New Ontologies
Ontology: ancient Greek terms ὄντως (ontos, meaning 'being') and λογία (logia, meaning 'study of')
New companies produce new ontologies — conceptual frames — that serve as entry points to rich intellectual worlds. Writing independent field studies of ambitious early stage companies from a product-centric, deeply personal lens.
So what is New Ontologies?
I spent 4–6 weeks per company doing a deep dive into founder backstory and product to write a nuanced, detailed piece with details that are not available elsewhere on the internet. This requires some level of technical sophistication/fluency or depth, at the same time requires abstraction such that it is accessible to a wider population. Thirdly, it has to be beautiful and aspire to a high level of readability for its own sake.
Here are the main reasons:
- Historical imperative: Companies of significance will be built in this era, I want to write about them. I view it from a 'microhistorian' angle, where you can understand broader societal change through one particular story.
- Documenting early inflection points as they occur: No one is writing about the early inflection points as they are happening within startups — much of the beautiful editorial work is on late stage companies where the decisions are understood in hindsight.
- Stories are containers for taste: Shaping and sharing narrative and story send a high quality signal to potential hires.
- On the ground, truly involved writing: I spend 4–6 weeks with the team, usually in person and in the office, interviewing multiple people and getting qualitative, often unseen or unheard details from the team themselves.
Email me here.
