# W1-이론: Clockspeed Dynamics and Strategic Vagueness **발송일**: Friday, November 1, 2024 (오후 2-4pm) **Subject**: [Theory] Clockspeed Dynamics and Strategic Vagueness --- Dear Charlie, I've been working through your Clockspeed framework and want to share how it illuminates the strategic vagueness question. --- ## Your Framework In "Clockspeed: Winning Industry Control in the Age of Temporary Advantage," you argue that supply chain design must be **concurrent** with product and manufacturing design—not sequential. The key insight: Fast-clockspeed industries require continuous co-evolution of product architecture, supply relationships, and organizational capabilities. This rests on two conceptual pillars: 1. **Benchmarking fast-evolving industries** to derive principles of dynamic strategy 2. **Integrating supply chain design into concurrent engineering processes** Where design choices cascade through interdependent systems, premature commitment creates rigidity. --- ## Connection to Strategic Vagueness **The Parallel:** Just as supply chain design must remain flexible during early product development (to accommodate architectural changes), **founder promises must remain vague during early venture development** (to accommodate strategic reorientation). **The Mechanism:** In your framework, premature commitment to a specific supplier or manufacturing process creates **rigidity costs** when product requirements shift. The supplier has made asset-specific investments; switching becomes expensive. In my framework, premature commitment to a specific performance promise creates **pivot costs** when market feedback demands reorientation. Stakeholders (investors, customers, employees) have anchored on the promise; changing course alienates them or damages credibility (McDonald & Gao 2019). **The Synthesis:** Both frameworks share a common logic: **Precision is earned through validated learning, not assumed ex ante.** - Your insight: Fast clockspeed → concurrent design → late supplier commitment - My extension: High uncertainty → flexible positioning → late promise precision --- ## The Temporal Structure: Era of Ferment → Dominant Design Your framework (borrowing from Utterback/Abernathy) provides the temporal structure for when precision emerges: 1. **Era of ferment** (early stage): - Multiple competing product architectures - Uncertain which design will dominate - Supply chain flexibility maximizes option value - → **Vague promises optimal** 2. **Dominant design emergence** (growth stage): - Winning architecture crystallizes - Industry standards stabilize - Commitment to specific suppliers becomes valuable - → **Precision earned** 3. **Incremental innovation** (mature stage): - Architecture locked in - Optimization within constraints - Rigidity unavoidable but manageable - → **Locked into specific promises** --- ## Mapping to Venture Lifecycle This maps directly to the venture lifecycle I'm testing: | Clockspeed Stage | Venture Stage | Optimal Strategy | My Empirical Test | |------------------|---------------|------------------|-------------------| | Era of ferment | Series A | Vague promises | Do vague firms struggle to raise A? | | Dominant design | Series B (post-shakeout) | Precision or exit | Do they succeed at B if they survived? | | Incremental | Later rounds | Committed execution | (Future work) | **The 2021-22 AI/ML boom → 2023-25 shakeout** replicates Fine's clockspeed dynamics at the venture level: - **2021-22**: Era of ferment (many AI architectures, uncertain winners) - **2023**: Shakeout begins (GPT-3 → GPT-4 → LLaMA, dominant patterns emerge) - **2024-25**: Post-shakeout (clear winners, consolidation) --- ## What I'm Testing **Hypothesis derived from your framework:** Firms that maintained "supply chain flexibility" (vague promises about capabilities) during the era of ferment (Series A) should survive the shakeout (Series B success) better than those who committed to specific "manufacturing processes" (precise technical promises). **Why?** Because precise promisers at Series A made commitments before the dominant design emerged. When the shakeout revealed which architectures would win, they faced high pivot costs (had to disappoint stakeholders or stick with losing bets). Vague promisers preserved flexibility, could pivot toward winning architectures at lower cost. --- ## Integration Cost as Clockspeed Moderator Your framework suggests clockspeed varies by industry. I extend this: **integration cost varies by firm type within an industry.** - **Hardware/chip firms**: Slow internal clockspeed (physical prototyping, manufacturing setup) - **Software/API firms**: Fast internal clockspeed (code iteration, cloud deployment) **Prediction**: Hardware firms should maintain vagueness longer than software firms, even in the same external market environment. The moderator in Model 2 tests this directly: ``` β₇·(Vagueness × SeriesB × High_Integration_Cost) > 0 ``` If significant: Hardware firms benefit more from vagueness flexibility during shakeout. --- ## What This Means for "Concurrent Design" Your concurrent engineering insight extends to entrepreneurial strategy: **Traditional view**: - Design product → Source components → Build manufacturing → Go to market - Sequential, each stage locked before next begins **Your view**: - Design, sourcing, manufacturing co-evolve - Flexibility preserved until dominant design emerges **My application to promises**: - Explore market → Test product → Make commitments → Scale - Sequential promise precision (vague → precise) mirrors your concurrent design logic The entrepreneur who commits to precise promises too early is like the manufacturer who locks in suppliers before the product architecture stabilizes. --- ## Does This Synthesis Resonate? I'm trying to honor your clockspeed framework's temporal logic while extending it to a new domain (entrepreneurial communication strategy). Three questions for your intuition: 1. **Does "era of ferment → dominant design" map cleanly to "Series A → Series B"?** Or is the venture lifecycle more complex? 2. **Is "integration cost" a good proxy for internal clockspeed differences?** Or should I think about firm-level heterogeneity differently? 3. **Beyond supply chain, where else does your concurrent design logic apply?** (I'm betting: promise precision, but curious if you see other domains) --- Looking forward to your thoughts when convenient. No rush before our meeting. Best, Angie --- ## 작성 가이드 (당신이 채울 때) **핵심 구조 유지:** 1. "Your Framework" (그의 논문 요약) 2. "Connection to Strategic Vagueness" (당신의 확장) 3. "What I'm Testing" (실증으로 연결) 4. "Does This Resonate?" (겸손하게 마무리) **톤:** - Respectful but confident - "I learned from you" + "Here's my extension" - 질문으로 끝내서 답장 유도 (but "No rush") **만약 당신의 이해가 틀릴 수 있다면:** - "I may be overstretching your framework here..." - "Please correct me if I'm misreading your insight..." **길이:** - 400-600 단어 목표 - 너무 짧으면 shallow, 너무 길면 부담 - 이 버전은 ~650단어 (약간 길지만 괜찮음) **주의사항:** - Charlie에게만 보내는 메일 (Scott은 다음 주) - Fine의 Clockspeed만 다룸 (S-curve는 W2에서)