches and revenue. Add them together, call it innovation, and you've got something a proof-focused culture can work with. > "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." But notice what's missing: where does invention come from? Thomas Edison, a noted expert on the subject, said, "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." The pile of junk is where you experiment, prototype, fail, waste resources, and make messes. That inefficiency gives imagination the space to become invention. Scientific management abhors piles of junk because they're unmeasurable, unjustifiable, and impossible to defend in quarterly planning. McKinney's formula overlooks that part and assumes invention appears fully formed and ready to be executed. This lets you talk about innovation without dealing with the messy, intangible, expensive phase that actually produces new ideas. The consequence was predictable: "innovation" displaced "imagination" in corporate vocabulary. Not because imagination became less valuable, but because it became illegible to the systems of record that define value. 🧑‍🦯 "Innovation" displaced "imagination" in corporate vocabulary. Not because imagination became less valuable, but because it became illegible to the systems of record that define value. ### The Outsourcing Excuse Companies didn't actually give up on mess; they just refused to do it themselves. Instead, they delegated the "pile of junk" phase to startups and let VCs fund it. Once a startup proves a concept—once imagination has crystallized into measurable invention—then the corporation can acquire it, scale it, and execute it. This works fine for incremental improvements within existing categories, but for systemic transformation—the kind circular economy demands—it fails completely. You can't outsource imagining your own business model transformation. That imagination work is too specific to your context, your culture, and your constraints to be developed externally and imported. ### The Structural Failure The Winning Aspiration declined from "advance human welfare through prosperity and progress" to "deliver tangible, measurable business results—even if they create zero or negative value for people and planet." Innovation got redefined as "Invention plus Execution" specifically to exclude the unmeasurable pile-of-junk phase. The Management Systems reinforced this loss through promotions, budgets, and incentives that selected against imagination mechanically rather than maliciously. This is the tragedy of scientific management's triumph: the system that created the conditions for imagination became the system that made imagination conceptually illegitimate. You can't close the Say-Do Gap by measuring customers better or messaging harder when your measurement systems have made imagination illegible and your innovation formula excludes it entirely. 🎭 This is the tragedy of scientific management's triumph: the system that created the conditions for imagination became the system that made imagination conceptually illegitimate. There are three exemplars of imagination who, each in their way, lights a path out of this mess. --- ## Bleecker — Making Imagination Respectable Julian Bleecker has dedicated himself to “making imagination respectable in business again." His provocation reveals the precise problem: imagination fell out of favor because it became illegitimate in a proof-focused culture. Not because it stopped being valuable, but because its value couldn't be measured the way scientific management demanded. Bleecker's solution is elegant. If imagination's problem is illegibility, then make it tangible enough to evaluate. His approach—*design fiction*—creates "artifacts from the future" that can be held, examined, and assessed against strategic criteria. Not speculative fantasies, but relatable prototypes that can be discussed in boardrooms and tested against business logic. Design fiction renders imagination legible to certain measurement systems. A prototype circular product from 2035 can provide shared focus for dialogue: Does this solve real problems? Would customers want it? What infrastructure would it require? What makes it economically viable? It conjures evidence from imagined worlds, demonstrating feasibility, desirability, and viability in ways that justify the pile-of-junk phase that created them. Design fiction doesn't ask "what could we build?" It asks "what about the world this artifact is from would make living in it irresistibly compelling?" Imagination of this kind assumes customers and leaders are both capable of engaging with sophisticated futures. This is part of what we call the [Horizons](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horizons/) domain in Circudynamics—making imagination strategically credible through reverse engineering. Bleecker shows us how to create artifacts that prove imagination's respectability. The Horizons domain extends this to ensure those artifacts are strategically sound, culturally resonant, and economically viable. But strategic credibility—making imagination measurable enough to consider—is but one dimension. Two other traditions address what measurement systems miss: the intangible value that makes transformation desirable rather than just defensible. --- ## Disney — Imagination as Cultural Infrastructure Walt Disney understood something that business has since forgotten: imagination is cultural infrastructure, a foundational system that enables everything else. He put this philosophy into practice when General Electric hired him to create their pavilion for the 1964 World's Fair. The Carousel of Progress transformed the march of history into an emotional experience for audiences by depicting domestic life with electricity, appliances, and automation through the decades. Visitors left wanting the future they'd just inhabited. Disney called this genre "edutainment," but it proved to be more than that. It was infrastructure for societal transformation. Disney was building the cultural conditions that would make GE's products feel natural and desirable rather than threatening and disruptive. It was imagination as a service: Disney providing the imaginative infrastructure that GE couldn't build for itself. Disney was so convinced of the methodology's value that he brought the Carousel of Progress to Disneyland, then later to Walt Disney World, keeping it operating for decades. This same philosophy informed his vision for EPCOT—the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow—conceived as a permanent World's Fair where people could walk through tomorrow before it arrived. Though Disney died in 1966 before construction began, the company opened EPCOT Center in 1982, attempting to realize his concept of imagination as civic infrastructure. Not to sell products, but to make futures experientially magnetic. When visitors left pavilions like Spaceship Earth, they didn't just understand technological change; they wanted it. They could imagine themselves delighting in those futures. This is what Jeff Bezos later understood when he said "advertising is the price you pay for having an unremarkable product." Disney didn't need to advertise the future; in Tomorrowland, he built a world where people could experience it directly. The experience created its own momentum because cultural infrastructure generates mimetic adoption without persuasion. Just as roads enable commerce and power grids enable industry, experiential futures enable transformation. They make the unprecedented feel natural, the difficult feel achievable, and the transformative feel desirable. This is the [Connection](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/connection/) domain in Circudynamics—creating cultural resonance that turns individual preference into collective momentum. When people can experience circular futures rather than just hear about them, the Say-Do Gap begins to close through shared imagination made walkable. --- ### Disney's Failure — When the Goal Changes But even Disney fell into the imagination deficit. EPCOT's Future World was intended to be that permanent World's Fair—a continuously refreshed exhibition of tomorrow. That was the original goal: durable infrastructure for societal imagination. By the 1990s, Future World needed updating. The technology on display was aging, the cultural context had changed, and attendance patterns were shifting. Disney executives faced a choice about what goal should guide the refresh. Should they renew Future World's original purpose—helping society imagine tomorrow—or should they optimize it as a theme park asset like any other? They chose optimization. The goal shifted from "imagination as civic infrastructure" to "maximize park performance." On its face, the decision looked like best management practice. Product and IP are easier to quantify than imagination. Character meet-and-greets generate measurable engagement. Branded attractions tied to existing franchises produce predictable attendance lifts. These could all be measured, tracked, and justified in ways that a reapplication of pure imagination couldn't. Imagination itself was deprioritized—not eliminated, but repositioned as a legacy rather than the core purpose. Future World's pavilions increasingly became showcases for Disney IP and corporate sponsors rather than exhibitions of possibility. The methodology that created EPCOT—imagination as cultural infrastructure—went fallow because once the goal changed, that methodology couldn't justify itself in the new language of theme park optimization. Disney possessed the capability to be the platform where anyone trying to help society imagine tomorrow could build experiential prototypes. Automakers could make electric vehicles delightful, energy companies could make renewable infrastructure feel attractive and obvious, and circular economy pioneers could resolve the Say-Do Gap through built worlds people actively choose. But recognizing that opportunity would have required maintaining the original goal: imagination as a service. This is what the crisis of imagination looks like even at its source: when your goal shifts from advancing human imagination to optimizing measurable performance, even the world's greatest imaginative institution loses its way. If even Disney can lose imaginative capacity, how much more vulnerable are companies without that legacy? --- ## McDowell — Coherent Worldbuilding Walt Disney believed in story and imagination, and built a practice around both called Imagineering. But the practice of worldbuilding had more runway in front of it. Alex McDowell took it to another level by making it explicit, teachable, and transferable. McDowell's worldbuilding approach for *Minority Report* succeeded in designing a believable future world by codeveloping it with the script. The world and the story reflected and responded to each other with aplomb. The gestural interface that became iconic followed from cultural logic: what kind of society would make that interface natural? What economic realities would drive its development? What cultural values would make people want to interact with information that way? The technology emerged from coherent world-systems rather than the reverse. This is systemic imagination.[1](#fn1-22730) Worldbuilding forces you to resolve contradictions at the world level rather than the product level. When you design a coherent future where circular principles are the default, the Say-Do Gap is not a factor because circular solutions cohere with the rules of that world. McDowell’s worldbuilding practice informs the Living Futures domain: creating experiential prototypes where stakeholders can "live" in circular realities before they're built. Artifacts from the future (like Bleecker’s) and experiences of the future (like Disney’s), combined into inhabitable systems where the logic of circularity feels dynamic. When you can walk through a worldbuilt environment and understand how circular choices make sense within logic of that world, your own senses are enough to judge that logic. The need for selling goes away. McDowell has turned imagination from a practice into a methodology. You can teach worldbuilding as a discipline with principles, tools, and repeatable processes. It doesn't depend on individual genius or institutional memory, which is why it can be applied to challenges Disney never imagined—like circular economy transformation. --- ## Three Traditions as Complete Infrastructure Together, these three traditions salve what businesses lost when imagination fell out of favor. Bleecker's makes imagination strategically respectable, Disney's makes it culturally desirable, and McDowell's makes it systemically coherent. Together their processes create a framework for dreaming *and* doing. This is how the Say-Do Gap closes. Not through better marketing or customer education as we know them, but through building worlds where circular choices are the natural ones—where the contradiction never arises because the context makes circular options the ones people actively prefer. The integration that weaves strategic credibility, cultural desire, and systemic coherence into unified brand reality is part of the practice we call [Craft](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/craft/). It combines complementary methodologies that work together to rebuild what scientific management accidentally destroyed. --- ## Imagination as Renewable, Accessible, Systematic The issue is not a shortage of solutions, resources, or technology. What we need more of is stories we *believe in.* Luckily, imagination is the most renewable resource we have. We just need to acknowledge its value. Still better news is that imagination is now systematic. Bleecker, Disney, and McDowell gave us complementary methodologies that are replicable, learnable, and transferable. What once was mystical becomes infrastructural, and individual genius gives way to organizational capability. Leaders who thought they were trapped by irrational customers or impossible trade-offs suddenly have agency again. The constraint was never resources; it was imaginative infrastructure. Imagination isn't about dreaming harder or hoping customers will change. It's about systematically assuming the best of customers and ourselves, then building the infrastructure that anticipates the question “[what would have to be true](https://www.circudyne.com/what-would-have-to-be-true/) to make the aspirational solution circular too?” The three traditions show us this is possible because they've already done it in systems optimized against imagination. You learn design fiction's artifact creation, study Disney's experiential prototyping, and practice McDowell's coherent worldbuilding. You develop these as organizational capabilities and defend the pile-of-junk phase by producing artifacts, experiences, and coherent worlds that prove the value in forms scientific management can respect. **Turn Understanding Into Action** You understand the paradox. You know the three traditions. Now turn that understanding into capability. DYNAMO members get prescriptive guidance to discover: - Where has imagination become illegitimate in your organization? - Which tradition addresses your constraint? - What exploration deserves protection without proof? - What if your goal was human welfare instead of measurable results? It’s a diagnostic for your imagination deficit. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/11/futurama_interior-illustration-1-1.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Overview Effect: An Objective Moral Context for the Circular Century URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-overview-effect-an-objective-moral-context-for-the-circular-century/ Last updated: 2025-11-10T13:03:09.000Z Last week in our letter about [Marie Kondo](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/marie-kondo/), we explored the idea that “[joy is the secret ingredient of the Circular Century](https://www.circudyne.com/sparking-joy-the-secret-ingredient-of-the-circular-century/)”. This week, we make the case that the Overview Effect provides its moral premise. - [The Overview Effect: An Objective Moral Context for the Circular Century](#the-overview-effect-an-objective-moral-context-for-the-circular-century) - [The Relationship Between Morality and Consumer Preference](#the-relationship-between-morality-and-consumer-preference) - [The Clarke Binary](#the-clarke-binary) - [Two Dimensions of Awareness](#two-dimensions-of-awareness) - [Objective: The Overview Effect](#objective-the-overview-effect) - [Subjective: Biophilia](#subjective-biophilia) - [Conditioned for Scarcity, Evolving for Abundance](#conditioned-for-scarcity-evolving-for-abundance) - [Don’t Bring Frontier Thinking to a Stewardship Problem](#dont-bring-frontier-thinking-to-a-stewardship-problem) - [Infinite Materials Not Required](#infinite-materials-not-required) - [No Room on Earth for Space Junk](#no-room-on-earth-for-space-junk) - [Captain Kirk and the Cold Warrior](#captain-kirk-and-the-cold-warrior) - [So What? Business Implications of Cosmic Context](#so-what-business-implications-of-cosmic-context) - [For Business Leaders: The Strategic Timing Question](#for-business-leaders-the-strategic-timing-question) - [For Innovation Leaders: Worthiness as Competitive Advantage](#for-innovation-leaders-worthiness-as-competitive-advantage) - [For Governance Leaders: The Risk Assessment Reversal](#for-governance-leaders-the-risk-assessment-reversal) - [Practitioner Insights: Working with Escapist Thinking](#practitioner-insights-working-with-escapist-thinking) - [Metadata for Ghost CMS](#metadata-for-ghost-cms) --- ## The Relationship Between Morality and Consumer Preference The things we buy have to earn our business. Nothing gets made without paying for itself. But decisions to buy are informed by the moral context of the day—and these moral contexts are brittle. They seem completely rigid right up to the moment they shatter. Cigarette advertisements on television were normal until suddenly they weren't. Fur coats were status symbols until they became marks of cruelty. The shift happens fast, but it's not arbitrary. Changes in moral behavior are expressed as matters of taste, but they're rooted in facts: cigarettes cause cancer, and fur requires suffering. These shifts may start as philosophical debates over the nature of The Good. But to the practical business person, they confer the power to predict human behavior over time. Which makes frameworks like the Overview Effect and biophilia valuable as ethical compasses *and* as strategic oracles. They reveal which direction the moral context is moving. ## The Clarke Binary Arthur C. Clarke once observed that there are two possibilities: > “either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both prospects are terrifying.” If we're alone, we bear the weight of being consciousness's sole expression in the cosmos. If we're not alone, we face the question of whether we're worthy of existence among other civilizations. Clarke's Binary points to something essential: we need context for gratitude. We need to understand what we've inherited. ## Two Dimensions of Awareness I know of two ways to reach this awareness, one objective, the other subjective. ### Objective: The Overview Effect One path is what Space philosopher Frank White named “Overview Effect.” It’s what astronauts describe when seeing Earth from space and experiencing a cognitive shift. In space, you watch the planet rotate beneath you, borders invisible, atmosphere paper-thin, the whole magnificent fragile thing suspended in absolute darkness. The perspective delivers what Clarke describes: cosmic context that makes our inheritance palpable. ### Subjective: Biophilia The other path is what E.O. Wilson called biophilia, humanity's innate affinity for life and living systems. You don't need to leave Earth to experience it. It is the feeling you get when you perceive nature in a state of undistracted presence. The sense of appreciation emerges from within. Alan Bean, the fourth person to walk on the moon, captured both perspectives comparing Earth to the lunar surface: > "I don't think we were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Just look around. We're still in it." Both the Overview Effect and biophilia reveal a fundamental moral truth about our context. The former, objective and privileged; the latter, subjective and available to anyone who gives it a try. Both paths create what we might call species situational awareness—the ability to deal with the world as it is, not as we've been evolutionarily conditioned to perceive it. [David Foster Wallace](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/david-foster-wallace/) captured this in [his commencement speech about fish who don't know they're swimming in water](https://www.circudyne.com/a-future-to-look-forward-to/). ## Conditioned for Scarcity, Evolving for Abundance For hundreds of thousands of years, humans lived in conditions where scarcity was the prevailing condition, where competition for resources was survival, where nature was more powerful than us. Then came the Industrial Age, and with it a sudden, massive leap in our power over nature. If humanity were a person, the Industrial Age would be like its adolescence: old enough to get into serious trouble but not wise enough to clean its room. We gained enormous power without the wisdom to manage it. The Circular Century is what comes next. It's not a rejection of industrial power, but the maturation that makes us worthy of it. It's learning to tidy our room. To take responsibility. To manage our capabilities with wisdom. Marie Kondo had this to say about the personal benefits that come from tidying that applies to this context: > "As we hone our sense of what brings us joy through the process of tidying, we come to know ourselves far better. This is the ultimate purpose of tidying up." ## Don’t Bring Frontier Thinking to a Stewardship Problem If space travel can confer perspective, it cannot shield us from folly. There are those who have drawn the wrong lesson from the Overview Effect. That misreading could delay the moral shift that we need. In 2019, Jeff Bezos laid out his vision for humanity's future in space. He acknowledged that "Earth is the best planet"—we should keep it that way, he said. But then he presented what he saw as an unavoidable logic: human demand is infinite, Earth's resources are finite, and this imbalance leads to one solution: rationing, of energy and materials. Zero growth. His answer: make resources infinite by moving heavy industry to space. Mine asteroids. Build manufacturing facilities in orbit. Bring the resources back to Earth but leave the pollution up there. We get the benefits without the environmental cost. What's interesting is how closely this logic aligns with that of degrowth advocates like Greta Thunberg. Both start from the same premise: infinite demand meets finite resources. Bezos concludes we need to expand the frontier into space. Degrowth advocates conclude we need rationing. Both miss a third possibility. ### Infinite Materials Not Required They assume that humanity's demand for value and extraction of resources are permanently, inextricably linked. It's like saying that a household with an overflowing bathtub has "infinite demand for water." You could go to the moon, dig up tons of regolith, retrieve ice, melt it, and send it to that household to satisfy its “infinite” demand. Alternatively, you could turn off the tap and enjoy your bath. Bezos's logic suggests the former approach. And to be clear: we're not calling for no baths. The idea is to use resources sensibly. Circularity is about closing the loop so the same materials flow through the economy indefinitely, creating value without requiring constant extraction. ### No Room on Earth for Space Junk There's a second fallacy in the space-mining vision. Even if we source materials from asteroids instead of Earth's crust, what happens at end-of-life? Does a truck built from asteroid metal get tossed into a salvage yard when it's done? How much room exists in our landfills when we throw away space-sourced junk? Whether we mine asteroids or earthly mountains, we need to plan around the full lifecycle of what we make. Moving the extraction off-planet delays but does not solve the fundamental design challenge. This isn't to say all space enterprise is intrinsically unwise. Google's recently announced Project Suncatcher, which aims to place data centers in orbit where they absorb sunlight and emit heat harmlessly beyond our atmosphere, makes logical sense. Using space as a heatsink for computational infrastructure could be genuinely beneficial. But continuing manifest destiny into space to make more stuff because we can't manage the stuff we already have? That's the most expensive, wasteful example of kicking the can I can imagine. It's like running away from the mess in your room by moving to a bigger house. The Overview Effect should inspire us to become better stewards here, not more ambitious escapists. When astronauts see Earth from space and report overwhelming love and protectiveness for it, the response shouldn't be "great, now let's industrialize everywhere else." That fails to resolve the tension of Clarke’s Binary. ## Captain Kirk and the Cold Warrior William Shatner flew to space aboard Bezos's rocket in 2021\. Bezos invited him as part of his vision for building infrastructure for future space entrepreneurs—a vision I've covered favorably as an example of managing long-term risk through patient capital investment. Shatner is careful to defend his host's intentions. In his memoir *Boldly Go*, he writes: "Jeff Bezos, I must say, is a misunderstood person. His excursion into outer space seems, on the surface, to be the excesses of capitalism shown off in a gaudy display of ego, and yet ego is not what has driven Jeff to space. He is a deeply thoughtful man who has been shaped by his own experiences and upbringing." But then Shatner describes his own experience of seeing Earth from space: > "\[The Overview Effect\] can change the way we look at the planet but also other things like countries, ethnicities, religions; it can prompt an instant reevaluation of our shared harmony and a shift in focus to all the wonderful things we have in common instead of what makes us different. It reinforced tenfold my own view on the power of our beautiful, mysterious collective human entanglement, and eventually, it returned a feeling of hope to my heart. In this insignificance we share, we have one gift that other species perhaps do not: we are aware—not only of our insignificance, but the grandeur around us that makes us insignificant. That allows us perhaps a chance to rededicate ourselves to our planet, to each other, to life and love all around us. If we seize that chance." There's something remarkable about hearing the word "insignificance" from William Shatner. This is a man known for strident self-confidence. In this case, he doesn't use that term lightly, and does not mean it as a synonym for humility. He was struck by a palpable contrast: the smallness and colorfulness of Earth hanging alone in the endless, colorless void of space. And he's not alone. Frank Borman commanded Apollo 8, the mission that captured the famous Earthrise photograph. He regarded himself as a Cold Warrior: "I was there \[commanding the space program mission where his fellow astronaut Bill Anders snapped the Earthrise photo\] because it was a battle in the Cold War. I wanted to participate in this American adventure of beating the Soviets." But reflecting on that mission years later, Borman said: > "It will probably be remembered as much for Bill's picture as anything because it shows the fragility of our Earth, the beauty of the Earth, and just how so insignificantly small we are in the Universe. It was the beginning of the realization that we need to take care of it." Two unlikely witnesses to the same moral truth. Borman, the Cold Warrior. Shatner, Captain Kirk himself. Both were changed by the Overview Effect. Both observed the same truth. And Bezos—one of the most resourceful people in history—is trying to resolve that same moral need that all who experience it feel. But he's channeling it into building off-planet infrastructure when the Overview Effect itself points to a different answer. Clarke's Binary suggests a more sensible approach: get our house in order. That way, whether we're alone in the universe or not, we have nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to be "terrified" of, to use Clarke's word. Just a better way of living. There is room in the Circular Century for space exploration and economic growth. What will make it distinctive is finally, thoroughly managing what we have before we expand into what we don't. It's about demonstrating we're worthy of this planet—the best one in the solar system, as Bezos himself acknowledged—before we try to industrialize everywhere else. That's the evolution the Overview Effect should inspire. Not escape. Not expansion into the cosmos to avoid dealing with our mess. But the wisdom to close our loops, manage our resources, and build systems that honor the gift we've inherited. --- *The rest of this essay explores the business implications of cosmic perspective, how to work with escapist thinking in transformation projects, and why proving worthiness creates competitive advantage.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/11/futurama_interior-illustration-2.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Sparking Joy: The Secret Ingredient of the Circular Century URL: https://www.circudyne.com/sparking-joy-the-secret-ingredient-of-the-circular-century/ Last updated: 2025-12-19T16:15:15.000Z This is the fifth installment of [The Circudyne Odyssey](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudyne-odyssey/): an exploration of formative influences. Last week, we covered [Self-Disruption Theory](https://www.circudyne.com/beyond-organizational-charts-why-self-disruption-requires-vision-culture-and-values/). Next week: The Overview Effect. --- The right book at the right time can set the conditions for what you're able to see next. The serendipitous source that prepared me to receive the principles and possibilities of circularity was Marie Kondo's [*The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/240981/the-life-changing-magic-of-tidying-up-by-marie-kondo/?ref=circudyne.com). I don't remember why I picked it up—I had no particular organization problem to solve. But something about its presentation at the bookstore suggested it contained more than practical advice. That instinct proved correct. For Kondo, tidying contains elements of the sacred. Her method calls for self-knowledge rooted in Japanese animism. I was astonished when I reached this passage: > "Everything you own wants to be of use to you. Even if you throw it away or burn it, it will only leave behind the energy of wanting to be of service. Freed from its physical form, it will move about your world as energy, letting other things know that you are a special person, and come back to you as the thing that will be of most use to who you are now, the thing that will bring you the most happiness." Looking beyond its ancient cosmology, this idea strikes me as having moral consequence. It provides a path toward affording respect for all things, living or otherwise. One practical benefit of which is the possibility of righting our relationship with stuff — a relationship that's profoundly out of balance because humans are still not accustomed to the abundance provided by the industrial age. When I encountered the formal idea of circular economy shortly after reading her book, Kondo's perspective offered a lens for understanding it as a way of capturing this cosmology and turning it into a better way of living. Through that lens, I could see circularity taking the energy and matter of modern industrial capacity and rearranging it into something that better suits our reality—in terms of efficiency, yes, but also beauty and joy. It brings dignity to a situation that sorely needs it. It reconciles desire and need into something elegant—replacing the desperate avarice that surrounds (and tempts) us. Circularity offers a pathway for brands to profitably restore humanity's relationship with things. I don't think that thought would have occurred to me without first having encountered Marie Kondo's unique blend of self-help and ancient religious belief. Kondo’s insight gave me a compass — joy — as a guide for imagining the Circular Century. --- Kondo has a new book out, [*Letter from Japan*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803096/letter-from-japan-by-marie-kondo-with-marie-iida/?ref=circudyne.com). It's proven a treat for me, since the theme is her exploration of Japanese culture and experiences that informed her philosophy. I wanted to dedicate this *Circudyne Letter* to the subject of one of its chapters: *mottainai*. *Mottainai* is the Japanese concept expressing regret over waste and reverence for what things can still offer. This is the cultural foundation that makes performance economy business models emotionally sustainable. --- ## We've Built This Before In *Letter from Japan*, there's a description of a thriving circular economy that already happened: the "Edonomy." From 1603 to 1868, Edo (now Tokyo) became the world's largest city with over one million residents. With national isolation limiting trade, the city developed what historians call "Edonomy" — an efficient closed-loop system where all waste supported production and previously produced items were repaired and reused. Kondo describes "a vast number of refurbishing and recycling businesses." When something broke, specialized businesses repaired and reused it until it could no longer serve any purpose. The city operated on the principle of never producing waste that could not be repurposed. That's an embodiment of Walter Stahel's Performance Economy: service-based business models, repair ecosystems, design for longevity — except powered by constraint-driven *mottainai* rather than efficiency-driven optimization. By necessity, it worked. At massive scale. --- ## The Fork in the Road: Three Possible Futures **Edonomy worked because they had to make it work.** National isolation meant reverence for materials was more than philosophical luxury. It was economic necessity that became cultural virtue. As a historical example, Edonomy is an echo of a possible circular future. But it is not the only one. Managed scarcity and degrowth are neither wanted nor needed. Progress requires imagining how technological abundance and circular organizing principles will combine. I can see three possible pathways. ### Option 1: The Edonomy (Return to Constraint) Wabi-sabi aesthetics. Visible repair. Beauty in imperfection. Kintsugi gold seams. Cultural acceptance of limitations. It's elegant. It's proven. And it's probably not our future. Because it arose from constraint we don't have and wouldn't choose. We could recreate these conditions artificially — advocate for degrowth, celebrate scarcity (or vote for autarky). But that abandons the performance economy vision entirely. ### Option 2: Technocratic Circular Economy (Efficiency Without Emotion) This is where most corporate sustainability initiatives are heading. Optimize material flows. Implement take-back programs. Design for disassembly. Create reverse logistics networks. It's rational. It's measurable. And it's emotionally flat. Products designed for efficient recycling but not for love. Services optimized for resource recovery but not for delight. Repair programs that reduce waste but feel like hassle. This is circular economy as obligation. As compliance. You get all the business model logic without any of the cultural infrastructure that makes it sustainable. It's [Lean 2.0](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/) techniques without the philosophical foundation. Companies that tried to copy Toyota's tools without understanding the cultural foundation (e.g., reverence for mastery) found Lean a hard slog indeed. ### Option 3: The Joyful Synthesis (Something We Haven't Imagined Yet) A circular economy powered by abundance and imagination rather than constraint and necessity. Where reverence for materials comes from joy in their excellence rather than fear of their scarcity. Where circular transformation itself is more beautiful than linear extraction ever was. Not make-do elegance. Not emotionless efficiency. **Unprecedented delight.** We don't know exactly what this looks like yet. Because we haven't built it yet. And discovering how to make it means using *joy* as our compass. --- ## Why Joy Isn't Optional Submitted for your consideration: **The more durable the product, the greater the opportunity cost of joylessness.** In a linear economy with planned obsolescence, if a product is boring, that's annoying but temporary. You'll replace it soon anyway. But in a circular economy with products designed for decades of use? If you create something durable but joyless, you've trapped your customers in a long-term relationship with something they don't love. 💡 ****The more durable the product, the greater the opportunity cost of joylessness.** Kondo asks what she considers most *mottainai* — most wasteful. Not "things that get thrown away." But: > "Things that never spark joy, things that make us feel ambivalent or uneasy, lying dormant in our homes forever. Things that are never used because we fear they will change or break." The expensive dress saved for a special occasion that never comes. The pristine appliance too nice to risk breaking. The guilt-purchased sustainable product you don't actually enjoy using. Resource extraction that never even delivered value. **If brands don't build joy into their circular solutions, who will?** Customers cannot be expected to develop emotional attachment to products designed only for efficiency. You can't build a culture of maintenance around things people tolerate rather than love. This is the test: Would someone be genuinely sad if this product stopped working after ten years? Would they invest their own time and money to repair it? If the answer is no, you haven't built a circular product. You've built a durable burden. --- ## Joy as the Discovery Method Kondo gave us a practical method for discovering what right relationship with materials feels like, without requiring constraint to force it. When she asks *"does this spark joy?"* she's asking you to reconnect with the animist understanding that things want to be of use to you — that there's dignity in that relationship when it works, and sadness when it doesn't. Her reflection on *kintsugi* reveals the principle: > "Restoring something to its original form is not the point of kintsugi. It is the pursuit of beauty in the process of repairing that truly matters." Kintsugi isn't about returning to what was. It's about discovering beauty in transformation itself. The gold seams don’t conceal the break — they consecrate it. **That's the template for the Circular Century.** What's the equivalent for circular economy? - Products that become more valuable through maintenance and personalization - Service models that create deeper relationships than ownership - Repair experiences that feel like collaborative craft - Materials that age into beauty rather than deteriorate - Business models where longevity creates delight, not deprivation We don't know exactly what this looks like yet. And discovering it requires pursuing beauty in the transformation process itself. Using joy as the compass that points toward delight from experiencing objects in a circular way. --- ## The Entry Problem Then Kondo describes what happens when you develop this skill: > "You shift into a life in which you take care of the things you have and create less waste. Things no longer overwhelm you because you are in better control of what you bring into your life." Notice the sequence: Identify what you love → Take care of it → Control what enters. That's the demand signal performance economy requires. And it reveals something most circular economy discourse has missed: **we've been focused on the wrong end of the cycle.** We obsess over waste management, recycling rates, end-of-life solutions. But Kondo asks: > "Why are we bringing things in that we won't truly value?" 🔒 **What if circularity’s challenge isn’t how things end—but how they begin? Inside: the design logic of entry selectivity.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/11/futurama_interior-illustration-1.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Beyond Organizational Charts: Why Self-Disruption Requires Vision, Culture, and Values URL: https://www.circudyne.com/beyond-organizational-charts-why-self-disruption-requires-vision-culture-and-values/ Last updated: 2025-10-27T12:03:26.000Z In this latest stop on our [*Circudyne Odyssey*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudyne-odyssey/), we complete the mini-trilogy of theories from [Clayton Christensen](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/clayton-christensen/): [Jobs To Be Done](https://www.circudyne.com/from-milkshakes-to-meaning/), [Modularity](https://www.circudyne.com/modularity-theory-the-compass-for-circular-innovation-strategy/), and now, Self-Disruption. Looking around, firms have lost their understanding about this important capability. If true, that explains the slow adoption for circular transformation, and disappointing progress towards fundamental improvements in general welfare. - [Beyond Organizational Charts: Why Self-Disruption Requires Vision, Culture, and Values](#beyond-organizational-charts-why-self-disruption-requires-vision-culture-and-values) - [What Christensen Actually Said](#what-christensen-actually-said) - [What Practitioners Typically Miss](#what-practitioners-typically-miss) - [Ford Model e: A Valuable Lesson in Progress](#ford-model-e-a-valuable-lesson-in-progress) - [Making Self-Disruption Theory Actionable](#making-self-disruption-theory-actionable) - [Why This Matters for Circular Economy](#why-this-matters-for-circular-economy) - [The Implementation Framework](#the-implementation-framework) - [Navigating Forward](#navigating-forward) - [The Ultimate Question](#the-ultimate-question) - [Practitioner Insights: The Self-Disruption Assessment](#practitioner-insights-the-self-disruption-assessment) - [Horizons: Strategic Architecture](#horizons-strategic-architecture) - [Catalysts: Technology & Timing](#catalysts-technology-timing) - [Living Futures: Vision That Mobilizes](#living-futures-vision-that-mobilizes) - [Connection: Cultural Resonance](#connection-cultural-resonance) - [Craft: Values Alignment](#craft-values-alignment) - [Integration Assessment: Across All Domains](#integration-assessment-across-all-domains) Clayton Christensen's disruption theory achieved remarkable cultural penetration. Every executive fears "being disrupted." Every startup pitches investors on "disrupting" incumbents. Business schools teach disruption as an inevitable force of creative destruction. Yet somehow, disruption theory's antidote—**self-disruption theory**—remains obscure. Ask executives about disruption and they'll describe external threats. Ask about self-disruption and you get blank stares or vague references to "innovation labs." The result: a divided world split between incumbents doing sustaining innovation and startups attempting disruptive innovation. Rarely do incumbents disrupt themselves. Rarely do startups achieve the scale incumbents command. This matters profoundly for circular economy transformation. Circular solutions depend on scale at least as much as their linear counterparts. Repair networks, take-back logistics, material processing infrastructure, consumer education—all require resources and reach that startups struggle to muster. Meanwhile, incumbents view circular business models as threats to existing revenue streams rather than opportunities for self-renewal. We're left with insufficient circular innovation at scale precisely when the world needs it most. Not because self-disruption theory doesn't work, but because practitioners don't implement what the theory actually requires. ## What Christensen Actually Said Christensen's self-disruption framework is about more than organizational structure. It's about creating space where **different logic can flourish**. The incumbent's dilemma is structural. Its core business excels at *sustaining* innovation: optimizing products for demanding customers; achieving high margins; minimizing risk. These same strengths become liabilities when disruptive opportunities emerge. Disruptive innovations start with lower margins, uncertain markets, and different performance dimensions. The incumbent’s **values** reject them (margins too low), its **processes** dismiss them (too risky), its **resources** flow elsewhere (sustaining innovations deliver quarterly results). Christensen's solution requires separation across all three: - **Resources**: Dedicated teams, budgets, facilities - **Processes**: New decision-making cycles, development approaches, metrics - **Values**: Different success criteria, risk tolerance, time horizons That last element—values—proves hardest to separate. It's also most critical. Without truly different values, autonomous units get pulled back into the parent's logic the moment results disappoint. ## What Practitioners Typically Miss Most organizations implementing self-disruption focus heavily on resources and processes: - Create new business unit ✅ - Dedicate budget and team ✅ - Establish new location ✅ - Announce autonomy ✅ Then they keep the unit accountable to the parent company's values: - Expected quarterly profitability ❌ - High margin requirements ❌ - Risk aversion dominant ❌ - Traditional ROI timelines ❌ The organizational chart changes. The decision-making logic doesn't. This incomplete implementation explains why self-disruption attempts so often fail—not because the theory is flawed, but because practitioners implement only the visible, structural elements while neglecting the values, vision, and culture Christensen identified as essential. ## Ford Model e: A Valuable Lesson in Progress Ford Motor Company's electric vehicle transformation offers valuable insight into what complete self-disruption implementation requires. Not as a cautionary tale of failure, but as an honest look at the challenges incumbents face when attempting what Christensen prescribed. In 2022, CEO Jim Farley announced bold restructuring: splitting the 119-year-old automaker into Ford Blue (internal combustion engines) and Ford Model e (electric vehicles). The move demonstrated serious commitment to self-disruption. **What Ford Implemented Well:** **Structural Separation**: Distinct business unit with separate financial reporting and stated operational autonomy. **Process Innovation**: Revolutionary "assembly tree" replacing traditional moving lines. Twenty percent fewer parts, forty percent fewer workstations, fifteen percent faster assembly. Genuine manufacturing paradigm shift. **Resource Allocation**: Universal EV platform developed by "tiny skunkworks team three time zones away from Detroit." New Southern California design hub creating geographic and cultural distance from ICE legacy. **Technology Integration**: Software-defined vehicles, over-the-air updates, digital services—capabilities the sustaining business struggled to adopt. These are significant achievements. Ford took self-disruption seriously, investing billions in organizational architecture that followed Christensen's structural prescriptions. **The Challenge:** Despite strong structural separation, Model e faced mounting losses: $4.7 billion in 2023, $5.1 billion in 2024, with similar projections for 2025\. By mid-2025, Ford shifted resources from Model e toward Ford Pro (the profitable commercial division) and delayed next-generation EVs from 2026 to 2028. Ford’s dilemma results from the predictable tension Christensen described when disruptive units remain accountable to sustaining business values. The question Ford faces: can they maintain the values separation required for disruptive innovation to mature, or will quarterly pressure force premature reabsorption into the parent logic? ## Making Self-Disruption Theory Actionable Ford's experience illuminates exactly what Christensen's theory requires but practitioners struggle to operationalize: values separation, vision development, and cultural connection. These elements seem "soft" compared to organizational charts, yet they're what determines whether transformation survives its difficult middle years. This is where Circudynamics complements self-disruption theory. The five domains make Christensen's complete framework concrete and actionable: [**Horizons**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horizons/): The organizational architecture Christensen prescribed - Separate unit with distinct strategic direction - Ford: ✅ Implemented strong foundation [**Catalysts**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/catalysts/): The innovation enabling new performance dimensions - New platforms, processes, capabilities - Ford: ✅ Revolutionary manufacturing approach [**Living Futures**:](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/living-futures/) The compelling vision mobilizing stakeholders through transformation - ❌ Answers "why endure losses?" with purpose beyond quarterly profit - Difficult to maintain under market pressure [**Connection**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/connection/): Resonance with human needs creating stakeholder resilience - ❌ Connects transformation to employee aspiration, investor patience, customer enthusiasm - Challenged when financial results disappoint [**Craft**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/craft/): Success metrics aligned with transformation goals, not sustaining business - ❌ Enterprise-wide integration of “values" in Christensen's RPV, operationalized through explicit decision criteria - Hardest to maintain when parent company faces quarterly pressure Christensen told us what to do. Circudynamics shows us how to operationalize it—especially the elements practitioners most often neglect. ## Why This Matters for Circular Economy The two-speed world of sustaining incumbents and disruptive startups creates a scale problem for circular transformation: **Performance Economy Models** require infrastructure only incumbents can build, but business model logic only disruptive units can sustain. Without self-disruption capability, we get pilot programs that never scale. **Circular Ateliers** need brand trust and distribution reach incumbents possess, but craft-centered values sustaining businesses struggle to adopt. Without values separation, beautiful concepts remain niche experiments. **Service-Based Business Models** demand customer relationships incumbents already have, but success metrics (longevity over volume) that contradict quarterly reporting geared towards linear models (initial sales). Without different values, initiatives get killed for "underperformance." Circular solutions need what self-disruption enables: incumbent resources and reach combined with disruptive business model logic. Startups can't achieve necessary scale. Incumbents won't adopt necessary values. Self-disruption bridges this gap—but only when completely implemented. ## The Implementation Framework Self-disruption requires completing all elements Christensen identified. The five domains operationalize his framework: 1. **Start with Values (Craft)** Define explicit success criteria differing from the sustaining business before creating organizational structure. Example: "Success = market share growth and cost structure improvement, not quarterly profitability, for first 5 years." 2. **Develop Compelling Vision (Living Futures)** Create mobilizing narrative answering "why this transformation serves human welfare beyond quarterly results." Not corporate-speak or hedged bets, but genuine purpose. 3. **Build Cultural Connection (Connection)** Connect transformation to employee aspiration, investor patience, customer needs, community welfare. Not through messaging, but through understanding how change serves people. 4. **Implement Architecture (Horizons)** Create organizational separation protecting different values, enabling different processes, allocating dedicated resources. 5. **Enable Technology Innovation (Catalysts)** Develop new capabilities, platforms, processes the sustaining business couldn't create. Most organizations start with #4 and #5, then wonder why transformation collapses under pressure. Christensen's theory requires all five. Circudynamics makes them operational. ## Navigating Forward The world learned disruption theory well—perhaps too well. Every incumbent fears disruption. Few attempt self-disruption. The result: insufficient radical innovation at scale precisely when circular transformation demands it. Circudynamics makes these elusive elements tangible, translating Christensen’s insight into an implementable architecture. His theory explicitly includes values separation, vision development, and cultural connection essential for transformation success. Practitioners consistently miss these elements, focusing on organizational charts while neglecting what makes transformation sustainable through difficult middle years. Not because these elements are unimportant, but because they're harder to operationalize than structure. Circudynamics complements self-disruption theory by making these critical elements concrete and actionable. The five domains operationalize what Christensen identified as essential but practitioners struggle to implement. For circular economy transformation, this recognition is urgent. Circular solutions need scale that only incumbents command, combined with business model innovation that only self-disruption enables. Neither startups disrupting from outside nor incumbents sustaining from within will deliver circular transformation at necessary pace. We need incumbents who can self-disrupt—implementing everything Christensen's theory requires, including the values, vision, and culture that incomplete implementations neglect. That capability, more than any specific circular solution, determines whether we achieve circular economy transformation at scale. ## The Ultimate Question **Are you doing self-disruption, or just reorganization?** Self-disruption requires different values, compelling vision, cultural connection, structural separation, and process innovation—all five, working together, with genuine separation from the parent's logic. Reorganization looks like self-disruption but lacks the complete implementation. It gets you organizational charts and press releases, but not transformation resilience. Which one are you actually doing? --- 💬 Discuss this post: mention **@christian@circudyne.com** on Mastodon or your favorite fediverse app. [Identity verification](https://www.circudyne.com/) *The rest of this essay provides domain-specific catalytic questions for assessing your self-disruption implementation, including the 'quarterly conflict test,' the 'midnight doubt test,' and the 'new CEO test' for evaluating whether your transformation can survive its difficult middle years.* *Circudyne Dynamo members get full access to practitioner insights, frameworks, and transformation tools.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/10/futurama_interior-illustration-1-3.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Modularity Theory: The Compass for Circular Innovation Strategy URL: https://www.circudyne.com/modularity-theory-the-compass-for-circular-innovation-strategy/ Last updated: 2025-10-20T12:03:01.000Z Bundling and unbundling—business history's endless cycle. Modularity theory explains why circular products fail when they're caught halfway between. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### From Milkshakes To Meaning URL: https://www.circudyne.com/from-milkshakes-to-meaning/ Last updated: 2025-10-13T12:03:36.000Z ## *Jobs To Be Done* Is the Cipher of the Circular Century This is the second *Letter* in the [**Circudyne Odyssey**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudyne-odyssey/) series, in which we explore significant achievements in strategy and philosophy as they pertain to circular transformation. [Last week’s](https://www.circudyne.com/what-would-have-to-be-true/) was about [Roger Martin](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/roger-martin/)’s incisive provocation “[What Would Have To Be True?](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/wwhtbt/)” [“What Would Have To Be True?”You cannot A|B test your way to system change. Why circular transformation requires asking ‘What Would Have to Be True?’ instead of ‘How Might We?’![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-17.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250401c-1.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/what-would-have-to-be-true/) Today we look at one of the signature ideas from the late, great Clayton Christensen: Jobs To Be Done ([JTBD](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/jtbd/)). Our coverage comes in two parts. First, how can JTBD resolve existing contradictions in implementing circularity? And later, how can JTBD inform a frontier understanding of serving consumers in the Circular Century? It gets a little wild. --- - [From Milkshakes To Meaning](#from-milkshakes-to-meaning) - [Jobs To Be Done Is the Cipher of the Circular Century](#jobs-to-be-done-is-the-cipher-of-the-circular-century) - [I. JTBD Resolves Existing Contradictions](#i-jtbd-resolves-existing-contradictions) - [The Parable of the Commuter Milkshake](#the-parable-of-the-commuter-milkshake) - [The Say–Do Gap](#the-saydo-gap) - [II. JTBD as a Predictor of Circular Service Concepts](#ii-jtbd-as-a-predictor-of-circular-service-concepts) - [From Consumption to Continuity](#from-consumption-to-continuity) - [The Job of the Enterprise](#the-job-of-the-enterprise) - [The Data Delusion](#the-data-delusion) - [Rehiring the World](#rehiring-the-world) - [Cultural and Emotional Jobs](#cultural-and-emotional-jobs) - [The Future Job: Stewardship](#the-future-job-stewardship) - [The Cipher Code](#the-cipher-code) - [Closing Reflection](#closing-reflection) - [Catalytic Questions for Practitioners](#catalytic-questions-for-practitioners) --- ## I. JTBD Resolves Existing Contradictions ### The Parable of the Commuter Milkshake McDonald’s wanted to sell more milkshakes, so researchers asked customers what kind they preferred. Sweeter? Thicker? More chocolate? None of the answers explained buying behavior. Clay Christensen’s team discovered that many buyers were morning commuters who “hired” a milkshake to make a long, dull drive tolerable. The milkshake was as much a companion as it was a beverage. That insight led to the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework. The big idea? People don’t *buy* products; they *hire* them to make progress in their lives. That makes JTBD perfectly compatible with circular principles. One of the pillars of circularity is Walter Stahel’s Performance Economy—the idea that value is realized *in use*, not *from ownership*. Stahel reframes business success around maintaining performance rather than maximizing production, rewarding firms for durability, repair, and service. Christensen and Stahel present two beneficial alternatives to conventional ideas of ownership. Christensen’s Jobs To Be Done explains *why* people “hire” products—to make progress in their lives, and Stahel shows the *what for*—performance. Together, they constitute the demand-side motive and the mechanism of a circular economy: earning by sustaining outcomes, not by exhausting inputs. --- ### The Say-Do Gap Sustainability professionals lament a mystery like the one JTBD solved for McDonald’s: consumers say they want “sustainable” products, but their revealed preferences tell another story. The “say-do gap” is less hypocrisy than mismatch: sustainable options rarely fulfill the full spectrum of emotional and functional *jobs to be done*. Consumers are not in a position to execute on their preference for at-scale, full-spectrum circular solutions, because those solutions do not yet exist. When brands present consumers with a choice between the products they know, and “sustainable” versions that compromise must-haves like price, quality, and convenience, they are forced to answer in a binary way. The context of a survey allows them to express their preference for sustainable over non-sustainable; the context of the market does not. The framing of the test obscures the truth—that they are waiting for something else. JTBD resolves this. It considers the preferences of the consumers by meeting them where they are, not forcing them into categories and false choices. Circular innovators cannot delegate their jobs to their customers, who in turn are frustrated waiting for something better. --- ## II. JTBD as a Predictor of Circular Service Concepts ### From Consumption to Continuity In a linear economy, success means being chosen. In a circular one, it means being kept. A well-designed object doesn’t just perform a task once; it earns a career. Repair, upgrade, reuse—each is a re-hire. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to add value. This is where the milkshake parable evolves into a societal metaphor: the true job of the circular economy is not to slow consumption, but to sustain relationship. We stop optimizing the sale and start architecting for ongoing relevance. ### The Job of the Enterprise Circudynamics expands the JTBD lens beyond products to enterprises themselves. What job does a company perform for society, ecosystems, and future generations? Each of the five circular archetypes represents a distinct kind of work the enterprise is hired by the world to do: 1\. Circular Design → Designing for future employability 2\. Resource Recovery → Reanimating material value 3\. Product Life Extension → Maintaining attachment and trust 4\. Product-as-a-Service → Replacing ownership with relationship 5\. Enabling Solutions → Coordinating the system itself Circular transformation, therefore, is not a materials strategy—[it’s a redefinition of organizational purpose](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/craft/). [The Element of Integration: Crafting Circular AdvantageIn which we use Apple as a lens to understand the power of treating brand, strategy, and organization as a single unit. Circular business models require this same unified approach to succeed—tomorrow’s integrated firms will represent an evolutionary step beyond today’s models.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-18.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/apple-park-a-circular-building-for-a-functional-organization-1.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-of-integration/) ### The Data Delusion Christensen warned that firms segment by demographics instead of motives. We repeat the mistake when we measure carbon instead of care. Data describes what happened, not why. Roger Martin reminds us: there is no data from the future. To sense emerging jobs, we must imagine them. Foresight, not hindsight, is the real analytic edge. Circular strategists, then, are less like accountants than anthropologists of possibility, reading the signal 0f unspoken need from the noise of the present. ### Rehiring the World The industrial era hired the economy to do one job: grow through throughput. But that season is ending. It won’t continue because it can’t. Degrowth will not replace it. The Circular Century recruits civilization for a new task: to enable prosperity without waste. Call it moral reform, or managerial redesign: a global restructuring of what “progress” means and how it’s delivered. Circular transformation is civilization’s midlife career switch. We are rewriting the job description of the world. ### Cultural and Emotional Jobs People hire brands to perform emotional labor. They hire stories to organize hope. Brands succeed when they fill the mythology gap between how people live and how they wish to live. They must offer not asceticism but aspiration— not less pleasure, but better pleasure. As Douglas Holt might say: circularity becomes iconic when it makes stewardship feel like status. [Building Cultural Momentum: The Connection DomainCultural mythology shapes what people want more than rational analysis. We adopt behaviors and identities by watching others embody them successfully. Shared experiences accelerate the cultural momentum that makes circularity feel inevitable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-19.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250306-2.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/building-cultural-momentum/) ### The Future Job: Stewardship At its deepest level, JTBD reveals that humanity’s enduring job isn’t production—it’s care. Circular systems exist to make care economically viable. The strategist’s work is to build architectures where stewardship scales—where continuity becomes the competitive advantage. ## The Cipher Code The genius of Christensen’s insight is that it turns observation into code. JTBD is the cipher that translates behavior into intention. For the Circular Century, JTBD foretells why people buy, and why societies build, maintain, and renew. The milkshake’s secret was never, as many thought, sweetness—it was companionship. Circularity’s secret is not, as many think, compliance—it will be continuity. ## Closing Reflection The Circular Century will be remembered less for the technologies it inspires us to invent than for the questions it asks of us. JTBD provides the root code for that purpose. Christensen taught us that behind every purchase is a purpose. Circular strategy extends that revelation: behind every system is a soul. An intent to serve. The milkshake parable was a customer insight exercise that yielded a poignant truth about human nature: we’re lonely on our commutes. JTBD applied to the circular transformation will yield many more insights like that. It will be an awakening. --- 💬 Discuss this post: mention **@christian@circudyne.com** on Mastodon or your favorite fediverse app. [Identity verification](https://www.circudyne.com/) ## Catalytic Questions for Practitioners (content below the paywall) To translate these ideas into practice, each Circudyne archetype poses its own catalytic question—a prompt in the What Would Have To Be True format to unlock circular advantage. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/10/futurama_interior-illustration-2.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### "What Would Have To Be True?" URL: https://www.circudyne.com/what-would-have-to-be-true/ Last updated: 2025-10-06T12:03:17.000Z ## The Question Circular Economy Needs A new series begins with this issue of the *Letter*. The theme of this new season is: *A Circudyne Odyssey*. For the next dozen issues we’ll cover formative ideas, concepts, and strategies that inform and inspire our approach to circular transformation. It will come as little surprise where our journey begins: what Roger Martin refers to as [*the most valuable question in strategy*](https://rogermartin.medium.com/what-would-have-to-be-true-83dac5bd2189?ref=circudyne.com): “**what would have to be true?**” This question is the most common citation in the feedback I’ve provided to dozens of professionals coming through the Circular Economy Masterclass. --- ### Situation Innovation requires catalytic thinking. But there are different approaches to structuring provocative starting points. Design thinking’s provocation is “How Might We?” (HMW). It is compatible with its cousin, the lean startup (not to be confused with Lean as we have analyzed it previously). Both emphasize product-market fit and rapid iterative prototyping, and aim to deliver a minimum viable product (MVP). For these reasons, the combination of HMW and MVP is best suited for sustaining innovation. It implicitly asks the strategist to start where they are, rather than where they want to be. A different approach is required for disruptive innovation. And circular transformation is a disruptive process. As Lloyd George said, “the most dangerous thing is to cross a chasm in two leaps.” One cannot A|B test one’s way to system change. Roger Martin’s solution is to approach the problem from the other side: “what would have to be true?” WWHTBT? ### Complication HMW asks "how can we solve this?" before asking "what conditions would make this solvable?" This works when you're designing within stable systems. It fails when you're trying to transform the system itself. Example reframing: - **HMW:** "How might we make electronics collection more convenient?" - **WWHTBT:** "What would have to be true for electronics collection to be as natural and profitable as today's best-in-class electronics retail?" The second question surfaces infrastructure requirements, economic models, and behavior change architecture that the first misses. ### Resolution WWHTBT offers three strategic benefits that make it essential for circular transformation: **1\. Decomposes logic from data** Teams almost always agree on logic (what would need to be true), but fight about data (what is true right now). By separating these, WWHTBT enables "rigorous thinking together before any data is collected." In circular transformation, this is critical because we are building futures that don't exist yet. WWHTBT lets you build consensus on required conditions, then work together to create them—rather than endlessly debating whether circular models "will work." **2\. Focuses on creating futures, not analyzing presents** As Martin writes: "'What is true?' focuses entirely on the here and now... there is no data about the future—yet." Linear business models optimize for current realities, accepting existing constraints as immutable facts. WWHTBT asks: *What conditions would need to exist for circular models to win?* This optimizes potential outcomes rather than compromising with existing constraints. **3\. Provides ongoing evaluation** Martin's daily practice: "When you arrive at your desk every morning, pull out the WWHTBT for your strategy and ask: Is our WWHTBT still true?" This creates a rhythm for evaluating whether your enabling conditions are materializing or whether the world has evolved in ways that require strategy revision. ### Methodological Evolution: Beyond "How Might We?" The difference becomes clear in practice. Design thinking's "How Might We?" generates solutions to stated problems—valuable for product innovation. Circular transformation additionally requires worldbuilding: designing system architecture before specifying point solutions. The "What Would Have To Be True?" provocation: - Forces articulation of **enabling conditions**, not just desired outcomes - Reveals **dependencies and sequencing** that "How Might We?" can obscure - Creates **shared understanding of required architecture** before discussing implementations - Generates **deeper commitment through co-discovery** rather than receiving recommendations Opening with WWHTBT instead of HMW produces fewer but more systematic concepts—focusing energy on systems architecture rather than operational features. ### WWHTBT Across Circudynamics Domains Martin's framework enables the trans-disciplinary, trans-temporal coordination that circular transformation requires. #### Horizons: Future-Forward Optimization WWHTBT takes a **future-forward perspective** by design. Instead of "Given current infrastructure and consumer behavior, how might we make circular products 10% more convenient?" you ask "What would have to be true for circular products to be the obvious, default choice?" The first question accepts defeat before starting. The second designs victory conditions. #### Living Futures: Consensus on Possibilities WWHTBT **facilitates consensus on new worlds** because teams can agree on logic even when they disagree about data. When diverse experts—materials scientists, business strategists, behavioral economists, policymakers—imagine circular futures, they don't need consensus on current market data. They need consensus on what conditions would make the future work. This provides its own reconciliation process for worldbuilding: **participants can agree on logic more easily than they can on contested facts**. #### Catalysts: Technology Pulled by Purpose WWHTBT positions technology correctly within the Strategy Choice Cascade: as an enabler **pulled by winning aspiration**, not a driver pushing itself forward. Technology sits at the capabilities level—its purpose pulled up the cascade by strategic choices. This prevents the failure mode: "We have blockchain/AI/IoT... let's find a circular application." WWHTBT forces the opposite: "For this circular future to exist, what technological capabilities would have to be true?" #### Connection: Decoupling Preferences from Solutions WWHTBT **decouples consumer preferences from existing solutions**, getting to the qualitative heart of what people value rather than forcing choices between existing Options A and B. (In other words, it identifies the **job to be done**, which is a subject for later.) Traditional research asks: "Would you prefer this circular product or this linear product?" This locks in current solution architectures. WWHTBT asks: "What would have to be true for people to naturally choose circular options?" This surfaces underlying values like convenience, quality, status, trust, and habit that shape behavior. #### Craft: Trans-Disciplinary Consensus WWHTBT **facilitates trans-disciplinary consensus by relying on the logic of victory rather than the validity of disputed facts**. Circular transformation requires coordination across disciplines that rarely agree: engineers and marketers, CFOs and sustainability officers, operations and innovation. Each brings different "facts" about what's possible. But teams can agree on logic even when they fight about data. "What would have to be true for this circular model to win?" builds consensus on required conditions, then determines whether those conditions can be created. This is the **logic of victory**: focus on what must be true for success, not what is true about current constraints. The **temporal architecture** is equally critical. WWHTBT inherently surfaces what must happen first, revealing sequencing and dependencies—the temporal architecture that circular transformation requires but linear planning obscures. ### The Implementation Challenge Martin's challenge: "You have been trained your entire life to ask 'what is true?' Try instead to force yourself first to ask: WWHTBT?" This is wise counsel for circular economy innovators. You cannot fact-check futures that don't exist yet. What you *can* do is design the conditions that make them possible. *Below the paywall: Ready-to-use WWHTBT prompts across all five Strategy Choice Cascade levels, plus practitioner notes on building logic consensus, identifying temporal dependencies, and generating team commitment through co-discovery rather than recommendations.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/10/futurama_interior-illustration-1-2.jpeg) --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Introduction to Circudyne URL: https://www.circudyne.com/introduction-to-circudyne/ Last updated: 2025-12-28T22:08:54.000Z ## Summer 2025 series conclusion When I started the *Circudyne Letter*, the question arose of how to organize it thematically. That’s one of the challenges of examining circular transformation. It’s a big subject. How does one break it down into bite-size bits? The calendar conveniently breaks 52 weeks into four 13-week seasons, providing time for 12 primary letters plus a summary for each series. As this is the thirteenth letter, we’re wrapping up the first quarterly series. The theme of this one was presenting core themes of the practice: *Introduction to Circudyne*. The objective of our practice is to contribute to the adoption of circularity by brands, for everyone’s sake. That’s why this series was structured as it was: - [Circularity as transformation objective](#circularity-as-transformation-objective) - [Circudynamics: a transformation architecture](#circudynamics-a-transformation-architecture) - [Horizons: an alternative strategic perspective](#horizons-an-alternative-strategic-perspective) - [Living Futures: dwelling on a street corner of the future, today](#living-futures-dwelling-on-a-street-corner-of-the-future-today) - [Catalysts: technology enablers](#catalysts-technology-enablers) - [Connection: group dynamics of change](#connection-group-dynamics-of-change) - [Craft: the integrated enterprise](#craft-the-integrated-enterprise) - [A peek into our circular future](#a-peek-into-our-circular-future) - [Appreciating abundance](#appreciating-abundance) - [Consumption in a circular world](#consumption-in-a-circular-world) - [The beauty of circular solutions](#the-beauty-of-circular-solutions) - [Infrastructure for a circular world](#infrastructure-for-a-circular-world) - [We’ve done this before (we’ll do it again)](#weve-done-this-before-well-do-it-again) - [Parting thought](#parting-thought) 🔜 Next week marks the beginning of our next series: [**A Circudyne Odyssey*](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/circudyne-odyssey/) — a voyage through the ideas of strategists, philosophers, and other thinkers that continue to shape our mission. Onto our summary: ## Circularity as transformation objective In *Circularity is Lean 2.0*, we argued that circular transformation resembles the fundamentals of Lean, and should be understood (and packaged) as its successor. Like Lean, circularity can be expected to offer systematic competitive advantage for its pioneers. [Circularity is Lean 2.0: Business Case for TransformationCircular transformation follows Toyota’s Lean playbook: systematic waste elimination creates sustained competitive advantage beyond operational gains.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-4.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250302-key-art.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/) ## Circudynamics: a transformation architecture In *The Art and Science of Circular Transformation*, we introduced Circudynamics, an architecture for effective change. [The Art and Science of Circular TransformationIntroducing Circudynamics: systematic integration of strategy, worldbuilding, technology, culture & brand for circular transformation advantage.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-5.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/circudynamics.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-and-science-of-circular-transformation/) ### Horizons: an alternative strategic perspective In *Strategic Reverse Engineering*, we acknowledged that the key difference from Lean was that there was no circular Toyota to copy, and introduced a strategic affordance to compensate. [Strategic Reverse Engineering for Circular TransformationCircular transformation has no exemplar to copy. Success requires imaginative courage to envision new realities and reverse-engineer pathways to them.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-6.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/202050304-horizons.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/strategic-reverse-engineering/) ### Living Futures: dwelling on a street corner of the future, today In *The Worldbuilding Advantage*, we complemented that strategic affordance with a better way to navigate undiscovered country like our circular future. [Worldbuilding for Circular Transformation | CircudynamicsWorldbuilding creates experiential prototypes of circular futures, releasing emotional energy that powers transformation beyond logic.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-8.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/street-corner-in-a-circular-world.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/the-worldbuilding-advantage/) ### Catalysts: technology enablers In *When Technology Converges*, the subject turned to better understanding the role technology plays in the process of strategy, and how to tame it. [Technology Convergence Makes Circular Transformation ViableThe convergence is technological and strategic. Mature and emerging technologies make circular transformation strategically viable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-9.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250305-v3-1.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/when-technology-converges/) ### Connection: group dynamics of change In *Building Cultural Momentum*, we covered the tragically overlooked need for public understanding of circularity as lifestyle, and proposed a way to achieve it. [Building Cultural Momentum: The Connection DomainCultural mythology shapes what people want more than rational analysis. We adopt behaviors and identities by watching others embody them successfully. Shared experiences accelerate the cultural momentum that makes circularity feel inevitable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-10.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250306-1.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/building-cultural-momentum/) ### Craft: the integrated enterprise In *The Element of Integration*, the topic turned to why circular solutions call for an all-of-enterprise approach. Recalling my fondest brush with greatness, we used Apple as a lens for understanding the benefits of functional organization. [The Element of Integration: Crafting Circular AdvantageIn which we use Apple as a lens to understand the power of treating brand, strategy, and organization as a single unit. Circular business models require this same unified approach to succeed—tomorrow’s integrated firms will represent an evolutionary step beyond today’s models.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-11.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/apple-park-a-circular-building-for-a-functional-organization.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-of-integration/) ## A peek into our circular future Next followed a mini-series of four essays on lifestyles from a circular tomorrow. ### Appreciating abundance In *The Technology of Matter*, we explored post-scarcity economics and the conditions for sustainable abundance. [The Technology of MatterFinite materials can create infinite value when orchestrated as renewable technology rather than depleted as resource. The circular abundance paradox solved.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-12.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250308c-1-2.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/the-technology-of-matter/) ### Consumption in a circular world In *A Future To Look Forward To*, we accept the advice of David Foster Wallace and examine our objective reality, and compare it to the potential for something better to strive towards. [A Future To Look Forward ToThe linear economy traps us in novelty, obsolescence, and extraction. Circular systems offer liberation: more wealth, more beauty, more meaning.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-13.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250309-hero-1.jpg)](https://www.circudyne.com/a-future-to-look-forward-to/) ### The beauty of circular solutions In *Systemic Beauty: The How of Building Desire*, we further examine the idea of beauty in a post-scarcity context, and acknowledge the need for it to make circular solutions effective. [Systemic BeautyExplore how “Systemic Beauty” makes circular futures aspirational—where coherence, legibility, and cool replace wasteful novelty.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-14.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250311-b-1.jpg)](https://www.circudyne.com/systemic-beauty-the-how-of-building-desire/) ### Infrastructure for a circular world In *Building Circular Ecosystems*, we examined the nature of infrastructure aggregators, and considered the intergenerational symbiosis between them and future innovators, drawing natural comparisons to circular transformation. [Building Circular Ecosystems: Infrastructure for the FutureEvery leap grows from the foundations others have laid. Breakthroughs flourish when vision meets the rails of yesterday’s visionaries. Today, the circular economy can move beyond pilots and projects to build the shared systems that unlock regenerative abundance for all.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-15.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250310b-1.jpg)](https://www.circudyne.com/building-circular-ecosystems/) ## We’ve done this before (we’ll do it again) In *The Road to a Circular Future Runs Through Brands*, we use the 1939 World’s Fair to understand how brands provide feedstock for cultural mythology. Properly inspired, the audience of 45 million people took the ingredients brands offered there and whipped up a dream and turned it into a reality in less than a generation. The consequence: iconic brands, better living, and a dominant global culture. [Brands once built the American Dream. Now they must build the Circular Century.From the 1939 World’s Fair to the Circular Century, brands must stage the future and make circularity our shared dream.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-16.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/a-circular-worlds-fair-of-tomorrow-in-pixels-b-1.jpeg)](https://www.circudyne.com/the-road-to-a-circular-future-runs-through-brands/) ## Parting thought We hope that somewhere in the course of this series that our readers have found strength: to think broader, to look further, and summon the courage to act. 📬 **The Circudyne Letter* returns next week with an analysis of our favorite strategic provocation: ****what would have to be true?** ### The Road to a Circular Future Runs Through Brands URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-road-to-a-circular-future-runs-through-brands/ Last updated: 2025-09-22T12:03:11.000Z When this letter is published, NYC Climate Week will be underway. I’ve been asked to speak on one of Circudyne’s core themes: *The Road to the Circular Future Runs Through Brands*. In this essay, I’d like to preview that discussion and add a few details that were cut for time. --- - [The Road to a Circular Future Runs Through Brands](#the-road-to-a-circular-future-runs-through-brands) - [Our Moment](#our-moment) - [Circularity Needs a Myth](#circularity-needs-a-myth) - [The Lesson of 1939](#the-lesson-of-1939) - [Our Vacuum Today](#our-vacuum-today) - [Why Brands Matter Now](#why-brands-matter-now) - [Toward a Circular Century](#toward-a-circular-century) ## Our Moment We live in a time of extraordinary contradiction. On one hand, humanity faces concurrent and unprecedented crises: climate disruption, biodiversity collapse, resource depletion. On the other hand, our culture drifts as though nothing is wrong. We are not galvanizing to meet the moment. Part of the paralysis is the absence of a shared vision of what winning this moment should look like. There is no call to imagine our “broad, sunlit uplands.” We are not only distant from the future we desire; we are unsure what that future even is. This absence of collective mythology breeds cultural fatigue—ennui at best, nihilism at worst. History shows that brands—when they act with imagination, purpose, and narrative—can help stitch together a shared vision of a better society. In moments of discontinuity, they have built (and rebuilt) the myths that carry people forward. > The circular economy offers a better future. And the road to it runs through brands. --- ## Circularity Needs a Myth The circular economy is more than recycling or waste diversion. It is systemic redesign: shifting from “take-make-dispose” to regenerative models of reuse, repair, and renewal. It replaces extraction with value creation across the lifespan of products and systems. Circularity is sustainability as performance: products that endure, systems that renew, economies that flourish. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/09/VL170602_AT.png) [Recall Roger Martin’s Strategy Choice Cascade](https://www.circudyne.com/strategic-reverse-engineering/): technology and How-to-Win are only two elements of vibrant strategy. What is missing today, on a cultural level, is the Winning Aspiration—a collective story of what circular living *feels like*. Without it, circularity risks being understood as technical compliance, not as a cultural objective. And that is where myth comes in. As Douglas Holt has shown, brands become iconic when they bridge the gap between how people *feel they ought to live* and their *perception of how they do live*. When that gap widens, cultural mythology frays. Brands have a history of resetting mythological narratives. They do it by supplying a convincing vision: something people can see, touch, and believe in. [Building Cultural Momentum: The Connection DomainCultural mythology shapes what people want more than rational analysis. We adopt behaviors and identities by watching others embody them successfully. Shared experiences accelerate the cultural momentum that makes circularity feel inevitable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/icon/Circudyne-favicon-Original-blob_3-3.png)CircudyneChristian Rishel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/thumbnail/20250306.png)](https://www.circudyne.com/building-cultural-momentum/) --- ## The Lesson of 1939 For a historical parallel, look to 1939\. America was climbing out of the Great Depression. A war raged in Europe. Conditions were bleak: - Life expectancy was 63 years. - Infant mortality stood at 60 deaths per 1,000 live births. - GDP per capita was about $10,000 in today’s dollars. And yet, 45 million Americans—a solid third of the nation’s population of 131 million—streamed through the gates of the New York World’s Fair. They came not to dwell on hardship but to experience a *shared embrace* of a better future. The Fair’s exhibits showcased emerging technologies: - RCA and NBC broadcast television for the first time. - Carrier built the “Igloo of Tomorrow,” promising indoor climate control and comfort. - General Motors’ Futurama and Ford’s Road of Tomorrow envisioned highways, suburbs, and mobility. - GE and Westinghouse presented model homes, electric appliances, even Electro the robot. These brands gave Americans something tangible to build a dream on. And within a generation, Americans transformed their reality to match that dream: televisions in the living room, interstates crossing the continent, air conditioning in workplaces and homes, refrigerators and washing machines eliminating “household drudgery.” > The American Dream was not an abstraction. It was built from the ingredients brands placed on display in 1939. --- ## Our Vacuum Today Fast-forward to 2025\. Our technological capacity is greater than ever. Capabilities from emerging AI developments appear limitless. The ingredients for an aspirational, delightful circular future are lining up. Yet despite this progress, there is no unifying mythology: “how people like us will live in the circular world of tomorrow.” Instead, we encounter fragmented visions: collapse scenarios, incremental reforms, luxury sustainability for the privileged few. The gap between how people feel they ought to live and how they actually live grows wider. The result is not progress but drift. Without a mythology to animate it, circularity risks remaining a specialist’s concept rather than a society’s aspiration. And meanwhile, our collective mood slouches from ennui to nihilism. We deserve better. --- ## Why Brands Matter Now This is why it falls to brands to lead. - **Narrative builders.** Brands tell stories. They can describe what circular living looks and feels like, not just what it technically is. - **Experience makers.** Brands are where people physically touch the future. A product’s design or a service’s experience can prefigure circularity in daily life. - **System integrators.** Brands have the reach to re-engineer supply chains, build ecosystems, and close loops at scale. - **Legitimacy generators.** By visibly committing to circularity, brands normalize new practices and help anchor culture around them. When brands align imagination with execution, they become cultural mythmakers. And myths are what cultures bank their futures on. *The conclusion explores what brands must do to lead circular transformation: design for generative value rather than reduced harm, tell grounded stories that show how circular living feels, create new symbols for progress, and commit long-term to building cultural mythology. This section outlines the practical steps for brands ready to help society win the Circular Century.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/09/futurama_interior-illustration-1-2.jpeg) --- _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Systemic Beauty: The How of Building Desire URL: https://www.circudyne.com/systemic-beauty-the-how-of-building-desire/ Last updated: 2025-09-15T12:03:46.000Z In [A Future To Look Forward To](https://www.circudyne.com/a-future-to-look-forward-to/), we explored three experiential benefits of circular futures: Calm Permanence, Mainstreaming Couture, and Playfulness & Exploration. This week, I want to sharpen the lens: what makes certain systems—like LEGO, Apple, or EPCOT—so memorable, and how does that help us build desire for circular systems? --- This week I enjoyed an enlightening conversation with a leading practitioner of circularity. One of the topics that came up was LEGO, and the source of its ineffable appeal. What makes LEGO instantly recognizable, Apple's product lines iconic, or EPCOT's Future World unforgettable? We concluded that this kind of knowledge is an important thing for us to have. Since the shift to circularity is a step change, we are heading into a period of necessary mass innovation. The best way to ensure mass adoption of the new paradigm is to make it delightful. That, and because delightfulness is worth pursuing for its own sake. The CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation would seem to agree. [In a speech this summer](https://youtu.be/-MQTKwrDW1c?si=aYUY3n44Zk-VN1-y&ref=circudyne.com), she listed five bits of advice to companies pursuing circular initiatives. Number four on the list: “make it cool.” In other words, make it desirable. Never one to shirk a challenging task, in this Letter I tackle the subject of desire. Specifically, I aim to deconstruct the desirability of LEGO among others, and how that maps to charting successful circular transformation strategies. --- ### The LEGO Example Watch a seven-year-old building with LEGO. Their hands move with confidence, combining bricks from different sets, different years, different themes. A spaceship wheel becomes a car tire. A castle wall becomes a skyscraper facade. Nothing requires adaptation or force—everything just works. The instructions are not ancillary. [They are integral](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-of-integration/), teaching spatial reasoning and planning while reinforcing the brand’s promise. Soon, the child isn't following steps anymore. They've absorbed the logic. Any brick connects to any other brick. The system has taught itself through *play*. What began as assembly has become creation. This is *systemic beauty* in action. ## The Two Dimensions of Systemic Beauty Systemic beauty operates through two interconnected dimensions. Together, they form the DNA of desire. ### 1\. Compositional Logic: The Symphony of Parts Harmony emerges when elements reinforce rather than compete. LEGO achieved this by standardizing connections while liberating creativity. Every brick since 1958 connects to every other brick. A child’s creation from the 1970s integrates with a set released last month. Finite rules create infinite possibility. Most product strategies don’t work this way. Families are held together by styling, but underlying systems remain incompatible. Each purchase starts from zero. Compositional logic changes that. Standalone products are eclipsed by ecosystems where each element compounds the value of previous purchases. Customers who invest in coherent systems become more valuable to brands over time, not less. And vice versa. ### 2\. Instructional Design Elegance: Systems That Teach Themselves Instructional elegance is when systems teach themselves without explanation. LEGO instructions reveal their compositional logic through play. Apple does something like this by making complex technology feel seamless. The iPhone’s interface trains users through consistent hierarchies and responsive interactions. EPCOT’s original pavilions did the same at civilizational scale, turning complex topics like energy and agriculture into lived experiences. When systems teach themselves, adoption accelerates, support costs fall, and user competence deepens loyalty. Customers become confident, creative participants rather than passive buyers. ## When Dimensions Combine: The Alchemy of Cool The Ellen MacArthur Foundation CEO recently challenged companies to make circular solutions “cool.” But what does that mean? Cool fills cultural gaps. [It answers mythic longings people didn’t know they had.](https://www.circudyne.com/building-cultural-momentum/) That is the *what* of desire. But mythology alone isn’t enough. It must be orchestrated through systemic beauty. Compositional logic plus instructional elegance transform functionality into resonance. Systemic beauty is the *how* of cool. ## Systemic Beauty as Circudynamics Multiplier Systemic beauty gains its greatest power when it operates across all five Circudynamics domains: [Horizons](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horizons/) → Strategies become memorable when they reinforce each other, like Apple’s 2×2 product matrix that everyone could understand at a glance. [Living Futures ](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/living-futures/)→ Worldbuilding gains coherence when every element supports the same circular narrative, as EPCOT’s unified vision once did. [Catalysts](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/catalysts/) → Technology portfolios compound value when innovations strengthen each other rather than fragment resources. [Connection](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/connection/) → Cultural initiatives spread when product systems feel like natural expressions of deeper values—people know how to join and participate intuitively. [Craft](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/craft/) → Organizations embody circularity when every touchpoint reinforces coherence and values, making desired behaviors obvious and rewarding. When systemic beauty spans all five domains, it creates what we might call *transformation coherence*. Vision, prototypes, technologies, culture, and organizations all reinforce the same circular story. ## From Novelty Treadmill to Ensemble Orchestration [Fashion-as-novelty](https://www.circudyne.com/a-future-to-look-forward-to/) makes for insatiable strategy. New models, new features, new SKUs—all designed to push previous products into premature obsolescence. But novelty at scale exhausts both resources and attention while creating no lasting value. Systemic beauty enables a distinctive business model: *ensemble orchestration* rather than isolated product development. Brands that master this approach curate expanding systems where customer investments compound over time. Patagonia, Interface, and Apple succeed because they orchestrate relationships, not lifecycles. They use every interaction to strengthen the ensemble rather than complete a transaction. --- *The rest of this essay explores advanced techniques for building systemic beauty into circular business models, why coherence creates competitive advantages that novelty cannot match, and practical frameworks for transitioning from product thinking to ensemble thinking.* --- 💬 Discuss this post: mention **@christian@circudyne.com** on Mastodon or your favorite fediverse app. [Identity verification](https://www.circudyne.com/) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/09/futurama_interior-illustration-1-1.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Building Circular Ecosystems URL: https://www.circudyne.com/building-circular-ecosystems/ Last updated: 2025-09-08T13:38:40.000Z - [Infrastructure for the Circular Future](#building-infrastructure-for-the-circular-future) - [The Infrastructure Ethos](#the-infrastructure-ethos) - [Aggregators, Not Inventors](#aggregators-not-inventors) - [Network Effects in Circularity](#network-effects-in-circularity) - [Sustaining vs. Disruptive Inputs](#sustaining-vs-disruptive-inputs) - [Ecosystem Design as Strategic Discipline](#ecosystem-design-as-strategic-discipline) - [The Emotional Catalysts of Paradigm Shifts](#the-emotional-catalysts-of-paradigm-shifts) - [The Pioneer’s Reward](#the-pioneers-reward) - [Who Builds the Future?](#who-builds-the-future) - [Eight Catalysts for the Circular Century](#eight-catalysts-for-the-circular-century) # Infrastructure for the Circular Future As transformations go, circularity is distinct in one critical way: [it treats negative externalities at the same level as internal ones](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/). That is its vulnerability and its strength; the benefits can’t be captured in any other way, but they defy easy measurement. That’s one reason ecosystem development is important. In this letter, I’ll cover what it will take to build the infrastructure for the circular future. ⸻ ## The Infrastructure Ethos In 2018, Jeff Bezos explained to a group of space entrepreneurs the nature of capital allocation to resource-hungry start-ups: > You cannot make a giant space company in your dorm room. Not today. And the reason is that the heavy lifting infrastructure isn’t in place. When I started Amazon, I didn’t have to build a payment system, it existed. It was the credit card. I didn’t have to build a transportation network. That existed—it was called Deutsche Post, Royal Mail, UPS, FedEx, and so on. And likewise, I didn’t have to get a computer on every desk. It was already done, Microsoft will work on that, lay that type of infrastructure along with IBM, and Intel and Apple, with a bunch of others… > And then all those things would \[substitute for\] multiple tens of billions and in some cases, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of CAPX, that no 20 year-old in their dorm would get to deploy. That’s what it is right now to be a space entrepreneur. You get millions of dollars, not billions of dollars. The thing you want to do currently requires billions of dollars. \[We\] need to change that, make it more like the last 20 years of internet, and bring that unbelievable dynamism… > So my role \[with Blue Origin\], and it’s important, the most important work I’m doing, is crucial. My role is to help build that heavy lifting infrastructure \[for space\] because I have the financial assets to do that. And that will set things up for this dynamic entrepreneurial explosion that will lead to this \[futuristic vision\]. I listened to his speech from the cheap seats that day. Two parts of his logic were striking. First, that he would credit a mix of low- and high-tech infrastructure elements with making Amazon possible. He thought about credit cards and mail trucks the same way he thought about the internet. Second, that he viewed his career in these terms: in the beginning, there was the *taking*, benefiting from the second-order returns on the investments others had made. At the end, there was the *making* of the next generation of investments. He was making a point about intergenerational symbiosis between today’s entrepreneur and yesterday’s investor: the source of the big dynamism enabling major change. And that day I came to understand that, when it comes to strategy for shifting economic paradigms, the magic is as much in the recipe as in the ingredients. ⸻ ## Aggregators, Not Inventors Bezos reminded me of Henry Ford in that way. Amazon aggregated logistics, payments, and cloud computing to make ecommerce in the way Ford aggregated steel, combustion, and interchangeable parts to make the assembly line. They formed ecosystems as infrastructure. This permitted them to capture value outside their core business: Ford benefitted from Firestone's synthetic rubber like Amazon did from Intel's x86. Their infrastructure changed the economy, not the other way around. ⸻ ## Network Effects in Circularity It is easier for a firm to measure its own flows of capital and materials than anybody else’s. The return on a linear investment designed to capture value within an enterprise will enjoy a measurability advantage over a circular one that captures value across an ecosystem. 💡 The advantage of the circular investment, on the other hand, is that it scales much more quickly. That is for two reasons: the baseline on the return is set at the level of the ecosystem (larger than the sole enterprise), and it compounds with every flow. For circularity to work, the ecosystem has to be functionally as hard-wired as the individual enterprise. The advantage of the circular investment, on the other hand, is that it scales much more quickly. That is for two reasons: the baseline on the return is set at the level of the ecosystem (larger than the sole enterprise), and it compounds with every flow. Linear investments scale at a rate that is, well, linear. The more participants in the ecosystem, the larger it becomes. The more they participate in the system, the more flows. ⸻ ## Sustaining vs. Disruptive Inputs Bezos’ invocation of low- and high-tech inputs to the Amazon infrastructure ecosystem brought to mind a nuance of Christensen’s disruption theory that hadn’t occurred to me before. By the time Amazon came along, the "disruptiveness" of UPS and Mastercard were in the past. But combining them in new ways with new bedfellows brought forth something incredibly disruptive. 💡 We are taught to look at technology as the lever of disruption. But technology alone seldom achieves it. The true disruptors are the ecosystem builders. I was reminded of the story of the original iPod. The enabling technology in that device was a shrunken hard drive from Samsung: a sustaining innovation, designed to make laptops smaller and more efficient. But combining it with an online store, a payments processor, and some lovely product design, Apple used that little hard disk to do to the music industry what Amazon did to retail. We are taught to look at technology as the lever of disruption. But technology alone seldom achieves it. The true disruptors are the ecosystem builders. ⸻ ## Ecosystem Design as Strategic Discipline Ecosystem design is the frame for circular transformation. Individual technologies, methods, and materials will play their part. But as we have seen over and over, “sustainability” initiatives in isolation seldom scale. When circularity leaders like Ellen MacArthur speak of “system change,” this is my version of what that means. To put it in terms of Martin’s Strategy Choice Cascade, ecosystem is a *Where To Play* and not a *Capability* or *Management System*. Examples already exist: Tesla’s Supercharger network redefined what it meant to be a carmaker. Apple’s iTunes ecosystem turned a sustaining technology into a disruptive juggernaut. Both show that the “recipe” is decisive. ⸻ ## The Emotional Catalysts of Paradigm Shifts The 1939 World’s Fair showed families, crushed by the Great Depression, a plausible abundance they could emotionally invest in. The *juxtaposition* of its wonders was one of its winning elements, making each one feel related to the others. In isolation and at the time, did cars and TV and the Interstate and air conditioning have any correlation? Hindsight gives us perspective. They were part of the same thing: the 20th-century American Dream. At the time, they were attractions on a park map. 💡 Circularity must do the same today for citizens living with climate anxiety and cultural malaise. The map is important. It is the moral of the show. Circularity must do the same today for citizens living with climate anxiety and cultural malaise. The map is important. It is the moral of the show. ⸻ ## The Pioneer’s Reward History rewards the builders of rails. Ford was synonymous with mobility. Amazon captured the rents of digital commerce. Tesla is now known not just for EVs but for the network that sustains them. The proof of the ecosystem is when it [addresses the tensions of the prevailing cultural mythology](https://www.circudyne.com/building-cultural-momentum/) in a way that creates and captures value beyond the ability of any one player to do so. Circular pioneers who build cooperation networks and infrastructure will secure influence that outlasts any single product. ⸻ ## Who Builds the Future? The real disruption won’t come from recycling widgets or efficiency tweaks. It will come from those bold enough to weave sustaining innovations into ecosystems of regeneration. Just as the World’s Fair catalyzed the American Century, today’s pioneers have the chance to catalyze the Circular Century. This is good context to invoke Steve Jobs’ signature observation: > “When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” Jobs’s point was that the systems we inherit were built by regular people like us. Circular ecosystems will be no different. They will exist because someone *chooses* to build them. ⸻ Before we close, I’ll leave you with one provocation: - What if your greatest legacy won’t be the products you made, but the infrastructures you built? --- 💬 Discuss this post: mention **@christian@circudyne.com** on Mastodon or your favorite fediverse app. [Identity verification](https://www.circudyne.com/) \[Read on for the full set of catalytic questions reserved for practitioners who want to apply these insights directly.\] ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/09/futurama_interior-illustration-1.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### A Future To Look Forward To URL: https://www.circudyne.com/a-future-to-look-forward-to/ Last updated: 2025-09-27T22:54:58.000Z In his famous [Kenyon College commencement address](http://bulletin-archive.kenyon.edu/x4280.html?ref=circudyne.com), David Foster Wallace told a story about two young fish swimming along when an older fish passes by and says, *“Morning, boys. How’s the water?”* The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then one looks over at the other and says, *“What the hell is water?”* We are those young fish. The water we swim in is the linear economy—an integrated system of **fashion-as-novelty**, **planned obsolescence**, and **extractive capitalism** so pervasive we hardly notice it exists. Each element reinforces the others in a loop of exploitation: our craving for beauty, our bias toward change, our confusion of temporary satisfaction with progress. As [Bill McKibben observed in 2023](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-bill-mckibben.html?showTranscript=1&%5F%5FreadwiseLocation=&ref=circudyne.com), in 100 years humans probably won’t be “amusing themselves by consuming immense amounts of stuff.” But in seven years—within the critical climate decade—we almost certainly still will be. That remark was intended as a tactical retreat in the face of overwhelming challenges. Yet two years on, it’s clear that biasing against long-term change for the sake of short-term targets is proving counterproductive. We need a wider view. It’s time to take a look at the water we swim in—and imagine life outside the fishbowl. The real question is whether that transition will feel like liberation or coercion. --- ## The Water We're Swimming In The psychological reality of this moment is sobering. Broadly speaking, we’re not well. We’re drowning in information, much of it false, and carrying anxieties our predecessors rarely faced: - Will our children be better off than us? - Will the animals we grew up with vanish within our lifetimes? - Will countries on the maps we learned in school soon be underwater? - Will democracy endure? - Will human intelligence remain dominant? These fears compound because our economic system offers no path to security. Fashion-as-novelty equates beauty with churn. Planned obsolescence makes durability feel like stagnation. Extractive capitalism monetizes both by turning fleeting satisfaction into the illusion of progress. Together they form a doom spiral: novelty drives obsolescence, obsolescence drives consumption, consumption funds more novelty. Each protects the others from critique, leaving us psychologically trapped. Building a better future can provide relief today while securing what we care about tomorrow. But that future must feel richer, safer, and more comfortable—not like a diminished version of the present. --- ## The Core Promise: More, Not Less The circular economy’s breakthrough is decoupling value creation from resource extraction. When companies profit by adding value rather than producing volume, everyone gains: businesses through deeper customer relationships, customers through better experiences, and society through regenerative growth. - **Riversimple** designs cars for all drivers across a vehicle’s life, capturing more value from the same materials. - **Apple** extends device lifecycles through software, strengthening loyalty while lowering costs. - **Patagonia** repairs rather than replaces gear, building brand love that commands premium pricing. Consider two phones. One: a Bell System rotary, built in the 1950s, still working today—indestructible, repairable, iconic. Its value was defined as part of a service. The other: a plastic football-shaped novelty phone, given away with a magazine subscription in the 1980s. That phone is now landfill. Only the Bell phone endures. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/08/20250309-Bell-Telephone-ad.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/08/20250309-football-phone.jpeg) The difference a paradigm shift can make The difference lies in paradigms of value creation. Many of us have lived in both. One was objectively better for human flourishing. Outside the fishbowl lies a source of competitive advantage that also aligns with planetary boundaries. We’re not asking people to accept less—we’re offering more. --- ## Vignette 1: Calm Permanence **The Trap You Know:** Your closet overflows with clothes you don’t love. Each seemed right in the store—the color was trending, the cut was current, the price felt like victory. But at home, surrounded by last season’s mistakes, nothing coordinates. Getting dressed becomes a daily reminder of poor decisions disguised as self-expression. “Retail therapy” promises relief but delivers more confusion. The psychology is exhausting: constant evaluation, comparison, disposal. Marie Kondo’s idea of items “sparking *joy*” feels impossible when everything was designed to spark *desire* instead. Accumulation never resolves into satisfaction because the system isn’t designed for satisfaction—it’s designed for repetition. **The Liberation You Gain:** Your closet contains only pieces that spark joy. Not because you’ve become a minimalist, but because each item was designed to last decades and evolve with you. Brands thrive through stewardship—alterations, repairs, seasonal swaps, gradual upgrades. Each morning feels like curating an art collection rather than managing inventory. Coherence replaces churn. When you want change, you adapt what you have rather than chase what you lack. The shift is profound: from managing stuff to living with systems. Retail therapy becomes obsolete not through discipline but through irrelevance. Possessions appreciate rather than depreciate. Brand relationships deepen rather than fragment. Why chase fleeting desire when you already live with enduring beauty? > This is the serenity of good home economics. --- ## Vignette 2: Mainstreaming Couture **The Trap You Know:** Your three-year-old car is showing wear. The interior is scuffed, the tech outdated, the warranty expired. Fixing costs more than the car’s value justifies. You’re trapped between maintaining a depreciating asset or replacing it with another. This is fashion-as-novelty applied to everything: products designed for first impressions, not lasting relationships. Value peaks at purchase, then declines toward replacement. **The Liberation You Gain:** You access mobility as a service designed for decades. Upholstery refresh? The local atelier treats it as art, not repair. Tech upgrades integrate seamlessly, no wholesale replacement needed. The artisans who customize your car are stars—the Hermès craftspeople of mobility. Their work commands respect because they optimize for decades of value. You enjoy luxury-level care at accessible prices. Your provider profits by keeping you satisfied, not by selling replacements. Fashion shifts from novelty-chasing to skill-celebrating. This isn’t “making do with less”—it’s having more: more craftsmanship, more customization, more relationship. > The pendulum swings from fast fashion to couture at scale. --- ## Vignette 3: Playfulness and Exploration **The Trap You Know:** Your home feels like a museum of incompatible decisions. The smart TV doesn’t talk to the sound system. The coffee maker uses filters you can’t find. The exercise bike runs on a discontinued app. Each choice made sense in isolation, but together they create friction. Clay Christensen’s Modularity Theory explains why: when companies prioritize product differentiation over ecosystem curation, they create incompatibility that locks customers into narrow upgrade paths. Innovation devolves into forcing choices instead of enabling creativity. **The Liberation You Gain:** Your home works like LEGO—standardized components, infinite recombination. Sound, lighting, appliances, furniture: common protocols, seamless upgrades. Standardization becomes appealing because it enables creativity. Each element works alone but together forms a symphony. Investments compound rather than compete. Manufacturers profit by ensuring harmony, not by trapping customers. Modularity expands play beyond computers into everyday life. Nothing permanently breaks, everything can be reconfigured. The psychological effect is like childhood play: safe boundaries encourage exploration. > This is an ecosystem big enough to live in. --- ## The 1939 Precedent Think this future sounds strange? Visitors to the 1939 World’s Fair, in the depths of the Depression, for the first time saw television, air conditioning, superhighways, suburban living—technologies that defined the next 40 years. They seemed impossibly futuristic. Yet within a generation, they became ordinary. Companies like General Motors, GE, and Westinghouse earned prosperity by creating the infrastructure people came to depend on. Circular innovators today face a similar moment. They are building systems future generations will call normal. The opportunity for cultural leadership is immense. --- ## The Instructional Challenge These vignettes are examples of instructional design at civilizational scale. Just as LEGO teaches children to build through play, circular solutions will teach adults to flourish through permanence. The obstacle is what behavioral economists call “loss aversion.” People fear losing familiar freedoms—the freedom to buy, discard, replace—without recognizing those freedoms are obligations. Fashion cycles feel compulsory. Upgrade paths feel extractive. Subscriptions feel exploitative. But these aren’t real freedoms when they produce anxiety instead of satisfaction. The linear system exploits survival-era cognitive biases—instincts shaped for an age of scarcity, now manipulated to keep us consuming in an era of abundance. Circular transformation succeeds when it shows that constraints are not constraints at all. Standardization enables creativity. Permanence enables beauty. Stewardship enables relationship. The contrast between the Bell phone and the football phone makes this plain. We’re not asking people to accept worse—we’re offering better, which happens to align with planetary boundaries. --- ## Why the System Protects Itself Novelty, obsolescence, and extractive capitalism reinforce one another with formidable defenses: - Challenge obsolescence, and defenders invoke creative destruction. - Challenge fashion cycles, and they invoke freedom of expression. - Challenge overproduction, and they invoke job creation. These arguments only work while the elements remain bound together. Circular transformation unravels the system by offering innovation without destruction, expression without waste, prosperity without depletion. Once better alternatives exist, the defenses collapse. > This is why circular change must be systemic, not incremental. You can’t solve obsolescence without addressing fashion cycles. You can’t solve fashion cycles without addressing growth models. And you can’t solve growth models without rethinking all three together. The psychological lock is just as strong. When consumption patterns merge with identity, questioning the system feels like questioning the self. The linear economy exploits belonging and meaning as well as desire. Breaking this requires offering identity upgrades, not sacrifices. The circular future must provide *more* meaning, *more* belonging, *more* expression than the linear present. --- ## The Cultural Opportunity Repair becomes artisanal. Maintenance becomes meaningful. Permanence becomes playful. Material culture shifts. > This “systemic beauty” framework appeals to humanity’s need for both harmony (systems that work together) and elegance (systems that teach themselves). Current consumer culture delivers neither. It is chaotic by design, meant to confuse. Circular systems, well-designed, deliver coherence and serenity. They nurture competence, mastery, creativity. People feel empowered rather than overwhelmed. Isn’t that what luxury marketing has always promised? The cultural shift toward artisanship, permanence, and relationship generates what economists call positive externalities. When your neighbor repairs instead of replaces, the repair ecosystem strengthens for all. When communities embrace permanence, cultural stability grows and anxiety shrinks. When it comes to externalities, circularity reduces the negatives and multiplies the positives. Imagine what that means at scale. --- ## The Wealth Creation Mechanism Here’s the paradox: making *more value* creates more wealth than making *more products*. Linear models peak at purchase. Everything afterward is cost. Loyalty depends on repeat transactions. Circular models invert the dynamic. The first transaction begins a relationship. Every interaction adds value. Loyalty grows with service depth rather than purchase frequency. The math is simple: a customer worth $100 per transaction becomes worth $1000+ over decades when you optimize for lifetime value. But this requires integration capabilities most linear firms lack. This is why circular transformation creates lasting competitive advantage. It taps value that linear models cannot reach. --- 💬 Discuss this post: mention **@christian@circudyne.com** on Mastodon or your favorite fediverse app. [Identity verification](https://www.circudyne.com/) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/08/futurama_interior-illustration-2-1.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Technology of Matter URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-technology-of-matter/ Last updated: 2025-09-27T19:43:12.000Z # How Circular Systems Create Abundance in a Finite World The modern economy rests on an assumption: today’s debt will be repaid by tomorrow’s wealth. As Nate Hagens [observes](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/the-10-core-myths-still-taught-in-business-schools?ref=circudyne.com) in *The Great Simplification*, this logic only works when we can assume future availability of the energy needed to create that wealth. Finite fossil fuels make this assumption increasingly false. Renewable energy flows make it true again. The same economic logic applies to materials. Our growth models assume future availability of the matter needed to create wealth. Finite resource extraction makes this assumption false. Circular material flows make it true again. The conventional understanding of debt as temporal transfer of capital between present and future depends entirely on the availability of abundant energy, since energy is a prerequisite of capital creation. When energy becomes scarce or expensive, debt becomes unsustainable. When energy becomes renewable and abundant, debt regains its economic function. Materials operate under identical logic. When materials are scarce and depleting, material-intensive growth becomes unsustainable. When materials become renewable through circular orchestration, growth becomes sustainable again. > The breakthrough insight: we must treat matter the same way renewables treat energy—as **technology, not resource**. --- 💬 Discuss this post: mention **@christian@circudyne.com** on Mastodon or your favorite fediverse app. [Identity verification](https://www.circudyne.com/) ## The Finite-Abundance Paradox Here's the apparent contradiction that circular economy addresses at its most elemental level: How do you create expanding value with finite materials? How do you decouple value creation from resource extraction without sacrificing abundance? This paradox has driven many in the environmental movement toward degrowth solutions. If materials are finite and value creation requires materials, then infinite growth becomes impossible. The logical conclusion: reduce consumption, accept constraints, manage decline. But this reasoning contains a fundamental error. It treats matter as a stock to be depleted rather than a flow to be orchestrated. Renewable energy systems point toward a different approach entirely. Solar panels don’t consume the sun. Wind turbines don’t deplete air currents. Hydroelectric doesn’t use up water. The technology lies not in the resource itself, but in the orchestration of renewable flows. The sun provides essentially infinite energy; the innovation lies in converting solar flows into useful work. The same principle applies to materials: finite matter can provide essentially infinite value when orchestrated through circular flows rather than depleted through linear extraction. ## The Degrowth Dilemma Faced with finite materials, many propose degrowth as the solution: reduce consumption, accept less abundance, constrain economic activity. This approach fails on three fundamental levels that reveal why circular transformation offers a superior path forward. ### We Can't Afford Degrowth Decarbonization alone requires investments exceeding what's possible without continued economic growth. The International Energy Agency estimates global clean energy investments must reach $4.5 trillion annually by 2030[1](#fn1-2100)—more than double current spending levels. McKinsey's analysis of the net-zero transition estimates that global spending on physical assets would amount to about $275 trillion through 2050, representing an additional $1 trillion to $3.5 trillion in average annual capital investment[2](#fn2-2100). Simultaneously reducing economic output makes these investments impossible to fund. The math is unforgiving: we need expanding wealth creation to finance the transition itself, which like it or not is necessary for paying our debts. Degrowth creates its own paradox where environmental solutions become economically unreachable precisely when we need them most. Only continued growth can generate the capital required for systematic transformation. Growth from renewable energy and circular materials changes the equation. Instead of depleting the foundation for future wealth creation, such growth strengthens it. Each dollar invested in renewable flows increases rather than decreases future economic capacity. ### We Don't Want Degrowth Human desires for fulfillment, beauty, and meaning aren’t pathologies—they’re aspirations. The consumption itself isn't the problem. Waste is. Consider the vast gap between what businesses advertise and what they actually produce. Marketing consistently appeals to our highest needs—love, belonging, creativity, self-actualization—while products typically satisfy only basic material requirements. A luxury car advertisement sells freedom and status; the product delivers transportation. A smartphone campaign promises connection and creativity; the device mostly provides distraction and surveillance. This systematic misalignment forces consumers into compromises: purchasing items that meet bodily requirements while hoping they'll somehow deliver the emotional fulfillment being promised. The waste lies not in wanting meaningful experiences, but in using material-intensive products as proxies for those experiences. > Degrowth asks people to abandon legitimate desires rather than finding better ways to satisfy them. This approach fails because it misdiagnoses the problem. Consumption isn't the issue—poor material application is. ### We Don't Need Degrowth The technology for renewable matter already exists: circularity. We can create expanding abundance within finite limits by orchestrating matter cycles rather than depleting material stocks. Every ecosystem demonstrates infinite value creation from finite materials through circular flows. Forests grow continuously without depleting soil. Coral reefs increase in complexity without importing new calcium. Prairies expand biodiversity without additional nitrogen inputs. The difference lies in system design. Linear systems treat matter as an input to be consumed. Circular systems treat matter as a medium for orchestrating value-creating flows. The same molecules can create expanding value when circulated through properly designed systems. Human economic systems can operate under identical principles. The materials, technology, and design knowledge exist to create circular flows that generate expanding wealth without depleting finite stocks. ## The Maslow Moment The key to understanding how finite materials can generate infinite value lies in recognizing what economist Abraham Maslow revealed about human needs hierarchy. Current economic systems demonstrate profound inefficiency in material application by systematically misaligning resource use with human fulfillment. Maslow showed that human needs rise from survival to self-actualization. For centuries, capitalism has efficiently addressed the pyramid's foundation—food, shelter, safety, basic material needs. The largest corporations have been those satisfying bodily requirements: energy, construction, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications. But we've reached what we might call the "Maslow Moment"—when technological capability finally enables systematic satisfaction of higher-order needs at economic scale. ### The Great Misalignment Current systems reveal their profound inefficiency: businesses routinely advertise to peak human needs while producing for base requirements. Every luxury brand promises self-actualization through material possession. Every social media platform sells belonging through digital engagement. Every lifestyle product offers esteem through consumption. Yet the actual products typically deliver only lower-order satisfaction. The luxury handbag provides possession, not self-actualization. The social media engagement provides stimulation, not genuine belonging. The lifestyle product provides consumption, not lasting esteem. This misalignment represents structural waste of both human potential and material resources. > Companies spend enormous capital creating products that satisfy physiological needs while marketing them as solutions to self-actualization needs. Consumers spend enormous money purchasing these products while hoping they'll somehow deliver the fulfillment being promised. The result: mountains of material goods that leave people fundamentally unsatisfied, requiring ever-greater consumption to chase experiences that the products can't actually provide. ### The Efficiency Opportunity Now consider the profound efficiency gains possible when materials are applied directly to higher-order needs rather than lower-order proxies. A meal that nourishes the soul requires no additional matter compared to one that merely fills the stomach—the difference lies in preparation, presentation, and social context. A workspace that inspires creativity uses no extra materials versus one that simply provides shelter—the difference lies in design, lighting, and spatial flow. A community gathering that creates genuine belonging requires no more resources than one that simply occupies time—the difference lies in facilitation, intention, and shared purpose. AI and automation now provide the productivity gains that make such applications economically viable at scale. When machines can handle routine production, human attention becomes available for meaning creation. When algorithms can process information, human wisdom becomes available for experience design. When robots can manage logistics, human creativity becomes available for soul satisfaction. ## The Business Model Revolution The circular transformation opportunity lies precisely in this Maslow alignment: business models that apply finite materials to infinite human potential rather than finite human potential to infinite material consumption. Designing for self-actualization—rather than possession—unlocks new value propositions. Instead of selling products that might accidentally generate meaning, you orchestrate experiences that definitively create meaning. Instead of optimizing for material efficiency, you architect for human flourishing. Instead of managing scarcity, you engineer abundance. This transformation requires systematic integration across what we call the five domains of Circudynamics, creating an **abundance flywheel** that generates expanding value from finite inputs: ### The Abundance Flywheel **Better Winning Aspirations (Horizons):** When companies aim for customers' self-actualization rather than material optimization, they can reverse-engineer from peak human needs rather than current constraints. Instead of asking *"How do we sell more efficiently?"* they ask *"What would have to be true for our customers to experience genuine fulfillment through our offering?"* This shift unlocks entirely different strategic possibilities. A furniture company moves from selling chairs to orchestrating spaces that inspire creativity. A food company evolves from providing nutrition to facilitating community connection. A technology company transforms from delivering features to enabling human potential. **Higher Fidelity Visions (Living Futures):** When you're designing for self-actualization, you can worldbuild genuinely compelling futures rather than just efficient ones. People can experience higher-order satisfaction before committing to new consumption patterns. Instead of describing sustainability benefits abstractly, these companies create immersive experiences where people live temporarily in worlds of meaningful abundance. They don't argue for behavior change—they demonstrate lifestyle upgrade. The vision becomes tangible and desirable rather than theoretical and constraining. **Superior Tool Application (Catalysts):** AI and emerging technologies can serve human flourishing rather than just operational efficiency. When your winning aspiration targets self-actualization, you apply technological capability to orchestrate matter cycles that create meaning rather than just productivity. This convergence moment—when AI enables circular orchestration at economic scale—makes previously impossible business models suddenly viable. Technology becomes the means for applying finite materials to infinite human potential. **More Accessible Solutions (Connection):** When solutions genuinely satisfy higher-order needs, adoption accelerates naturally. People want authentic belonging, creative expression, and meaningful contribution. When circular business models deliver these experiences, they spread through cultural resonance rather than marketing persuasion. The mimetic dynamic works in reverse: instead of using social pressure to drive material consumption, you use social attraction to spread fulfillment experiences. Connection becomes the medium for accelerating circular adoption. **Faster Adoption Creates Resources for Integration (Craft):** Success doesn't just provide financial capital—it demands organizational evolution. You can't scale meaningful solutions without becoming the kind of company people are proud to work for—and buy from. The complexity of orchestrating circular flows requires integration capabilities that transcend traditional departmental boundaries. This organizational transformation becomes both funded by and necessary for continued success. Integration becomes a competitive advantage that enables bigger dreams in the next cycle. ### The Compound Effect Each rotation of this flywheel creates more capability for applying finite materials to expanding human potential. Better aspirations enable more compelling visions, which guide superior technology application, which creates more accessible solutions, which accelerates adoption and provides resources for even greater integration, which enables bigger dreams that restart the cycle. > The flywheel doesn't just produce better outcomes—it produces renewable abundance from non-renewable inputs. The same molecules, orchestrated through increasingly sophisticated circular flows, generate exponentially expanding value. ## The Integration Imperative Piecemeal approaches fail. You cannot create renewable abundance from finite materials without systematic integration across all five domains simultaneously. Consider Riversimple, the Welsh hydrogen car company that exemplifies systematic integration creating abundance from finite materials. Riversimple shows how the abundance flywheel operates in practice. **Better Winning Aspirations:** Instead of asking "How do we sell more cars?" Riversimple reverse-engineered from their customers' actual job-to-be-done: reliable, efficient transportation without the burdens of ownership, maintenance, and depreciation. **Higher Fidelity Vision:** They worldbuilt an experience where people access mobility as a service rather than purchasing depreciating assets. The vision becomes tangible: all the benefits of car access without any of the traditional friction points. **Superior Tool Application:** Practical limits of hydrogen fuel cell technology were surmounted by their service model, which turn provided new options to suppliers. The circular business model and technology reinforce each other. The value chain aligns when it serves higher needs. **More Accessible Solutions:** By designing cars for multiple drivers over the product's entire lifetime rather than just the first buyer, they create vehicles that become more attractive and valuable over time. The service design captures this increasing value instead of leaking it to used car lots. **Faster Adoption Creates Integration Requirements:** Success demands organizational capabilities that traditional automakers lack. You can't scale product-as-a-service without coordinating product design, service delivery, customer relationships, and supplier networks as interdependent systems. ### The Value Capture Revolution Riversimple's model illustrates the profound shift from matter-as-resource to matter-as-technology. In traditional automotive, the same steel and aluminum that create initial value become liabilities through depreciation. Used car lots capture residual value that manufacturers can't access. But when you design for the product's entire lifecycle rather than just first ownership, those same materials become appreciating assets. Maintaining better, upgrading continuously, utilizing optimally make the car more valuable over time, not less. The circular orchestration of finite materials creates expanding value rather than depleting value. ### Why Partial Implementation Fails The abundance flywheel emerges when all five domains amplify each other simultaneously. Automotive sustainability initiatives fail because they stay siloed. A company might develop excellent electric vehicle technology (Catalysts) without creating compelling service experiences (Living Futures). Or they might establish ambitious environmental goals (Horizons) without building organizational capability for circular integration (Craft). Riversimple succeeds because they treat product design, service design, customer experience, technological capability, and organizational structure as interdependent rather than independent variables. Their model can’t be bolted on—you must redesign everything at once. ### The Network Effect When systematic integration succeeds, it creates network effects that make circular approaches increasingly advantageous compared to linear alternatives. Suppliers optimize for circular flows once customers demand it. Customers begin preferring circular solutions because they deliver superior experiences (and economics). Employees begin seeking circular employers because the work aligns with purpose. These network effects compound over time, making matter-as-technology approaches systematically superior to matter-as-resource approaches across multiple dimensions: economic performance, operational efficiency, cultural resonance, and environmental impact. --- *The rest of this essay covers practical implementation pathways for leaders ready to apply matter-as-technology principles, the economic foundations that make circular transformation inevitable* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/08/futurama_interior-illustration-1.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Element of Integration URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-of-integration/ Last updated: 2025-09-27T19:31:57.000Z # The Craft Domain What if a sustainable future was both more delightful to live in and more rewarding to work in? What would have to be true for circular transformation to create abundance on both sides—better experiences for customers and better returns for the companies serving them? The answer lies in understanding that brand, strategy, and organizational architecture are not three separate departments. They are the same thing. And mastering this holistic integration—what we call the [Craft domain](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/craft/)—is what takes circular transformation from sustainability obligation into systematic competitive advantage. --- ## My Favorite Brush with Greatness Many years ago, I had lunch with two legendary ad men: David Bell, my friend and mentor, and Lee Clow, the ingenious creative behind Apple's "1984" Super Bowl commercial and "Think Different" campaign. That conversation fundamentally changed how I understood the future of business. ![Impressionistic painting of three men at a beachside taco stand, eating tacos and salads, leaning in conversation under warm California sunlight.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/08/Lunch-with-David-and-Lee-5.png) A lunch of tacos and iced tea, and a table full of ideas in the California sun. The scene as I remember it. (Image generated by GPT-5) "Everything a company does is media," Lee said, leaning forward with memorable intensity. “…and a brand is the sum of a company’s media. That means *a company's brand is the sum of everything the company does*. It's ads, *and* packaging, *and* store design, *and* customer support, *and* product design. Everything." How did his illustrious client manage that comprehensive integration? > “Steve Jobs looks at everything. Apple is like a web. And in the center lives a spider”—Jobs—“with perfect taste and unlimited capacity." --- It was a striking message. At the time, I thought it was an idea about **BRAND**. But looking back, I realize now it was more than that. ## From Brand to Strategy to Organization The taco lunch was the first lesson. The next one came from Roger Martin, in the form of his essay [It’s Time to Accept that Marketing and Strategy are One Discipline](https://rogermartin.medium.com/its-time-to-accept-that-marketing-and-strategy-are-one-discipline-17f0140521c9?ref=circudyne.com). His premise: strategy and marketing converged during the late 20th century and now represent a single capability focused on Where to Play/How to Win. The distinction between the two? Strategy looks *up* the value chain at suppliers, and marketing looks *down* it, at customers. A unified, integrated approach aligns all parties. This convergence explains why Clow's formulation proved prescient. Apple wasn't just creating integrated marketing; they were creating integrated **STRATEGY** where every touchpoint reinforced their competitive positioning. Unified strategy like that requires the organizational capability to deliver it. In their essay [“How Apple Is Organized for Innovation”](https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovation?ref=circudyne.com) for The Harvard Business Review, Joel Polodny and and Morten Hansen describe the **ORGANIZATIONAL ARCHITECTURE** that makes it possible, long after the departure of Steve Jobs—a functional structure that operates under a single P&L. The benefit is obvious for cross-disciplinary cooperation.[1](#fn1-30883) That was the final lesson. ![Impressionistic painting of Steve Jobs on stage in 2007, gesturing before a screen with three icons—iPod, phone, Internet—moments before unveiling the iPhone.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/08/its-one-device-3.png) “Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. This is one device. And we’re calling it iPhone.” — Steve Jobs, Macworld 2007\. (Image generated by GPT-5) ## The Same Thing To borrow a phrase from Steve Jobs’ iconic iPhone unveil: brand, strategy, and organizational architecture are not three things. They are the *same thing*. Brand coherence, strategic integration, and organizational alignment represent a unified capability and How-to-Win. This is the domain we call **Craft**. > *We call this domain *Craft* because it transforms systematic thinking into artful execution—the integration layer that makes everything beautifully coherent. It confers on leaders the mastery to synthesize complexity into elegant action.* Consider how our domains build toward this integration: - [**Horizons**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horizons/) unlocks future focus and makes radical innovation (like circular solutions) possible. - [**Living Futures** ](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/living-futures/)creates shared vision of that radical innovation. - [**Catalysts**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/catalysts/) provides capabilities and systems that enable it. - [**Connection**](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/connection/) builds consensus for it through positive emotional energy. **Craft** is where the work gets done—the systematic culmination into beautiful reality. ## Why Circular Solutions Require Integration The integration challenge becomes acute when companies attempt circular business models within linear organizational structures. Three examples reveal why: ***Product-as-a-Service* requires managing multiple attachments simultaneously.** Customer relationships, supplier networks, and the product assets themselves must be coordinated in real-time. Linear structures, where each function optimizes independently (under its own P&L), treat these interdependencies as second-class citizens. ***Circular design* demands continuous cross-functional dialogue.** The dialectic between manufacturing and repair/reuse adds an exponent of complexity for the rest of the organization. Touchpoints graduate from concatenated snapshots to vivid moving pictures that last as long as the asset or the customer relationship—the longer, the better. ***Resource recovery* adds a “reverse gear" to every organizational function.** Sales teams must understand take-back programs, manufacturing must accommodate remanufacturing, finance must model asset recovery, marketing must communicate second-life benefits. In each case, every node connects to every other node. Like a web. Nothing gets tossed over the transom and forgotten—every function loops back. The circularity-enabled organization requires wholesale evolution to a level of capability and awareness beyond today’s best. ## The Circular Organization Imperative To deliver new-to-world circular solutions, the organizations that make them must be just as circular. There can be no waste, no externalities, no duplicative work, no rework—no heat without light. 💡 To deliver new-to-world circular solutions, the organizations that make them must be just as circular. This organizational circularity explains why Steve Jobs designed Apple Park as a circle. The building embodies perfect flow, no waste, elegant execution where every element reinforces every other element. Functional organization enables this circularity by aligning expertise with decision rights rather than negotiating territorial conflicts. When experts work across all products rather than being scattered across divisions, innovations benefit entire ecosystems. --- ## So What? Strategic Implications ### For Business Leaders The Craft domain positions circular transformation as organizational capability development rather than sustainability compliance. Your competitive advantage lies not in having circular products, but in building integration capabilities that enable circular innovation at scale. **Immediate Action**: Audit your organizational structure through the circular lens. Are functions optimized for independence or interdependence? Product-as-a-service companies need manufacturing teams who understand lifetime value, marketing teams who communicate service benefits, and finance teams who capture value from asset longevity and utilization. **Strategic Positioning**: Frame circular transformation as operational excellence opportunity. Companies that master Craft domain integration create systematic advantages: faster innovation cycles, reduced coordination costs, and unified customer experiences that linear competitors cannot match. **Investment Strategy**: Prioritize functional organization capabilities over business unit optimization. The integration requirements of circular business models justify organizational architecture changes that initially seem disruptive but create lasting competitive advantages. ### For Innovation Leaders Circular innovation requires different organizational capabilities than linear product development. Innovation strategy must shift from sequential development processes to integrated collaboration across all functions simultaneously. **Experience Design**: Apply Apple's collaborative debate model to circular innovation. Design decisions must involve manufacturing (for repairability), marketing (for positioning), finance (for business model impact), and customer success (for service delivery) from project inception. **Integration Capabilities**: Develop expertise in managing organizational interdependencies rather than optimizing individual functions. Circular innovation succeeds when every function understands its connections to every other function. **Cultural Development**: Build cultures where "good mess" (productive cross-functional tension) creates breakthrough solutions while "bad mess" (territorial conflicts) gets eliminated through shared purpose and aligned incentives. ### For Governance Leaders The Craft domain represents organizational transformation that enables circular business model innovation. Companies that build these integration capabilities will create sustainable competitive advantages that justify premium valuations. **Transformation Investment**: View functional organization development as essential infrastructure for circular business models. Like digital transformation required new technical capabilities, circular transformation requires new organizational capabilities. **Competitive Assessment**: Organizations attempting circular transformation without functional integration capabilities will struggle with coordination failures, duplicative work, and misaligned incentives that undermine profitability. **Value Creation**: Integration capabilities create compound advantages over time. Companies that master Craft domain principles don't just serve markets—they shape culture through coherent brand experiences that communicate values through every touchpoint. --- *The Practitioner Insights section explores advanced implementation methodologies for organizational integration, including specific design choices for functional architecture, cross-functional collaboration systems, and cultural development techniques that enable sustained circular transformation.* ![Retro-futuristic illustration of visitors in a curved gallery, leaning forward to view a glowing model of a circular future city with parks, flowing roads, and futuristic buildings.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/08/futurama_interior-illustration-2.jpeg) Collective wonder: visitors peer into a model of a circular future city, recalling the Futurama of 1939 while imagining tomorrow’s circular economy. (Image generated by GPT-5) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Building Cultural Momentum URL: https://www.circudyne.com/building-cultural-momentum/ Last updated: 2026-03-25T21:05:50.000Z --- 💬 Discuss this post: mention **@christian@circudyne.com** on Mastodon or your favorite fediverse app. [Identity verification](https://www.circudyne.com/) # The Connection Domain [Last week in our letter](https://www.circudyne.com/when-technology-converges/) about the [Catalysts](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/catalysts/) domain, we covered how circular economy gives purpose to sophisticated technology. This Letter explains why circularity also contains the elements of a powerful mythology—cultural narratives that, wisely applied, make transformation feel inevitable rather than optional. By mythology, we mean the deep cultural stories that shape how people understand what constitutes a good life, meaningful work, and authentic progress—the frameworks that Douglas Holt calls "myth markets" where brands compete for cultural territory rather than just market share. This opportunity is more profound than it might first appear. We are living in profoundly unhappy times. Even during the Great Depression, society possessed something we've lost after decades of technological progress: a shared vision of a better tomorrow. The 1939 World's Fair drew 44 million visitors because they were ready to see what progress looked like. The Fair provided a communal rallying point around technological optimism that sustained hope through extraordinary hardship. It’s fair to say producers and consumers are better off today. But despite how far we've come, we lack that unifying vision. We have innovation without narrative, disruption without direction, progress without purpose. Happily, circular transformation contains all the mythological elements needed to restore shared purpose: regeneration over extraction, abundance over scarcity, connection over isolation. > We call this domain [Connection](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/connection/) because transformation flows through relationships—the cultural threads and human stories that bind people to new realities. It confers on leaders the wisdom to read the currents of cultural momentum—how to access and activate the mythological ingredients that transform technological possibility into cultural inevitability. ## Shared Experience and Mimetic Desire The Connection domain in concert with [Living Futures](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/living-futures/) addresses why individual persuasion fails where shared experience succeeds. When people experience circular abundance *individually*, they question whether it's real or desirable. When they experience it *collectively*—surrounded by others having the same response—it activates mimetic desire: our fundamental tendency to want what others want, to become who others are becoming. 💡 Happily, circular transformation contains all the mythological elements needed to restore shared purpose: regeneration over extraction, abundance over scarcity, connection over isolation. This is the operational principle that separates circular initiatives that scale from those that stagnate. René Girard's insight about mimetic desire explains why: humans don't derive desire from individual cost-benefit analysis but from observing what others desire. We want things because other people want them. We adopt identities because other people embody them successfully. Desire is inherently social, not individual. ## The Worldbuilding Connection In Living Futures experiential prototypes where groups collectively inhabit circular abundance, it activates mimetic response. People share the company of other people wanting circular solutions that work. This accelerates the adoption dynamic. Individual customers require rational persuasion about circular benefits. Communities experiencing circular abundance together create mimetic desire that makes adoption feel natural and inevitable. The Connection domain maps how to access and amplify this mimetic power through cultural momentum mapping. Where Living Futures creates the shared experiences, Connection channels the cultural currents that carry circular transformation from proof of concept to social movement. --- ## The Latent Demand Evidence Two companies launch identical circular business models. One becomes a cultural phenomenon, the other struggles for adoption. The difference isn't technology or economics—it's cultural momentum. Consider repair initiatives. **Repair Café** began in Amsterdam in 2009 as community events where neighbors fix broken items together. Today, over 2,500 locations operate globally, with waiting lists to join. Meanwhile, countless corporate "repair services" launch with superior technology, professional staff, and marketing budgets—only to close within months. The technical capability is identical. The economic logic is identical. What differs is cultural positioning. Repair Café tapped into mythological ingredients: **community connection** (neighbors helping neighbors), **resourcefulness heritage** (skills our grandparents took for granted), and **resistance narrative** ([fighting planned obsolescence](https://www.circudyne.com/manifesto/)). Corporate repair services positioned themselves as convenience solutions, missing the deeper cultural currents. **Patagonia's "Don't Buy This Jacket" campaign** demonstrates the same dynamic. While other outdoor companies launched sustainability initiatives with similar environmental benefits, Patagonia created cultural mythology around conscious consumption that made buying less feel like joining a movement rather than making a sacrifice. **Tool libraries** show this pattern repeatedly. Successful locations become community hubs where sharing tools creates social connection and environmental impact. Failed initiatives focus on transaction efficiency—better inventory systems, streamlined checkout processes—without addressing the human desire for belonging and collective action. The pattern is consistent: circular solutions succeed when they activate latent cultural aspirations. These comparatively low-tech examples point to a larger opportunity. **Latent demand for circular transformation exists everywhere.** People want regeneration over extraction, abundance over scarcity, connection over isolation. They're waiting for circular solutions that feel like cultural movements rather than shopping decisions. --- ## The Mythology Ingredients and Mimetic Activation Circular transformation offers three powerful mythological ingredients that tap directly into mimetic desire—our fundamental human tendency to want what others want, to become who others are becoming. ### Regeneration Over Extraction **The Mythological Power**: Healing rather than harming positions actors as heroes rather than villains in their own story. When **Yvon Chouinard** gave away Patagonia to fight climate change, he embodied an archetype that others immediately wanted to emulate. **Mimetic Activation**: Regenerative leaders become models of what successful, principled business looks like. Other entrepreneurs don't copy the specific tactics; they copy the identity. They want to be the kind of person who chooses healing over extraction. ### Abundance Over Scarcity **The Mythological Power**: Circular systems create expanding value pools rather than zero-sum competition. **Interface Inc.'s Mission Zero** demonstrated that ecological responsibility creates business abundance. Carbon-negative operations, reduced costs, premium positioning, employee engagement, customer loyalty. **Mimetic Activation**: Business leaders see Interface's success and want to access that same abundance: the financial returns *and* the cultural positioning as regenerative innovators. They desire the identity of creating expanding value rather than extracting finite resources. ### Connection Over Isolation **The Mythological Power**: Ecosystem thinking replaces competitive isolation with collaborative advantage. **The Buy Nothing Project** creates hyperlocal gifting networks where neighbors share resources instead of shopping individually. This demonstrates [Clayton Christensen's insight that market-creating solutions compete against non-consumption](https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/non-consumption-is-your-fiercest-competition-and-its-winning/?ref=circudyne.com) more than existing alternatives. **Mimetic Activation**: Before Buy Nothing, the "competition" wasn't retail stores—it was neighbors not sharing anything at all. People lived without items they occasionally needed rather than buying them or borrowing from strangers. Buy Nothing creates abundance through connection where isolation previously created scarcity. Members gain access to more things, and discover relationship-based prosperity that individual ownership cannot match. Families report that giving and receiving creates community bonds that extend far beyond the original exchanges. The mythology shift is profound: from "I need to buy everything I might use" to "I'm part of a community where we look after each other's needs." Because Buy Nothing competes against non-consumption, it creates expanding value pools rather than zero-sum competition. Every gift strengthens the network. Every request builds relationships. **This expanding value dynamic becomes the fuel for circular business models** that choose to apply this activation. Traditional businesses extract value from scarcity; circular businesses amplify value through connection. Platform companies, sharing economies, and collaborative consumption models all depend on this principle: **when connection creates expanding value, new revenue models become possible that couldn't exist within competitive scarcity frameworks.** --- This is why isolated circular initiatives struggle while cultural movements succeed. **Individual solutions require rational persuasion. Cultural movements activate mimetic desire.** **Douglas Holt's Cultural Mythology Framework** reveals why these ingredients are so powerful. Holt argues that brands compete in "myth markets"—addressing the gap between how people currently live and how they aspire to live. Standard marketing focuses on product benefits, but successful cultural movements tap into deeper mythological tensions. Circular transformation directly addresses three fundamental mythological gaps: - **Regeneration vs. Extraction**: People want to heal rather than harm, but linear systems force extraction - **Abundance vs. Scarcity**: People desire expanding possibilities, but competitive systems create zero-sum thinking - **Connection vs. Isolation**: People crave belonging and purpose, but individualistic consumption creates isolation Circular pioneers like Chouinard, Interface, and Buy Nothing succeed because they're resolving mythological tensions that linear business models cannot address. --- ## The World's Fair Solution and the Dark Ride Medium The 1939 World's Fair didn't just display future technologies—it created **shared experiences** where people could collectively inhabit tomorrow. The key was the "dark ride" format: immersive journeys through constructed environments that groups experienced together. **General Motors' Futurama** moved 28,000 visitors daily through a scale model of 1960 America, complete with superhighways, suburban developments, and television-equipped homes. But the magic wasn't individual amazement—it was **collective witnessing**. Families, friends, and communities moved through the same future vision simultaneously, creating shared reference points for what progress looked like. **The Mimetic Power of Shared Experience**: When people experience something remarkable individually, they examine whether it's real or desirable. When they experience it collectively—surrounded by others having the same response—the social mind overcomes critical judgment. The remarkable feels inevitable. **Dark rides trigger mimetic response through synchronized experience.** **Westinghouse's "Elektro the Robot"** demonstrations worked the same way. Crowds watched together as the robot walked, talked, and performed household tasks. Individual skeptics became collective believers because **consensus emerged naturally from shared amazement**. The sharing in turn unleashed the social permission to embrace it. **The Consensus Mechanism**: Dark rides create **subtle consensus among people who are already connected**. Families leaving Futurama didn't debate whether superhighways were good ideas—they made plans for when they would arrive. The shared experience transformed individual curiosity into collective expectation. **Holt's insight about cultural mythology becomes crucial here**: abstract myths must become tangible and shared to create cultural momentum. The World's Fair format solved this challenge by making technological mythologies experiential rather than theoretical. **Dark rides transformed cultural mythology from concept to reality.** Visitors didn't just learn about suburban prosperity or domestic automation—they felt what it would be like to live inside those myths. The immersive medium made abstract cultural aspirations concrete and shareable. When families experienced Futurama together, they collectively inhabited a mythology of progress, mobility, and technological optimism. The shared experience made the cultural narrative tangible in ways that individual persuasion never could. **Circular transformation requires shared experiences of its future success**: immersive experiences that make regeneration, abundance, and connection feel realistic and aspirational. Not marketing messages *per se*, but environments where people collectively inhabit an integrated mythology. **This is why circular transformation needs its own exposition format.** Individual case studies and corporate sustainability reports don't create cultural momentum. They inform but don't activate mimetic desire. **Circular transformation needs dark rides—experiential prototypes where connected groups can collectively inhabit circular abundance.** **Living Futures as Modern Dark Rides**: The Living Futures domain creates these shared experiences through systematic worldbuilding. Not virtual reality or individual imagination, but **collective immersion in circular realities** where groups can experience regeneration, abundance, and connection simultaneously. When families, teams, and communities move through constructed environments where circular principles feel natural and desirable, they create the shared reference points that make transformation feel inevitable rather than optional. --- ## The Connection Domain in Action The Connection domain reveals why technical and economic viability aren't sufficient for circular transformation. **Cultural momentum determines which viable transformations actually scale.** This continues the critical sequence in Circudynamics: - **Horizons** identifies what must be true through strategic reverse engineering. - **Living Futures** creates experiential prototypes where people can inhabit circular possibilities through worldbuilding. - **Catalysts** reveals when conditions align through technology convergence. - **Connection** determines how cultural resonance activates transformation through mythological activation and mimetic desire. Circular transformation contains all the ingredients needed for cultural movement—regeneration over extraction, abundance over scarcity, connection over isolation. These are archetypal aspirations that activate our deepest desires for progress and belonging. And they carry a significant payload of economic potential. Companies, communities, and cultures that create these shared experiences will become the defining forces of the circular economy era. Those that choose to rely on individual persuasion and rational argument will discover that logic alone doesn't create movements. The cultural momentum is waiting to be activated. --- ## So What? Strategic Implications for Leaders ### For Business Leaders The Connection domain reveals that cultural momentum, not technical merit, determines which circular transformations scale. Your competitive advantage lies not in having the best circular solution, but in activating the mythological ingredients that make transformation feel inevitable. **Immediate Action**: Audit your circular initiatives through the mimetic lens. Are you positioning solutions as operational improvements or cultural movements? Repair Café succeeds where corporate repair services fail because it taps into community connection and resistance narratives, not superior efficiency. **Strategic Positioning**: Frame circular transformation around the three mythological ingredients—regeneration over extraction, abundance over scarcity, connection over isolation. These are archetypal aspirations that activate mimetic desire in customers, employees, and stakeholders. **Cultural Leadership**: Become the model others want to copy. When Yvon Chouinard gave away Patagonia, he embodied regenerative leadership that other entrepreneurs immediately wanted to emulate. ### For Innovation Leaders Individual persuasion creates customers; shared experiences create movements. Innovation strategy must shift from optimizing individual touchpoints to creating collective experiences that trigger mimetic response. **Experience Design**: Apply the "dark ride" principle to innovation development. Create environments where teams, customers, and stakeholders can collectively experience circular abundance. Not virtual reality or individual demos, but shared immersion in circular realities. **Mimetic Activation**: Focus innovation resources on creating proof of concept that others naturally want to copy. Interface's Mission Zero demonstrated that ecological responsibility creates business abundance, activating imitation across industries. **Cultural Timing**: Monitor consensus-building signals among connected communities. When families, professional networks, and cultural groups begin sharing circular reference points, transformation momentum becomes self-sustaining. ### For Governance Leaders The Connection domain positions circular transformation as cultural leadership opportunity. Organizations that create shared experiences around circular principles will define the next era of business legitimacy. **Investment Strategy**: Prioritize initiatives that create collective experiences over individual efficiency improvements. The companies succeeding with circular transformation treat it as cultural movement building, not isolated capability development. **Risk Assessment**: Cultural momentum creates sustainable competitive advantages that regulatory compliance alone cannot. Organizations that activate mythological ingredients build stakeholder loyalty that transcends economic cycles and competitive pressures. **Legacy Positioning**: The circular economy offers mythological ingredients for organizational purpose that linear business models cannot match. This represents opportunity for cultural leadership that builds lasting institutional value. --- *The Practitioner Insights section explores advanced techniques for cultural momentum mapping, mythological ingredient activation, and designing shared experiences that trigger mimetic response in professional contexts.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/08/futurama_interior-1.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### When Technology Converges URL: https://www.circudyne.com/when-technology-converges/ Last updated: 2025-09-27T18:08:17.000Z # The Catalysts Domain [Last week’s Letter](https://www.circudyne.com/strategic-reverse-engineering/) explored the primacy of imaginative courage at the heart of the [Horizons](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horizons/) domain of Circudynamics. This Letter covers the next domain: [Catalysts](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/catalysts/). I’m glad it comes a few days after [Mike Newman](https://www.linkedin.com/in/newmanmi/?ref=circudyne.com) [posted his thoughts](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/newmanmi%5Fmilkman-packagingwaste-reusablepackaging-activity-7355975461425795072-0Lej?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop&rcm=ACoAAAAYCE8BPE58mZsdVCyYBe4Tx5jb8DclM7Y) on the “robot milkman” thesis that is out there. I share Mike’s perspective on appropriate remedies for some problems he diagnoses: e.g., products fit for purpose that meet the needs of people where they are. It is on his prognosis and remedy where there is some room for debate. --- This essay explains some of my thinking about how weird things are going to get with respect to technology in the service of circularity—and why robot milkmen are going to appear comparatively pedestrian in the foreseeable future. That is because the convergence of mature technologies with emerging ones are set to finally make circular solutions *strategically viable* at scale. Companies have already invested in many of the mature systems during their digitization transformation. Their application towards the higher organizing principle of circular transformation is what gives them new life and relevance. Their convergence with amazing new technologies is more than the usual march of technological progress. It's the inception of a different strategic paradigm—one that releases latent value from the existing as it mixes with unprecedented potential of the new by redirecting them toward circular value creation. > We call this technological force the Catalysts domain of Circudynamics. It is distinct but indivisible from strategy. That is why to understand it, we need to view it through a strategic lens. --- ## The Strategy Choice Cascade Framework [![Strategy Choice Cascade diagram showing five connected levels: Winning Aspiration, Where to Play, How to Win, Capabilities, and Management Systems, with arrows indicating bi-directional flow between levels](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/08/VL170602_AT.png)](https://hbr.org/2017/04/strategic-choices-need-to-be-made-simultaneously-not-sequentially?ref=circudyne.com) from **Strategic Choices Need to Be Made Simultaneously, Not Sequentially* By Roger L. Martin, HBR Roger Martin's [Strategy Choice Cascade](https://rogermartin.medium.com/decoding-the-strategy-choice-cascade-475d40555eb1?ref=circudyne.com) reveals how winning strategies operate across five integrated, simultaneous, and bi-directional levels: **Integrated**: Each level must reinforce every other level **Simultaneous**: All levels must be considered together, not sequentially **Bi-directional**: Insights flow both up and down the cascade The five levels are: 1. **Winning Aspiration** \- What does winning look like? 2. **Where To Play** \- In what markets/segments will we compete? 3. **How To Win** \- What's our competitive advantage in those spaces? 4. **Capabilities** \- What must we be distinctively good at? 5. **Management Systems** \- What systems and technologies enable our capabilities? I haven’t found a better guide for understanding the strategy of circular transformation. As a technology entrepreneur selling new-to-world systems, I witnessed a recurring pattern in client behavior: organizations would shop the technology before conclusively defining the part it would play across the Strategy Choice Cascade. 💡 The prevalence of this dynamic fits the facts of why circular retrofits consistently fail to scale. They prioritize Management Systems while leaving the upper levels of the cascade for later moves. Some middle managers felt their job was done when applying their budget to a systems purchase and pushing it up the cascade (and out of their department) as quickly as possible. In the same way, senior leaders often felt the best boost they could give to (and the quickest win they could get from) their Winning Aspiration would be to acquire an amazing system in support of it. All checkers. No chess. The prevalence of this dynamic fits the facts of why circular retrofits consistently fail to scale. They prioritize Management Systems while leaving the upper levels of the cascade for later moves. True circular transformation requires curating the entire cascade around circular principles. --- ## What We Have Now: The Linear Cascade Absent the circular transformation imperative, existing technology convergence supports a fundamentally extractive (and reactive) strategic paradigm: ### Management Systems (Support Technologies) - **IoT sensors**: Monitor production efficiency and asset utilization - **Machine learning**: Optimize operations and predict maintenance - **Machine vision**: Automate quality control and defect detection - **Distributed ledgers**: Track ownership and verify transactions - **Production automation**: Reduce labor costs and increase throughput - **Material passports**: Document provenance for compliance - **Advanced analytics**: Extract insights from customer and operational data - **Advanced materials**: Smart, responsive, self-healing, and biodegradable materials - **Edge computing**: Real-time processing enabling immediate response and 1:1 interface relationships ### Capabilities - **Omnichannel experiences**: Reach customers across multiple touchpoints - **Supply chain management**: Optimize cost, speed, and reliability - **Customer acquisition**: Drive traffic and convert prospects efficiently - **Brand building**: Create preference and premium pricing power ### How To Win - **Cost reduction**: Lean operations, automation, globalization - **Disintermediation**: Remove intermediaries to capture their margins - **Scale advantages**: Leverage fixed costs across larger volumes - **Network effects**: Create switching costs and competitive moats ### Where To Play - **Direct-to-consumer channels**: Bypass retailers and distributors - **Global markets**: Access low-cost production and large customer bases - **High-growth segments**: Focus on fast-expanding categories - **Premium niches**: Serve customers willing to pay higher margins ### Winning Aspiration **Make more money by reducing costs and eliminating competition.** Build defensive moats around proprietary value. Benefits accrue primarily to the producer through margin expansion and market share protection. ## Unlocking Hidden Value in Existing Investments Companies that redirect existing technological investments like these toward circular transformation discover these mature systems support new capabilities, How To Win strategies, and Where To Play options. When used in concert with emerging systems boasting super intelligence and nearly complete knowledge, existing technologies enable ecosystem coordination they were never designed for. Also, they contribute genuine value to a new set of ecosystem elements, especially consumers who increasingly value purpose, sustainability, and other benefits like durability and lower ownership costs. The transformation isn't about rip and replace. Applying mature technologies around the higher organizing principle of circular value creation rather than linear value extraction unleashes a state change in the existing infrastructure. That’s why prospects like the robot milkman are not so outlandish (even if that form factor itself might not be their likely expression). --- ## The State Change The technological imperative shift from extraction to circulation gives rise to a fundamental state change in how business operates—like the transition from steam to electricity, or from analog to digital. During state changes, the same underlying technologies can produce radically different outcomes depending on the strategic framework applied. What matters isn't the technology itself, but how it's integrated into value creation systems. ## What Is Coming Soon: The Circular Cascade To the list of mature technologies above (and others like them), we can add today’s emerging technology convergence enabling a fundamentally different strategic paradigm, one that is circular and proactive: ### Management Systems (Enabling Technologies) - **Super intelligence**: AI systems that optimize across entire ecosystems, not just individual companies - **Virtually omniscient systems**: Real-time visibility into all material flows, stakeholder needs, and environmental impacts - **Robotics**: Automated reverse logistics, disassembly, and remanufacturing at scale - **Digital twins**: Accessible, actionable models of entire ecosystems and value chains - **Autonomous systems**: Self-optimizing circular flows without human intervention - **Regulatory compliance infrastructure**: Coverage, oversight, and transparency systems that facilitate accountability for material and energy flows across ecosystems directly and indirectly impacted by producer actions ### Capabilities - **Reverse logistics**: Seamlessly capture, process, and reintegrate returned materials - **Deep stakeholder relationships**: Automate 1:1 connections with customers, suppliers, communities, and ecosystems - **Ecosystem orchestration**: Coordinate value creation across multiple participants - **Predictive lifecycle management**: Anticipate and prevent waste before it occurs - **Value flow optimization**: Maximize benefit distribution across all ecosystem participants ### How To Win - **Elevated product-market fit**: Solutions that are both performant and mindful of customers' higher-order needs (self-actualization, purpose, connection) - **Integrated functional architecture**: Seamless coordination across all organizational domains - **Long-term optimization**: Planning cycles that account for full lifecycle impacts and benefits - **Ecosystem value creation**: Generate benefits for all participants, not just the producer ### Where To Play **Where it makes sense according to How To Win and Winning Aspiration.** Not where markets are largest or costs are lowest, but where circular principles create the most value for all ecosystem participants. This might mean local production, specialized materials, or collaborative consumption models. ### Winning Aspiration **Generate and capture value up and down the entire value chain.** This is the fundamental shift. Circular transformation appeals to all ecosystem players because its purpose is to create value flow, not value extraction. Sustainability and enterprise value benefits emerge naturally from this approach. --- ## The WebVan Lesson To understand why this convergence moment matters, consider the cautionary tale of WebVan during the internet bubble. WebVan had the right technology—sophisticated logistics, real-time tracking, automated warehouses. Structurally, it looked remarkably similar to what Amazon Prime Delivery accomplishes today, which is a raging success. The difference wasn't technological capability. WebVan positioned last-mile delivery as an isolated capability, a standalone service competing on convenience and speed. Amazon Prime positioned the same capability as an element in an integrated value chain—part of a comprehensive ecosystem that included content, cloud services, marketplace, and subscription loyalty. WebVan failed because it optimized individual components. Amazon Prime succeeds because it optimizes its entire system. In this way, today's circular economy initiatives often resemble WebVan—sophisticated technologies positioned as isolated capabilities rather than integrated ecosystem elements. They fail not because circular principles are wrong, but because they're not embedded in coherent and dynamic Strategy Choice Cascades. To paraphrase Steve Jobs: they are features, not products. The companies succeeding with circular transformation—Patagonia, Interface, IKEA—treat circularity not as an add-on capability, but as their fundamental Winning Aspiration that informs every level of their strategic cascade. --- ## The Circular State Change When producers shift from value extraction to value circulation, they don't just change their business model. They change the fundamental state of their relationship with ecosystems. In the extraction state, success requires building defensive moats around proprietary value. In the circulation state, success requires creating expanding value pools that benefit all ecosystem participants. This state change is becoming possible—and profitable—because the convergence of mature and emerging technologies around the higher organizing principle of circular transformation makes ecosystem coordination more efficient than component optimization for the first time in business history. Imagine a circular last-mile bi-directional logistics system that captures, sorts, and redistributes materials as seamlessly as Amazon Prime delivers products. Such a system would make today's delivery infrastructure look archaic. The strategic convergence we're experiencing now—applying mature and emerging technologies around circular transformation as a Winning Aspiration—is creating the conditions for that state change. The question is which companies will recognize and act strategically on the circular opportunities their existing investments—combined with the promise of emerging technologies—have made. --- ## The Catalysts Domain in Action The Catalysts domain of Circudynamics focuses on recognizing and timing these convergence moments. Not just identifying individual technologies, but understanding when the application of mature technologies around higher organizing principles creates systematic advantages. Current convergence indicators include: - **Consumer expectations** that linear solutions underserve - **Investor capital** looking for new ideas about the next big thing - **Technology maturity** that makes circular operations profitable using existing investments - **Emerging technology** looking for jobs that need to be done - **Supply chain pressures** that favor resilient, localized systems - **Regulatory frameworks** that call for systemic risk mitigation measures through coverage, oversight, and transparency for material and energy flows This last point is important: regulations aren't just compliance burdens, but catalysts that enforce accountability infrastructure. Companies that build transparent, trackable circular systems use regulatory requirements as competitive advantages—demonstrating ecosystem responsibility that builds trust with all stakeholders. Companies that recognize these convergence moments—and curate their Strategy Choice Cascade around circular transformation as their Winning Aspiration—will become the defining brands of the circular economy era. Those that simply upgrade their Management Systems while maintaining extractive Winning Aspirations will discover that better technology can't solve fundamental strategic misalignment. --- ## So What? Strategic Implications for Leaders ### For Business Leaders The Catalysts domain reveals that circular transformation isn't about acquiring new technologies—it's about applying your existing digital investments around a fundamentally different Winning Aspiration. **Immediate Action**: Audit your current Management Systems (IoT, ML, analytics, distributed ledgers) and ask: "How could these enable ecosystem value creation rather than just operational efficiency?" Consider redirecting those mature technologies toward circular principles. **Strategic Advantage**: Your competitors are likely treating circular initiatives as isolated capabilities rather than elements in an integrated Strategy Choice Cascade. This creates first-mover advantages for companies that curate their entire cascade around circular transformation. **Risk Mitigation**: Regulatory frameworks aren't compliance burdens—they're opportunities to build accountability infrastructure that demonstrates ecosystem responsibility and builds stakeholder trust. ### For Innovation Leaders Technology convergence isn't the story—strategic convergence is. The same digital systems that optimize linear extraction can enable circular coordination when applied around the higher organizing principle of ecosystem value creation. **Framework Application**: Use the Strategy Choice Cascade to evaluate circular initiatives. If they only touch Management Systems and Capabilities (bottom two levels), they'll fail to scale. Successful circular transformation touches all five levels, with circular value creation as the Winning Aspiration. **Investment Strategy**: Focus innovation resources on ecosystem coordination capabilities rather than individual technology improvements. Opportunities lie in merging mature technologies with emerging ones to create things like circular last-mile bi-directional logistics systems that make today's infrastructure look archaic. **Timing Recognition**: Current convergence indicators—consumer purpose expectations, sustainable capital flows, supply chain resilience pressures—create systematic advantages for early adopters who curate complete Strategy Choice Cascades. ### For Governance Leaders The Catalysts domain positions circular transformation as systematic competitive advantage, not sustainability obligation. It draws latent value from existing investments, and provides purpose for new ones. **Board Oversight**: Evaluate circular initiatives by their Strategy Choice Cascade integration. Isolated Management System upgrades (the WebVan approach) will fail. Integrated cascade curation (the Amazon Prime approach) will create sustained advantage. **Risk Assessment**: Companies maintaining extractive Winning Aspirations while upgrading technologies face strategic misalignment risks. The state change from extraction to circulation requires governance frameworks that support ecosystem value creation. **Performance Metrics**: Track value flow across ecosystems, not just internal operational metrics. Circular success requires accountability for material and energy flows that extend beyond traditional enterprise boundaries. --- *The Practitioner Insights section explores the meta-lessons from developing the Catalysts domain, including how to recognize convergence moments, avoid the "technology shopping" trap, and build circular transformation confidence in skeptical organizations.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/08/futurama_interior.jpeg) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Strategic Reverse Engineering URL: https://www.circudyne.com/strategic-reverse-engineering/ Last updated: 2025-09-27T18:07:21.000Z ## Why This Moment Demands Imaginative Courage, Not Operational Certainty After [exploring worldbuilding as the emotional catalyst last week](https://www.circudyne.com/the-worldbuilding-advantage/), several readers asked about the strategic challenges: "How do you make these [built worlds](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/living-futures/) economically viable? How do you bridge from circular futures to profitable realities?" That's why the subject of the fourth Circudyne Letter is *Strategic Reverse Engineering: Why This Moment Demands Imaginative Courage, Not Operational Certainty*. This explores the [Horizons](https://www.circudyne.com/tag/horizons/) domain of [Circudynamics](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-and-science-of-circular-transformation/)—where proven strategic frameworks become essential scaffolding for navigating territory that has no precedent. --- Strategy worked differently in the era of [Lean transformation](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/). Toyota's example was proof that Lean worked. Once their success became undeniable, the work of the strategist meant faithful implementation of proven patterns. Today's circular transformation demands something different: the imaginative courage to envision new realities and reverse-engineer pathways to them. The distinction matters because it changes everything about how the strategic process works, what capabilities organizations need, and which leaders will succeed in building circular futures. The received wisdom of today’s approach to strategy assumes an abundance of knowable things. You can analyze existing markets, benchmark against competitors, and optimize proven business models. Contemporary strategy consultants excel at this analytical work—finding patterns in data and implementing best practices with operational certainty. This approach created enormous value during the Lean transformation era, when Toyota provided the exemplar case study that others could copy with disciplined execution. Success came from recognizing proven patterns and implementing them with minimal deviation. The premium was on the ability to paint inside established lines. Circular transformation has no "Circular Toyota" to point to as definitive proof of concept. There's no established playbook to implement, no proven patterns to recognize and repeat. Roger Martin identified the roots of this challenge in [“Overcoming the Pervasive Analytical Blunder of Strategists”](https://rogermartin.medium.com/overcoming-the-pervasive-analytical-blunder-of-strategists-a5a4c52289b4?ref=circudyne.com). He distinguished between two kinds of knowledge: *episteme* (systematic knowledge that can be taught and replicated) and *phronesis* (practical wisdom that must be developed through experience with novel situations). Lean transformation succeeded because it became *episteme*—systematic knowledge that could be codified, taught, and implemented with operational certainty. Leaders could point to Toyota's results, study their methods, and apply proven principles with confidence. Circular transformation, for now, remains *phronesis*—practical wisdom that requires imaginative courage to navigate genuinely new territory. There are no established metrics to optimize, no proven business models to copy, no benchmark companies to emulate. 💡 The premium has shifted from operational certainty to imaginative courage. Success no longer comes from painting inside established lines—it comes from a fresh perspective. But there is something more valuable than Toyota's playbook: the example of how they approached their original problem. They didn't copy someone else's methods—they had the imaginative courage to envision a new way of creating value, then reverse-engineered pathways to make those visions a reality. The premium has shifted from operational certainty to imaginative courage. Success no longer comes from painting inside established lines—it comes from a fresh perspective. Then, Toyota's playbook was the North Star. Now what matters is the courage of their vision and determination to change things. This is the fundamental difference between Lean transformation before and circular transformation now. That difference requires a fundamentally different strategic capability set: imagination, scenario generation, and empathetic communication. But these creative forces need proven frameworks as scaffolding to organize practical wisdom into actionable pathways. The more uncharted the territory, the more important strategic frameworks become. When you can't rely on precedent, you need systematic approaches that guide imaginative thinking toward viable outcomes. Here are two examples that come up daily in my practice: **Jobs To Be Done (Clayton Christensen)** surfaces customer needs that are better served by circular solutions. It identifies the mythology gaps that worldbuilding must fill, showing what people are trying to accomplish in their lives that linear business models leave unsatisfied. **"What Would Have To Be True" (Roger Martin)** provides systematic reverse engineering from desired outcomes. It works backwards from built worlds to excavate the conditions, partnerships, and business model innovations that would need to exist for circular abundance to become profitable reality. Together, frameworks like these create strategic confidence for investing in discontinuous futures. They advance imaginative courage into systematic exploration of viable pathways. > We call this domain *Horizons* because it empowers the leader to look up towards the distance. It confers on them the courage to embrace their destiny. ### Horizons' Three Imagination Layers Strategic reverse engineering for circular transformation follows three layers, in sequence: **First, cultural imagination**: What mythology gap exists? What job needs to be done better? This layer identifies the human needs that linear business models fail to serve, revealing where circular solutions can create genuine competitive advantage. **Second, ecosystem imagination**: What partnerships and infrastructure would have to be true to serve that need? This layer maps the collaborative relationships, technological capabilities, and cultural shifts required to deliver circular solutions at scale. **Third, economic imagination**: What business models would be fit for purpose within that ecosystem? This layer designs revenue models, cost structures, and value propositions that work within the circular ecosystem to profitably serve the identified human needs. The sequence matters because it starts with human truth (the job to be done), *then* builds the ecosystem required to serve that truth, *then* designs business models that thrive within that ecosystem. ## So What? **For Business Leaders:** Strategic reverse engineering creates competitive advantage through systematic imagination. While competitors try in vain to benchmark against non-existent precedents, you're building the capabilities that will define the next era of business competition. The cultural imagination layer is crucial for executives. It reveals, for example, why customers claim to want sustainability but don't buy it—linear business models make compromises that circular solutions could otherwise serve beautifully. It reveals strategic opportunities disguised as marketing problems. Investment confidence for discontinuous outcomes flow from systematic reverse engineering, not precedent analysis. When you can trace clear pathways from built worlds back to profitable business models, circular transformation goes from sustainability theater to strategic optionality. **For Innovation Leaders:** The ecosystem imagination layer furnishes the breakthrough insights that siloed thinking cannot generate. Circular transformation requires collaborative innovation across traditional boundaries inside the organization and out, creating opportunities for platform strategies and network effects. Strategic frameworks ensure innovation teams pursue solutions that serve genuine human need, even when those solutions are new to the world. *Starting* with Jobs To Be Done ensures that circular innovations evoke emotional desire on top of intellectual understanding. The reverse engineering process reveals technology development priorities and partnership strategies simultaneously. When you understand *what would have to be true* for circular abundance, you can invest in capabilities and relationships that will become essential. **For Governance Leaders:** Strategic reverse engineering reduces transformation risk through systematic scenario planning. It resolves concerns about big bets that happen to result in sustainability benefits. It provides proprietary, practical navigation to future-proof outcomes. The economic imagination layer creates business model options that traditional strategic planning would never discover. When you design for circular ecosystems rather than linear competition, entirely new revenue models become possible. Most importantly, this approach builds organizational capabilities for ongoing innovation rather than dependence on external expertise. Teams learn to think imaginatively about novel situations rather than just shop for rote approaches. **The First-Mover Advantage:** Organizations that master strategic reverse engineering will become the exemplar for circular transformation—what Toyota was for Lean—that others eventually copy. They'll establish the business model innovations, ecosystem partnerships, and cultural positioning that define circular economy success. But unlike the Lean era, first-movers won't benefit from operational excellence alone—they'll enjoy ecosystem advantages that are much harder for competitors to replicate. Building the collaborative relationships and cultural mythology that enable circular transformation creates sustained competitive advantage that operational improvements alone cannot match. --- *The rest of this essay covers practitioner insights on developing strategic reverse engineering capabilities, including why traditional strategists struggle with imagination-based work and the meta-lesson about following courageous examples rather than operational playbooks.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/07/futurama_interior-3.jpeg) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Worldbuilding Advantage URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-worldbuilding-advantage/ Last updated: 2025-09-27T17:17:50.000Z ## Navigate, Don’t Iterate, To Your North Star [Last week, I introduced the business case for considering circular transformation as Lean 2.0](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/), ending with the promise to explore how to "put your customers on the street corner in your circular future." Several readers asked about this worldbuilding reference—what it means and why it's essential for circular transformation success. That's why I'm writing this third Circudyne Letter on *The Worldbuilding Advantage: Navigate, Don’t Iterate, To Your North Star*. Before diving into the specific domains of Circudynamics in coming weeks, it's crucial to understand why worldbuilding serves as the emotional catalyst that makes all other transformation work possible. --- Every brand faces the same challenge: filling the cultural mythology gap that determines whether people see you as essential or irrelevant. The easy, and by now standard, path uses jingles, celebrity collaborations, or other whizzy gizmos. But there is something far more powerful. Think about the marketing that has changed culture. Coca-Cola's Hilltop ad didn't sell soda—it showed a microcosm of a healed society. Apple's 1984 commercial didn't explain computers—it hinted at liberation from gray dystopia. The "Think Different" campaign depicted zero computers—as it reacquainted us with the value of genius, reminding us that “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” These brands filled the cultural mythology gap with complete visions that resolved deep societal contradictions. *They created believable worlds where their solutions made sense.* ### Introduction to Worldbuilding Worldbuilding synthesizes influences from cinema, theater, theme parks, and video games—disciplines that require immersive experiences to tell stories. As Alex McDowell, the pioneer production designer who captured worldbuilding in a bottle and gave it a name, discovered: the story and the world are co-created. The story populates the world, and the world advances the story. The process begins by assembling a think tank of subject matter experts to build out world elements that advance a specific narrative. In the case of brands, this narrative is a strategic element, like Roger Martin's "Winning Aspiration." For circular transformation, it might take the shape of something like "what if our brand played a fundamental role in a circular future that was aspirational and delightful?" The facilitator's role is to set ground rules and pose provocative questions that create productive friction between different subject matter experts. As the process unfolds, group curiosity overtakes individual ego. The world begins to emerge not from any single perspective, but from the collision of expertise across disciplines. The task is complete when participants share the feeling of knowing what it's like "to live on a street corner in the world," as McDowell puts it. Once formed and connected, the story/strategy and world advance and grow together. Each provides a point of reference and inspiration for the other as they evolve. Worldbuilding is a historical key ingredient of transformation that has been left out of circularity playbooks. That is a crippling oversight, because the circular economy represents a step change from our current reality. Its absence on the scene explains why circular initiatives fail to excite genuine customer demand. This in turn leaves executives wondering why consumers claim to want sustainability but won't pay for it. This leads to post-mortem analysis prescribing “consumer education.” Worldbuilding does more than educate. It immerses its subject in a holistically rendered reality. Created with intention and good taste, the built world tantalizes its audience, overcoming behavioral biases rooted in conservatism and fear. Circular transformation isn't incremental improvement—it's a state change into undiscovered country. The incrementalist approach provides A/B test results that optimize within existing paradigms. That’s the wrong set of navigation tools for this territory. Which would you prefer to have in new territory: an unending series of binary test results, or a treasure map? When brands are performing at their best, they fill the gap between how people *actually* live and how they *want* to live. In the context of circular transformation, there are no totems to borrow. We live in a linear world. Our circular world lies in the future. Therefore an authentic mythology about circular solutions has to be *built*. Worldbuilding provides both the navigation tools for transformation and a nutritionally complete cultural mythology that creates authentic competitive advantage. Worldbuilding creates complete experiential worlds where circular solutions feel natural, desirable, and inevitable. The vision is credible because it demonstrates how circular abundance actually works. That believability activates an emotional response. > We call this domain Living Futures because it doesn't just describe what could be—it creates experiences where people can actually live in those futures before they exist. These aren't static visions but dynamic worlds that breathe with possibility. I'm amazed this approach hasn't yet been applied at scale for circular transformation, because it offers five systematic advantages: **First, worldbuilding releases emotional energy** that powers unified vision between teams and stakeholders while shifting demand in a public hungry for a better world. When people experience circular abundance, they develop emotional desire that transcends intellectual acceptance. **Second, worldbuilding accesses authentic sources of comparative advantage and unique capabilities** within organizations. It reveals what makes a brand see and behave like people, not a monolith with a logo. This authenticity has incalculable value and resonance. It is hard for competitors to replicate what emerges from your organization's genuine culture and capabilities. **Third, worldbuilding is simultaneously competitive and cooperative.** It stokes the fires of creativity when different experts participate in the process and generates unpredictable output that no single discipline could create alone. The best insights emerge from the collision of perspectives. **Fourth, worldbuilding operates as a simultaneous process,** just like Roger Martin's Strategy Choice Cascade. Teams can work on strategy, operations, and culture simultaneously because they share a coherent vision of where they're going. **Fifth, the world that's built—and the "street corner" you put participants into—adds a new dimension to your brand.** It unifies and informs. It inspires and sells. It becomes the organizing principle that makes all other business decisions clearer and more powerful. ## So What? **For Business Leaders:** Worldbuilding isn't creative luxury—it's competitive necessity for circular transformation. When you're asking customers to abandon familiar linear solutions for circular alternatives they've never experienced, explanation isn't enough. You need experiential prototyping that lets them feel what circular abundance is like. This creates the treasure map you need for undiscovered country. Traditional market research tells you how to optimize within existing paradigms. Worldbuilding reveals entirely new value propositions that emerge when circular solutions meet genuine human needs. The cultural mythology you create becomes a moat that competitors struggle to cross. They can copy your features, but they can't replicate the authentic world that emerged from your organization's unique culture and capabilities. **For Innovation Leaders:** Worldbuilding solves the fundamental paradox of circular innovation: customers can't want what they can't see, but they need to experience benefits before you can create solutions at scale. I experienced this power firsthand during a worldbuilding session I facilitated for Super South, a regional sustainability conference held in Atlanta earlier this year. The goal was to create "a delightful day in 2035 in a world that was circular and distinctively Southern." What surprised me wasn't just the quality of ideas that emerged—it was the release of positive emotion in the room. Worldbuilding doesn't just build a substrate for imaginative ideas; it also clears away the cruft of modern life that accretes when we spend too much time looking down. When people can lift their heads and envision better futures together, something profound happens. They remember why the work matters. The process generates breakthrough insights by creating safe spaces for "what if" thinking. When teams can explore circular futures free from performance management theater, opportunities emerge that spreadsheet analysis doesn’t conjure. Most importantly, worldbuilding enables you to identify which customer jobs-to-be-done are better served by circular solutions. It reveals the gap between desired lifestyles and existing realities, then shows how to return captured value from circular transformation back to consumers. **For Governance Leaders:** Worldbuilding provides systematic risk reduction through shared vision alignment. When leadership teams, employees, and stakeholders can all stand on the same "street corner" in your circular future, strategic decisions become clearer and execution becomes faster. The process creates measurable business value even before products launch. Unified vision reduces internal friction, improves decision quality, and enables faster response to market changes. Roadmaps cohere. Product-market fit becomes an active verb and not merely a metric. [These organizational health benefits mirror the second-order effects that made Lean transformation profitable beyond operational improvements.](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/) The worlds you build become strategic assets that appreciate over time. Unlike marketing campaigns that require constant refreshing, authentic worldbuilding deepens and strengthens as your circular solutions mature and prove the vision correct. --- *The rest of this essay covers practitioner insights on developing worldbuilding methodologies for circular transformation, including how to overcome resistance to experiential prototyping.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/07/futurama_interior-2.jpeg) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Circularity is Lean 2.0 URL: https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/ Last updated: 2025-09-27T14:17:45.000Z ## The Next Systematic Competitive Advantage [After introducing Circudynamics last week](https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-and-science-of-circular-transformation/), I've been asked by several readers about the business case for circular transformation. Leaders want to understand not just the methodology, but why they should invest precious resources in what many see as sustainability theater. That's why I'm writing my second Circudyne Letter piece on *Circularity is Lean 2.0: The Next Systematic Competitive Advantage*. The most compelling way to understand circular transformation's business potential is through the lens of the last systematic transformation that separated market winners from losers—Lean principles in the 1980s-1990s. --- The Toyota story is one of the great transformation stories. Over time, the common conception of it has been distilled down to: they had quality problems, which led to heightened costs from rework. They invented and implemented the precursor to what would become known as Lean. Quality improved. Costs went down. Simple operational improvement. There’s nothing wrong with this memory. But it doesn’t capture the full story. And in that full story lies the key to major opportunities today, even after the era of Lean transformation has come and gone. Toyota did have a waste problem. This waste manifested in two ways: high costs from inefficiency and rework, plus low quality that limited market access. The Toyota Production Method was created to address both systematically. Toyota justified the transformation by promising to capture *quantitative* benefits—the cost savings from eliminating waste and inefficiency. But enormous benefits flowed from the *qualitative* benefits that followed. When Toyota achieved superior quality, it opened new markets. "Made in Japan" went from epithet to signifier of excellence, freeing Toyota to move upmarket into luxury categories and fundamentally reshape global automotive competition. Today, many leaders remain skeptical of circular transformation because they see it as a sustainability cost center, not the source of competitive advantage. They've watched companies spend millions on circular initiatives that deliver modest environmental gains while adding operational complexity. This is the mistake skeptics made about Lean in the 1980s. Circular transformation offers more than mere operational improvement. It's about systematic reorganization around different principles of value creation that generates sustained competitive advantage. The linear economy is currently where we live, and it has a waste problem. Linear business models ignore waste that circular models acknowledge and address *systematically*. Circular models define the ecosystem more broadly than the traditional value chain. Lean addressed internal waste systematically, and external waste *incidentally*. Circular transformation takes a systematic approach to ALL waste—inside the value chain and beyond. ![Circular transformation mirrors Toyota's Lean success: systematic waste elimination creates competitive advantage beyond operations.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/07/2050302-concept-diagram.png) Value capture under circularity has a categorical advantage over that of Lean. ©Circudyne By architecture and philosophy alone, circular transformation is "Lean 2.0”. It applies the same systematic thinking—but expands the scope. Circular transformation inverts Toyota's recipe while using the same ingredients. Toyota's sequence: quantitative justification (cost savings) led to qualitative benefits (quality) that enabled market transformation. Circular transformation sequence: qualitative justification leads, then quantitative benefits follow in proportion to ecosystem integration level. The scope advantage is enormous. Lean optimized value chains within enterprise boundaries. Circular transformation optimizes entire ecosystems. More waste to eliminate means more opportunity for systematic competitive advantage. Circular transformation is new, but the experience with Lean provides decades of data proving the transformative benefits of systems-minded leadership. --- *The rest of this essay covers the proven second-order effects that made Lean transformation profitable beyond operational improvements, plus implementation guidance for different leadership types and the discovery process that makes circular transformation successful.* --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/07/futurama_interior-1.jpeg) Excerpted image from “Futurama,” 1939, in the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair Collection. Museum of the City of New York _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Art and Science of Circular Transformation URL: https://www.circudyne.com/the-art-and-science-of-circular-transformation/ Last updated: 2025-09-27T14:16:56.000Z ## Introducing "Circudynamics." People want to understand why circular transformation matters, and how to achieve it systematically. That's why I'm writing my first Circudyne Letter piece on Introducing Circudynamics: The Art and Science of Circular Transformation. Before diving into the compelling case for circular economy transformation in future pieces, it makes sense to establish the integrated framework that makes such transformation possible. The Circudyne Letter exists to share this transformation architecture with the growing community of circular economy builders—those ready to move from exploring possibilities to building realities. This publication is dedicated to them. --- Five years ago, I made a big decision: to walk away from a career in managing leading-edge technology startups to focus entirely on circular economy transformation. The catalyst wasn't idealism—it was pattern recognition. The circular economy field had a problem. Despite its transformational potential, practitioners were treating it like a sustainability initiative rather than a business transformation methodology. The focus was fixed on back-of-house operations—supply chains, procurement, resource efficiency—while the front-of-house was underserved. Consumer preferences, experience design, and shared vision were afterthoughts. [I saw the potential for circularity to succeed like Lean](https://www.circudyne.com/circularity-is-lean-2-0/). Lean and circularity took similar systems-level approaches to eliminating waste. The difference was how much of the value chain they took into account: Lean limited itself to addressing the space between supplier and distributor, while circularity looked at the whole thing. While working on Lean transformation engagements earlier in my career as a strategy consultant, I'd witnessed remarkable consistency of results. To be sure, companies that mastered Lean principles enjoyed the headline efficiency benefits. What was striking was the second-order benefits: better organizational health that correlated to top-tier enterprise value. If it worked for Lean, why couldn’t it work for circular? But it wasn’t so simple. After five years of experience with hundreds of CE practitioners, I kept encountering the same frustrations. Leaders would ask for metrics and KPIs to measure a future that hadn't been invented yet. They were struggling to fill in the blanks of a half-century old playbook that was looking increasingly obsolete: incrementalism wasn't helping them take the transformational leap that circular economy demands. They knew Buckminster Fuller was right—"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete"—but they lacked the integrated approach to build that new model. Something new was needed. That's why I developed an integrated transformational architecture that gives brands the tools they need to build an aspirational and delightful future based on circularity—one that future-proofs them for the world to come. I call it “Circudynamics.” Circudynamics integrates five domains that traditional sustainability approaches treat in isolation: **Horizons** (strategy) reveals what would have to be true for circular futures to emerge, working backwards from aspirational outcomes rather than forward from current constraints. **Living Futures** (worldbuilding) creates experiential prototypes where stakeholders (especially consumers) can actually feel what circular abundance is like, moving beyond abstract benefits to visceral desire. **Catalysts** (technology and progress) maps the technological, sociological, and economic forces converging to make circular models not just possible, but profitable. **Connection** (culture) reads the momentum and relationship dynamics that determine whether transformation actually takes hold. And **Craft** (integrated organization) weaves it all into beautiful holistic solutions that are so coherent, consumers don't just accept circular approaches—they prefer them. This isn't another framework for sustainability teams to implement in isolation. Circudynamics recognizes that circular transformation requires the same systematic integration that made Lean revolutionary: when strategy, operations, culture, and brand all reinforce the same principles, you don't just improve—you fundamentally outcompete linear business models. Because waste is waste. The *art* (phronesis) lies in navigating situations that are genuinely new—where traditional metrics don't exist yet and you can't iterate your way to breakthrough insights. The *science* (episteme) provides systematic knowledge intentionally designed to serve breakthrough vision rather than optimize existing operations. This is [The Circudyne Letter](https://www.circudyne.com/blog/). Published weekly, for now it is the primary channel for syndicating the transformational architecture that is Circudynamics. It is an act of love, and a gesture of support, for the thousands of people who are building our circular future. *The rest of this essay covers how different types of leaders can apply Circudynamics to their transformation challenges, plus the practitioner insights from five years of developing this methodology.* --- ![Visitors in formal 1930s attire seated in the curved, modernist viewing area of the Futurama pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair, looking down at an expansive miniature landscape model below. The streamlined architecture features flowing organic curves, and guests appear captivated by the detailed diorama displaying a vision of future America.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4d/13/4d13b24a-b5de-4d53-956f-67061642aed8/content/images/2025/07/futurama_interior.jpeg) Excerpted image from “Futurama,” 1939, in the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair Collection. Museum of the City of New York _This post is for subscribers only._