The founders of a respected Silicon Valley advisory firm study legendary category-creating companies and reveal a groundbreaking discipline called category design.Winning today isn’t about beating the competition at the old game. It’s about inventing a whole new game—defining a new market category, developing it, and dominating it over time. You can’t build a legendary company without building a legendary category. If you think that having the best product is all it takes to win, y...

The founders of a respected Silicon Valley advisory firm study legendary category-creating companies and reveal a groundbreaking discipline called category design.Winning today isn’t about beating the competition at the old game. It’s about inventing a whole new game—defining a new market category, developing it, and dominating it over time. You can’t build a legendary company without building a legendary category. If you think that having the best product is all it takes to win, y...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comSilicon Valley says, "The best product always wins." But does it?The goal of every entrepreneur, then, is to build the best product. How? Put the incumbent of the industry you want to "disrupt" in your sights, funnel tens (or hundreds) of millions of dollars into your scope, and build a "monster" produ...

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.The Retirement Industrial Complex has pulled the ultimate bait-and-switch, selling the Big Retirement Lie that work is bad and you need to escape it.Legendary pirates don't fall for this nonsense.They design work worth doing for life by adjusting three career levers: quantity of work, quality of work, and agency over work.In this audiobook, we break down these levers and explore why the goal isn't collecting "F.U...

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.This audiobook isn’t about incremental improvement—it’s about radical reinvention.The Knowledge Worker era is over.This is the most significant category shift since the Internet. AI isn’t knocking politely. It’s kicking in the door of your career, and you’ve got two choices:Become a Creator CapitalistOr become collateral damageIn this audiobook, we lay out why “knowing stuff” no longer makes you v...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comThere are two types of people on planet earth today.Native Analogs: These are Baby Boomers and Gen Xers born anywhere from the 1940s all the way up to the early '80s.Native Digitals: These are Millennials and Gen Zers born between the early 1980s to as ...

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.In “Reputation Capital” you’ll see how to build a legendary reputation that transforms your career, amplifies your impact, and attracts opportunities.This isn’t about chasing fame or faking a personal brand.It’s about building Reputation Capital — the trust, outcomes, and credibility that make you indispensable.Take Matthew McConaughey. He sacrificed short-term wins (like a $14.5 million paycheck for another rom-...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comHuman beings are not brands.Listen closely...Oprah Winfrey is not a brand. Oprah is a Black woman who was born into poverty in Mississippi to a single teenage mother who used her challenging and troubling childhood to inspire her to create a new category of television talk show that evangelized...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comYou are an Intellectual Capitalist-and you might not even realize it.Anytime you create a process for yourself, you are an Intellectual Capitalist.Anytime you execute your own problem-solving framework, you are an Intellectual Capitalist.Anytime you create an asset (even an Excel spreadsheet) ...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comHow are you investing your life?Some of the most-asked questions in business are career-related:"How do I decide when to leave my current company?""How do I pick which company I should join?""How do I get a bigger job?"Where you choose to work and how you invest your lif...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comCategory design is the strategy for dealing with the "winner take all" reality that has taken hold in business.Only 19 percent of Fortune's 100 fast-growing companies are category designers. And yet, they captured 51 percent (of the prior three years cumulative) of the revenue growth, and 80 percent (of the prior three...

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.What separates a business book that quietly fades from one that sells millions and shapes entire industries? This audiobook reveals the strategic blueprint behind today’s best-selling business titles. You'll learn how to choose the right category, whether to center your book around your personal brand or a powerful idea, and how to make your content resonate far beyond your existing audience. With sharp insights on category design, auth...