ALLIANCES: Every Business Partnership Is Built on a Lie
Bad actors don't end partnerships. Static contracts do. Here's the framework that never decays.
26th May, 3 PM.
I received a DM. From a founding member. It was a request for an article—an article which I likely should have authored a long time ago.
The topic? Partnerships—alliances. Something you, the reader, will inevitably be confronted with in the future.
For some, it may be tomorrow.
Others may have to wait quite some time.
Regardless, your life will converge on this precise point: a moment in which a contract is signed or a handshake is given, in hopes of building a long-lasting partnership.
It is the most dangerous moment in your life, and it will decide vital aspects of your future.
I am not going to reproduce the full message verbatim, but the observation underneath it deserves to be shared, because it is the most precise diagnosis of partnership failure I have encountered in a while:
Bad actors do not undo most partnerships. They fail due to their asymmetric design. Everyone, blinded by the best intentions, builds exactly the structure David Deutsch warns against in The Beginning of Infinity:
A static system.
One that treats the knowledge, tools, and incentives available today as sufficient to govern a relationship that has to survive years it cannot yet see, with people whose incentives will not stay where they started.
The founding moment of an alliance—the first handshake, the paralyzing excitement, the first true contract—is the worst possible time to design a partnership.
And it is a truth most people will never forget after recovering from the ensuing catastrophe.
He then posed the question: What do we do? How do you bring a dynamic framework to a future that has not happened yet?
That is what the rest of this is for.
Contents Include:
The Founding Errors
The Predictable Catastrophe (BATNA, Incentives)
A Close Call At Microsoft (Case Study)
The Mending Architecture (Framework)
Lasting Amendments
Note: Although this article leans heavily on business alliances, the following framework can be used in any sort of partnership that involves high-stakes scenarios.
