Most companies don’t break because they grow too slowly. They break because they grow faster than their systems can hold.

The pattern repeats

I’ve seen it at Amazon, Practo, and ShopBack — three very different companies, in 13 countries, all hitting the same wall. The processes that got you from 10 to 100 people quietly become the thing strangling you at 500. Nobody notices until something snaps: a launch slips, a market stalls, a great team starts missing obvious things.

Why first principles matter here

When that happens, the instinct is to add more process. The better move is to ask three questions: What actually worked? What broke? Why? Then rebuild from the answer, not from the org chart.

Speed without clarity burns out teams. Great systems make good people even better. That’s the whole job.

What I’m carrying into AI

The same lens applies to how AI is reshaping commerce. Brands are hitting a new version of the same wall — how do you stay visible and understood when algorithms are the gatekeepers? That’s the problem I’m working on now.