Annotations (12)
“We quoted turbine blades for our supersonic engine from the supply chain. 3D-printed blade with post-processing. Quote: $1 million for one engine's worth of blades, 6 months delivery. I asked what's happening for 6 months. You wait your turn on the machine, then the machine goes, then that's in one factory, then there's a different factory in a different state for one post-processing step, then another factory in another state for another step.”— Blake Scholl
Operations & Execution · Technology & Engineering · Creativity & Innovation
DUR_ENDURING
24-hour iteration unlocks design freedom
“Concorde and Apollo were tech demos, not products. That's what happens when you have government-spect innovation. Concorde was a joint venture between French and British governments. Usually when there's a joint venture between the French and British, it's a war. Nobody thought hard about economics. 100 seats, very uncomfortable, but $20,000 inflation-adjusted fare. It's the 1970s, there is no large premium international travel market.”— Blake Scholl
History & Geopolitics · Business & Entrepreneurship · Economics & Markets
DUR_ENDURING
Tech demos vs products: MVP matters
“When something seems stupid, ask yourself what would have to be the case for this actually to be smart. Usually there's something you can reverse engineer about how the world works. Why would it make sense to have one factory for one process step spread out all over the country? Congress. This is a congressionally optimized supply chain.”— Blake Scholl
History & Geopolitics · Economics & Markets · Operations & Execution
DUR_ENDURING
Congressionally optimized supply chain
“TSA security is a farce. I found a box cutter in my wife's purse after flying through SFO, Seattle, and London Heathrow. The literal weapon used on 9/11. We are not actually stopping terrorists. The regulatory problem is that nobody's incentivized to do anything risk-on. Perpetuating security monstrosity is safe. Taking risk and having something happen is career-ending. Regulations tied to safety are a one-way door: once in place, very difficult to muster political will to reverse.”— Blake Scholl
Economics & Markets · Psychology & Behavior · History & Geopolitics
DUR_ENDURING
Safety theater persists: asymmetric career risk
“LLMs are very good at filling out regulatory paperwork. The second order effects are really important. Historically, airplane certification required producing a very long test plan, say 100 pages for lightning strike protection. It has to have all regulatory citations. You'd hire an engineer happy spending 2 months writing a 100-page document. If you ever want to change anything, nobody wants to because it means another 2 months of work.”— Blake Scholl
Technology & Engineering · Operations & Execution · Creativity & Innovation
DUR_CONTEXTUAL
LLMs reduce cost of regulatory change
“Imagine if we did with food what we've done with roads. You can show up at a grocery store whenever you want, take whatever you want, paid for with taxes. There would be a line out the door. You couldn't butcher enough cows. Agricultural engineers would talk about induced demand: it doesn't matter to have more cows, people just keep eating steak. We'd debate how to charge people for grocery stores, who took what. We all know that's absurd because there's a thing called a cash register.”— Blake Scholl
Economics & Markets
DUR_ENDURING
Grocery store thought experiment on pricing
“The single biggest thing from Amazon versus Groupon was long-term versus short-term decision-making. At Amazon in the early 2000s, when CDs were ending, record labels would panic at quarter-end and discount CDs to stuff the channel. Amazon would run discounted cash flow analysis: if we take discounted CDs, profits go up, Q4 looks terrible with inventory glut, but Q1 looks amazing and long-term cash flows support the decision. They did it every time. At Groupon, I ran the email business.”— Blake Scholl
Strategy & Decision Making · Leadership & Management
DUR_ENDURING
Long-term decisions, short-term vigilance
“We sit more than a working month per year in traffic and accept it. Traffic engineers have a concept called induced demand: if we build more roads, people just drive more, so we shouldn't build more roads. This is ridiculous. The real problem is lack of a price system. Every road should be a toll road and then we could solve traffic. We are surrounded by things we've accepted that could be made way better. We should challenge virtually everything.”— Blake Scholl
Economics & Markets · Operations & Execution
DUR_ENDURING
Induced demand is price system failure
“I think there is a massive advantage in switching domains and doing so quickly because it forces a focus on first principles. If you're passionate and have a good internal sense of when you're clear versus confused, you can learn a whole lot pretty quickly. In the first year of Boom, I kept a confusion list. Whenever I didn't understand something, I wrote it down. My goal was to take one thing off the confusion list every week. That list grew without bound.”— Blake Scholl
Creativity & Innovation · Philosophy & Reasoning
DUR_ENDURING
Confusion list: force first principles
“There is a much better airport design that has never been built. Put the terminals underground and airside above ground. You pull into a gate, the jetway is an escalator from underneath, then you pull forward. No tugs needed. The terminal underground has skylights, still beautiful. Model the whole thing on a crossbar switch. The design aspects are easy. The hard part is unlocking building permits and creating a revenue model when airports are socialized and limited to $5.”— Blake Scholl
Operations & Execution · Business & Entrepreneurship · Economics & Markets
DUR_ENDURING
Crossbar switch airport: revenue model blocks design
“International security harmonization results in the worst rules metastasizing globally. Whoever has the most obtuse security rules spreads them to all countries so passengers can connect without being rescreened. This is explicit, not implicit regulatory cartelization.”— Blake Scholl
Economics & Markets · History & Geopolitics
DUR_ENDURING
Worst rules metastasize via harmonization
“Customer centricity was so deeply in Amazon's culture that any debate about any decision was resolved through what's actually best for customers. That was the cultural trump card handed to every employee for how to win any debate in the company.”— Blake Scholl
Leadership & Management · Strategy & Decision Making
DUR_ENDURING
Customer-centricity as cultural trump card
Frameworks (3)
Underground Terminal Airport Design
Crossbar switch optimization for airport flow
A novel airport design placing terminals underground with airside above ground, modeled on a crossbar switch. Eliminates tugs, reduces infrastructure, uses jetway escalators from below. Terminal has skylights for aesthetics. Constrained by socialized airport revenue model limited to $5.60 per passenger, forcing reliance on retail for profitability.
Components
- Terminal Placement
- Jetway Design
- Crossbar Switch Modeling
- Revenue Model Redesign
Prerequisites
- Land acquisition
- Regulatory approval
- Revenue model solution
- Capital
Success Indicators
- Reduced gate turnaround time
- Eliminated tug usage
- Increased passenger throughput
Failure Modes
- Revenue model not solved
- Regulatory capture prevents privatization
- Skylight costs prohibitive
Vertical Integration to Collapse Iteration Time
Reducing cost of change via process consolidation
When a supply chain spreads a simple process across multiple distant factories, iteration time explodes because parts spend more time in transit than in production. By vertically integrating and bringing all process steps under one roof, iteration time collapses from months to hours, enabling engineers to take more risks and test more ideas.
Components
- Map Current Iteration Time
- Identify Bottleneck
- Collapse Process Steps Under One Roof
- Measure New Iteration Time
- Observe Behavioral Change
Prerequisites
- Capital for equipment
- Facility space
- Technical expertise in all process steps
Success Indicators
- Iteration time reduced 10x+
- Engineers increase experiment frequency
- Cost per iteration drops
Failure Modes
- Underestimating integration complexity
- Not changing engineer behavior
- Quality control issues
The Confusion List Method
Systematic approach to learning new domains
When switching into an unfamiliar domain, maintain a written confusion list of concepts you don't understand. Attempt to remove one item per week through study. The list will grow faster than you clear it, but the process develops an internal sense of when you're clear versus confused. This metacognitive skill is more valuable than any individual fact learned.
Components
- Start the Confusion List
- Weekly Clearing Goal
- Develop Internal Clarity Sensor
- Prioritize by Impact
Prerequisites
- Willingness to admit ignorance
- Regular study time
Success Indicators
- Clarity on what you don't know
- Faster learning in new domains
- Better decision-making
Failure Modes
- List becomes guilt mechanism instead of learning tool
- Not prioritizing by impact
Mental Models (13)
Crossbar Switch Architecture
Systems ThinkingA switching system where any input can connect to any output through a matrix of
In Practice: Airport design optimization discussion
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Regulatory Race to the Bottom via Harmonization
Systems ThinkingWhen regulations are harmonized internationally, the strictest rules tend to spr
In Practice: Discussion of international security harmonization
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Career Risk Asymmetry in Bureaucracy
EconomicsBureaucrats face asymmetric career incentives: perpetuating existing rules is safe, but taking risk and having something go wrong is career-ending.
In Practice: TSA security theater discussion
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Safety Theater
PsychologySecurity measures that provide the appearance of safety without meaningfully reducing risk.
In Practice: TSA security critique
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Induced Demand Fallacy
EconomicsThe claim that building more of something increases demand for it, used to justify not building.
In Practice: Traffic and road pricing discussion
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Price System as Solution to Apparent Scarcity
EconomicsMany apparent scarcity problems are actually price system failures.
In Practice: Grocery store thought experiment
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Long-Term Decisions with Short-Term Vigilance
Decision MakingAmazon's operational model: major strategic decisions made with long-term view while maintaining intense operational excellence day-to-day.
In Practice: Amazon vs Groupon comparison
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Discounted Cash Flow Over Quarterly Results
TimeMaking decisions based on long-term cash flows rather than quarterly earnings, e
In Practice: Amazon CD inventory example
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Iteration Speed Enables Risk-Taking
Systems ThinkingWhen iteration time is long (months), engineers become conservative and risk-ave
In Practice: Turbine blade manufacturing discussion
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Congressional Optimization vs Technical Optimization
EconomicsWhen government funds projects, supply chains get optimized for political support rather than technical efficiency.
In Practice: Defense supply chain fragmentation explanation
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Confusion List Methodology
Decision MakingSystematic approach to learning: maintain written list of confusions, attempt to clear one per week.
In Practice: Learning new domains discussion
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Reducing Cost of Change
Systems ThinkingMany Boom strategies focus on making change inexpensive: vertical integration, L
In Practice: LLM usage for regulatory compliance
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Tech Demos vs. Products
Strategic ThinkingGovernment-led innovation often produces impressive technical demonstrations that fail to create sus
In Practice: Critique of Concorde and Apollo programs
Demonstrated by Leg-bs-001
Connective Tissue (4)
Crossbar switch architecture from telecommunications
A crossbar switch is a telecommunications switching architecture where any input can be connected to any output through a matrix of switches. Scholl applies this concept to airport design: instead of traditional hub-spoke passenger flow with central congestion points, treat each gate-to-runway connection as a potential switch point. This eliminates the need for centralized chokepoints and allows parallel, non-interfering flows. The analogy works because both systems face the same problem: routing many entities (calls or aircraft) through limited paths without creating congestion.
Discussion of underground airport terminal design
Grocery stores without price systems (thought experiment)
Scholl constructs a thought experiment: imagine if grocery stores operated like roads, where you could take whatever you want and pay for it via taxes. There would be lines out the door, insufficient supply, and agricultural engineers would invent the concept of 'induced demand' to explain why producing more food doesn't solve the problem. The absurdity of this scenario illuminates why roads without variable pricing create permanent congestion. A cash register is a price system; a toll is also a price system. The same economic logic applies to both domains.
Argument for congestion pricing on roads
Apollo and Concorde as tech demos vs. products
Both Apollo (1969 moon landing) and Concorde (1969 first flight) were impressive technical achievements that failed to create sustainable industries. Scholl argues they were government-led tech demos optimized for prestige rather than economics. Apollo created a cost-insensitive supply chain that persisted for 50 years before SpaceX tackled economics. Concorde flew 52% full across 27 years because no one thought about market size or unit economics. The lesson: government innovation produces impressive demonstrations but not viable products. Commercial innovation requires solving for minimum viable product, not maximum technical impressiveness.
Critique of government-led innovation in aerospace
Congressional optimization of defense supply chains
Scholl explains why aerospace supply chains spread single process steps across multiple states: to maximize congressional votes for defense programs. Placing one manufacturing step in each congressional district ensures broad political support for program continuation. This is explicitly congressionally optimized, not technically optimized. The result: turbine blades spend more time on trucks than on machines, iteration times stretch to months, and the system would be catastrophic in actual war. This is a specific instance of a general principle: when approval comes from geographically-based representatives, processes get geographically fragmented regardless of technical efficiency.
Explanation of aerospace supply chain fragmentation
Key Figures (2)
Jason Crawford
1 mentionsFounder of Roots of Progress
Former Amazon colleague of Blake Scholl.
Elon Musk
1 mentionsCEO of SpaceX and Tesla
Glossary (3)
crossbar switch
DOMAIN_JARGONTelecommunications switching architecture where any input connects to any output via switch matrix
“Model the whole thing on a crossbar switch for radical efficiency improvements.”
metastasize
VOCABULARYTo spread harmfully from original site, like cancer spreading through body
“The worst rules in any country metastasizing globally via harmonization.”
RAG
DOMAIN_JARGONRetrieval-Augmented Generation: LLM technique using external knowledge base
“A small prompt and a RAG with all federal regulatory guidance.”
Key People (1)
Elon Musk
(1971–)Entrepreneur who founded SpaceX and Tesla
Concepts (3)
Regulatory capture
CL_POLITICALWhen regulators advance interests of groups they regulate rather than public interest
Induced demand
CL_ECONOMICSEconomic theory that increasing supply of a good increases demand for it
Discounted cash flow analysis
CL_FINANCIALFinancial method valuing investment by projecting future cash flows and discounting to present value
Synthesis
Synthesis
Migrated from Scholia