Exogenous, Inc. (EXO) is organized to assist our clients to form the capability to recognize the patterns in the social and economic turmoil around them, particularly those that have already happened but remain largely unseen. We want to be able to explain what is causing all this to happen. This approach requires a willingness to, at least temporarily, set aside habitual biases to consider using a different lens to examine our increasingly dynamic world. Such a sensibility is, admittedly, unusual in the advisory business. More commonly, strategic advisors are hired to confirm already reached conclusions and to help rationalize and justify management plans. We do not belittle that role or doubt its value. It certainly can be very powerful to motivate action. We simply believe that – in a world wracked with massive change – something more is needed in your advisory portfolio.
In our view, an in-depth understanding of unfolding events and their consequences must come before strategy – if you are to truly anticipate tomorrow's surprises. We believe that there are no "Black Swans," but rather only people not paying attention. As many have noted, in the words of the early 20th-century IWW (aka "Wobblies"), "Great events throw their shadows before them." This is not simply a matter of more sensitive and extensive "data collection" – indeed, larger piles-of-hay only tend to make finding the illusive needle-in-the-haystack even more difficult. Ours is a robustly well-informed but nonetheless often "intuitive" approach. Experience in recognizing hidden patterns is the hallmark of "outlying" thinkers and we've assembled a remarkable team of them. We think you should add them to your team as well.
Mark D. Stahlman, EXO's CEO, first developed these skills as a Wall Street technology analyst in the 1990s – before Reg. FD cut the analysts off from the "backstory" and turned many of them into spreadsheet "jockies." His positive and contrarian recommendations for Sun Microsystems and America Online (which he took public as an investment banker) may have risked his career but later rewarded him with a reputation for "seeing around corners." In a world where corporate managers are threatened with sanction if they don't "fairly" disclose all material developments to everyone at once, "inside" information became a booming business. Hedgefunds and others, struggling for an "edge," deployed all means – including "dumpster diving" and beyond – to try to get a glimpse at what was really going on. In the process, trained and experienced observation declined and has now largely disappeared. Then the "algorithms" took over the trading desks. And as a result, hype replaced knowledge and Theranos was the result. Stahlman is now bringing these "old school" capabilities to EXO.
Another very important element EXO has harnessed is the "outlying" approach incorporated in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA). Formed in the early-70s as an in-house think-tank, ONA was spun out of the National Security Council to, among other things, deliver to the Defense Department a superior source of analysis than what was supplied by the CIA and others. Not intelligence gathering, ONA was tasked to ask the "all things considered" tough questions that came before the analysis "product" was consumed, leading to policy and deployment. Andrew Marshall – from the early cadre at the RAND Corporation and often described as "legendary" in National Security circles – ran ONA from its inception until he retired in 2015. The Center for the Study of Digital Life (CSDL), which is EXO's parent organization, was then formed in 2015 to transition "Net Assessment" from a "secret" activity to one with wider public application. Now we are offering "Digital Net Assessment" to EXO's clients.
Following the Cold War, ONA shifted its focus to Asia – long before many others recognized the looming discontinuity in global affairs. In fact, until recently, many still had not realized that the East was in the process of separating itself from the West. To be sure, many still incorrectly act as if China is our new "Cold War" opponent, imagining that the old approach to the Soviet Union can now be re-focused on a new adversary. This is a fundamental mistake, with potentially disastrous consequences. China simply does not deal with the world the way we do and the mythology about their future plans often completely misses the reality. EXO benefits from decades of our unique understanding, which is simply unavailable from the typical sources. Operating on a global basis can be substantially enhanced if the actual patterns involved can be fully grasped as they are playing out.
We also bring an unusually high awareness of technological developments to the discussion. Before Wall Street, Stahlman founded a software company, worked as a computer architect, built a large OEM business and invented display technologies needed to address the Arabic marketplace. His generation, many of whom he knew personally, launched the PC revolution and generated the underpinning of what is now the DIGITAL paradigm. He was instrumental in the rise of what is called "Network Computing," including the journal of that name and he wrote widely followed columns in the trade-press. Mark's deep roots in these technologies goes back to his youth, when he considered Norbert Wiener, the man who coined the term "cybernetics," to be his "godfather" – connected through his historian father, who was a Wiener protege.
Wiener's most apocryphal work was his "The Human Use of Human Beings" (1950, 2nd and largely rewritten edition, 1954). Wiener warned about computers getting the "upper-hand" if we don't take all this seriously. Automation is today's most revolutionary development – as Oxford's Martin School, Stanford's HAI and the McKinsey Global Institute would all agree – for which there is still no comprehensive and equitable response. The incentives for the military as well as many businesses to replace humans with machines are formidable. Equipping humanity to deal with this fundametnal upheaval – without fulfilling H.G. Wells' Morlocks and Eloi predictions in his 1895 novella "The Time Machine" – remains elusive. Something this massive has already produced startling changes in our "values." These changes have strategic implications well beyond the imaginations of many. EXO is prepared to work through these consequences and more.
EXO's capabilities in Finance, Security and Technology have been enriched by the team's experience in market research, economic modeling, analytics, education and other skills. EXO's Advisory Board (see People heading) further extends our expertise to other industries and disciplines. In short, for those interested in taking up a new lens with which to recognize the patterns already swirling around us, EXO has the talent to break through the fog of the common-place and deliver powerful and valuable insights.