Strategy is the thing you do on purpose

There’s a version of “strategy” that’s just a deck nobody opens. There’s another version that’s a series of small, defensible choices made by people close to the work. The difference matters.

The first kind is theater. The second kind is the actual thing.

A useful test: if you walked up to someone making the choice and asked why this and not the other one, could they answer in a sentence? Not a paragraph. Not a two-by-two. A sentence.

If yes, that’s strategy. If no, it’s a vibe.

Most of what gets called strategy is a vibe. That’s fine sometimes. Vibes are underrated. But it’s worth being honest about which one you’re operating with — because the moves you make are different, and the way you’d defend them is different, and the way you’d change them is different.

More on this. Probably for a while.