Sulimania

Five thinkers I rank highest for getting actual decisions right — Turing, Mandeville, von Neumann, Adam Smith, Shannon. For each: the principle, the tactic, what it beats. Then three CEO case studies on what those builders actually did, past the personality stories.

Why Russia's leverage in Central Asia is collapsing. Where Chinese BRI debt has already bought structural leverage. What the US-India counter-positioning looks like on the ground. And five places someone with Pashto or Dari and a corridor relationship can make money in the next few years.

How to build a multi-business operation that funds itself. The four stages every business goes through, with proof standards instead of timelines. Why the obvious shortcut — Amazon FBA, Shopify, App Store dependency — costs more than it saves. The 30-day test that tells you if a business actually runs without you.

Three builders, three centuries, one shared move: design the system so dismantling it costs more than tolerating it. How Bezos's flywheel works as architecture, not slogan. Why Musk goes after supplier monopolies before product features. How Bismarck made his system survive him.

A $5–8 billion trade corridor most Western analysts stopped covering after 2021. Three ways into it — freight forwarding, last-mile distribution intelligence, customs brokerage — what each pays, what's hard, where the language and family-relationship advantage matters. Plus a 90-day first move.

A reference manual I built for myself. Eight thinkers I check against most often — for each: the insight, the failure mode, one specific decision it changes. Five questions you can run in under a minute when you're tired and about to make an expensive mistake. Built to be used, not read once.