The Business Engineer's Reading List
In the last decade, I've studied thousands of companies, helped build a few tech business models from scratch, and, in the process, developed my own way of seeing the business world.
I named Business Engineering (this is an entirely different view from the classic definition of it) to mean it is an intersection between three core disciplines:
It took me years to develop this very simple (and, if you wish, trivial) way of looking at the business world. My view today follows a few core concepts that make up the "Business Engineering Cloud."
A business engineer combines the ability to deeply understand the technology (especially the underlying economic incentives/disincentives), comprehend how to distribute it, and be willing to experiment fast and iterate to create closed customer feedback loops.
This is what the discipline looks like visually!
In the past couple of years, I’ve been sharing some mental models to deal with the current AI paradigm. Below, you find the reading list you should read if you want to have a compass for what will happen in the next 5-10 years.
The Four Levels of Digitalization Mental Model
This four-level digitalization model empowers executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals to thoughtfully navigate AI’s transformative potential.
Breaking down digitalization into stages provides a roadmap for progressively leveraging AI—from basic efficiency gains to creating complex, value-driven ecosystems.
This framework clarifies for decision-makers how to integrate AI in ways that enhance customer engagement, foster innovation, and build adaptable, resilient systems.
It enables leaders to prioritize actions that align with immediate operational goals and long-term strategic visions, ensuring that AI adoption drives business growth and adds real value for people, stakeholders, and communities.
Tech Business Models Framework
The VTDF framework is a strategic tool for individuals—executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals—to understand what defines a true tech business.
It underscores that simply incorporating digital tools or AI APIs isn’t enough; true tech companies integrate value creation, technological advancement, effective distribution, and financial sustainability.
By using this framework, leaders can strategically assess whether their ventures embody the foundational elements of a tech business, from clear value propositions and continuous innovation to robust distribution models and effective financial management.
This model offers clarity for structuring, scaling, and innovating businesses in today's AI-driven landscape.
Market Expansion Theory Mental Model
Market expansion theory and the TDM (Technology + Distribution + Monetization) framework offer a strategic lens for individuals navigating the evolving AI business landscape.
This mental model helps professionals understand how established companies and startups alike can adapt and innovate by expanding their market reach, leveraging platforms, and evolving monetization strategies.
Recognizing patterns in how market leaders like Apple or Netflix have successfully diversified provides executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals with insights on approaching their own AI-enabled market expansions.
This perspective helps identify potential pivots, partnerships, and technological investments crucial for scaling within the rapidly shifting AI ecosystem.
The AI Convergence Compass (this will guide you for the next 30 years!)
The "AI Convergence Thesis" reframes AI not as a mere industry but as a transformative, multi-layered force reshaping markets across three phases:
Immediate Phase: AI integrates with existing Internet-native industries (e.g., e-commerce, social media) to boost user engagement, automate processes, and drive revenue, creating "linear market expansion."
Medium-Term Phase: AI enhances developing technologies (e.g., IoT, AR/VR) for viability in real-world applications, spawning new niches and expanding established markets through "linear technology expansion."
Long-Term Phase: AI catalyzes entirely new industries (e.g., brain-computer interfaces, robotics), enabling "non-linear expansion" with high economic potential in uncharted sectors.
These phases define a layered transformation beyond individual industries, leading to an AI-driven, multi-trillion-dollar economy.
Strategy Hooks
The "Strategy Hooks" framework provides a toolkit for executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals to navigate complex markets with targeted approaches:
Blue Ocean & Blue Sea Strategies: Innovate to create uncontested markets or focus on a minimum viable audience within existing ones to deliver unique value without direct competition.
Constructive Disruptor & Disruptor: Embrace adaptability to shape industry trends or start from underserved markets to disrupt established players over time.
Niche Player: Target a microniche to avoid competing with giants and gradually grow into scalable markets.
Blitzscaler & Continuous Blitzscaler: Scale rapidly under uncertainty to dominate markets or build a self-reinforcing cycle (like Amazon’s Flywheel) to drive growth.
Octopus Strategy: Expand across verticals to cover diverse offerings within a specific sector.
Gatekeeper's Model & Surfer Model: Leverage tech giants’ distribution networks to reach audiences or exploit dominant players' business model weaknesses to carve a competitive edge.
Antifragility is The Foundational Mental Layer!
The concept of Antifragility by Nassim Nicholas Taleb equips professionals with a framework for thriving in chaotic, unpredictable environments by transforming challenges into growth opportunities. Unlike resilience, which resists shocks, antifragility strengthens from them, making it invaluable in business strategy.
Embrace Uncertainty: Antifragile strategies assume that black swan events will happen. Instead of trying to prevent them, these strategies prepare to leverage them.
Innovate through Redundancy: By building buffers (e.g., cash reserves or diversified revenue streams), businesses can adapt swiftly to sudden changes, turning setbacks into growth.
Learn from Failures: Antifragile entities view mistakes as learning opportunities, continuously iterating and improving.
Adopt a Long-Term View: Prioritize adaptability and learning over short-term gains to build lasting value.
Experiment with Reversible Risks: Take small, calculated risks that allow flexibility to pivot, enabling quick adaptation to volatile markets.
Analyze Any Business at Its Core In A Snap of a Finger
The FourWeekMBA Business Analysis Framework offers a structured approach to evaluating any business by focusing on three main competitive advantages—financial moat, market moat, and core moat. Here’s a condensed overview:
Financial Moat
Revenue Generation: Understand primary revenue streams to gauge how a business earns its money.
Cash Generation: Identify high-margin areas to uncover sources of financial strength.
Cost Structure: Examine spending to reveal investments aimed at sustaining competitive assets.
Market Moat
Key Stakeholder: Determine the customer or user who contributes most to the company’s value.
Competitors: Map competitors vying for the same audience to understand the market landscape.
Core Distribution: Analyze distribution touchpoints connecting the brand with customers and driving customer loyalty.
Core Moat
Key Asset: Identify the essential property (technology, data, brand) that sustains the company’s long-term value.
This framework facilitates a holistic business understanding by focusing on how a company earns, engages with the market, and secures a durable advantage. Asking targeted questions at each stage helps surface crucial insights and strategic opportunities.
Ciao!
With ♥️ Gennaro, FourWeekMBA
