Decision intelligence, documented

How experienced people actually made hard calls — and what happened next.

Every case separates what was known at the time from what became known later. You see the options that were rejected, the evidence that was missing, and the outcome measured against a stated period. Not war stories. Structured reasoning you can compare against your own situation.

9
Structured cases in the library
12
Required fields on every published case
4
Separate trust labels, not one vague badge
2
Cases readable in full without joining

What makes a case different from an essay

The decision timeline

A decision can be reasonable and still produce a poor outcome. A good outcome can be luck. Separating these three moments is what stops a past decision from looking obvious once you already know how it ended.

What was known at the time

The information actually available to the decision-maker — including what was missing.

  • Hard numbers and their measurement period
  • Constraints on budget, time and authority
  • Named unknowns and untested assumptions

What was decided and why

The reasoning built on that information, including the options that were rejected and the reason each was rejected.

  • Decision criteria stated in advance
  • Trade-offs the decision-maker accepted
  • Risk tolerance, named honestly

What became known later

The outcome and subsequent evidence — kept visibly separate so it cannot be read back into the reasoning.

  • Results over a stated measurement period
  • Unintended consequences
  • What the creator would do differently

Recently published

Start here

Product strategyPaymentsFree to read

We killed a feature after six months of build. The reasoning held; the timing did not.

Adoption sat at 4% of target after two quarters. Four options on the table, three rejected. The decision to discontinue was defensible on the evidence available — the error was waiting two months longer than the criteria required.

M. OkonjoVP ProductHigh stakesWorked as intended11 min
HiringSoftware / SaaSFree to read

One senior engineer or two juniors on the same budget

A Series B team with one open requisition and a delivery commitment eight months out. The decision turned on who would do the mentoring, and that question had no good answer.

Anonymous (H7)Head of EngineeringModerate stakesMixed9 min
FundraisingSoftware / SaaS

We took a down round instead of an acquisition offer. Eighteen months later the company closed.

An offer on the table at roughly half the last valuation, against a bridge at a 60% markdown. The reasoning was documented at the time. It did not survive contact with the following year.

S. LindqvistCo-founder and CEOExistential stakesDid not work14 min
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Cases grouped by the shape of the problem, not the industry

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Filter by decision type, industry, stakes and documented outcome. A logistics procurement case and a SaaS pricing case can share the same underlying trade-off — fixed budget line against a trending input market — and the library is built so you can find that.

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