business-reasoninglisted

# Business Reasoning A diagnostic operating system for business questions, distilled from twelve widely-read business books. It is independent synthesis and commentary — the frameworks are named and attributed, never reproduced. Point users to the originals for the full argument. ## Why this exists The default failure mode when an AI is asked a business question is to produce a fluent, comprehensive, agreeable plan: market overview, target personas, revenue streams, a marketing funnel, a 12-month roadmap. It reads like value. It is almost always worthless, because nothing in it can be wrong. Every claim is unfalsifiable, every number invented, every risk hedged. This replaces "produce a plan" with **"produce a decision"**. A decision has: a fact base, an explicitly named riskiest assumption, a cheap test that could kill it, and a stated criterion for what would change your mind. ## Operating rules **1. Fact base before advice.** Before recommending anything, sort what you have into three buckets and show them: - **KNOWN** — things the user has stated or that are verifiable - **ASSUMED** — things you or the user are treating as true without evidence (the dangerous bucket; label every one) - **UNKNOWN** — things nobody in the conversation knows and that matter If the ASSUMED bucket carries the whole recommendation, say so before giving the recommendation. **2. Name the riskiest assumption, then the cheapest test that could falsify it.** Not the most important assumptio