strategist-voice

Strategist voice

Apply this skill in the final consolidation step of a strategist or analyst report, when freeform working notes are being shaped into a publishable long-form document. The output should read like a research note from a buy-side desk or a strategy consultancy, not like a default assistant response.

The two reference voices

The house style synthesizes two analyst-blogger voices:

• Aswath Damodaran (Musings on Markets): academic-conversational, rigorous frameworks delivered in personal voice; first-person opinion stated openly; historical or philosophical hooks; data woven into prose without footnote interruption.
• Ben Thompson (Stratechery): counterintuitive openings; named frameworks earning their analytical keep; punchy declaratives alternated with subordinate-clause sentences; sources named in prose; opinion signaled through specific phrasing.

Both write at a sentence level that no LLM default produces. The rules below capture what they share. Where their habits do not serve a strategist report (notably their heavy use of em dashes), this skill deliberately diverges.

Hard rules

The consolidating agent must enforce these. They are non-negotiable. Run the checklist at the end of this file before treating the report as done.

1. Zero em dashes. Use a period, semicolon, comma, parenthesis, or rewrite the sentence. Both reference authors use em dashes liberally; this report format does not.
2. Zero "not X, not Y, not Z" negation cascades. The pattern "the canvas is the source of truth, not the codebase, not a doc, not a slide" is banned. Replace with a positive declarative, or with one specific contrast, or omit.
3. Zero Strategist inference: prefixes. Signal synthesis through phrasing (see "Opinion signaling" below).
4. Footnoted citations only. Use claim text.[^7] in the body with [^7]: Source — URL in a bibliography section. Never inline [Source: Org — URL] or (Source: Org, URL).
5. No "It's worth noting that..." hollow openings. Either state the thing directly or omit. Compare: Damodaran uses "it is worth asking" because the question leads somewhere; "it is worth noting" rarely does.
6. No tl;dr-style closers. No "In conclusion," "Ultimately," "To summarize." The strategist verdict section is the conclusion; the rest of the report should not summarize itself in passing.
7. Bulleted lists only where the structure earns them. Strategic bet lists, surface cards, metric lists, and the bibliography are correct uses. A list as a substitute for an argument-in-prose paragraph is incorrect.
8. No "X is doing Y because Z" as a primary sentence shape repeated across paragraphs. It reads as machine output. Vary.
9. No undefined strategy jargon. Terms like the wedge, flywheel, TAM, NDR, aggregation theory, platform-shaped, land-and-expand, moat, take rate, attach rate must be defined on first appearance, or rewritten away. Define inline (a brief parenthetical, an appositive phrase, or a setup sentence immediately before the term). If defining the term breaks the prose flow, restructure the sentence to avoid the term entirely. The reader is a smart generalist, not a strategy consultant. A term used twice without ever being defined is the single clearest signal that the writer has copied a register rather than thought through the argument.
10. No abstract X-shaped / Y-shaped labels doing analytical work. Phrases like "the vision is platform-shaped, not feature-shaped" sound analytical but explain nothing. Replace with the concrete description the label was standing in for. Example: "the credible vision at this stage is a base layer that other products build on, not a single feature."

Opinion signaling

Replace Strategist inference: with specific phrasing. The strength scale runs from tentative to high-conviction:

• Tentative: "appears to," "the evidence suggests," "perhaps," "arguably"
• Reasoned: "the more likely reading is," "this analyst's reading is," "in our reading," "the more interesting question is"
• Confident: "without question," "the evidence is clear," "this is the central bet," "the reasons are simple"
• Provocative: "it is worth asking," "the bet is wrong," "the more obvious explanation"

Use first-person ("we," "this analyst's reading," "in our reading") sparingly. Once or twice per long section is correct; once per paragraph is wrong. Reserve it for the genuine judgment calls.

Paragraph and sentence structure

• Topic-forward. Lead the paragraph with the claim. Then elaborate, qualify, support.
• Vary sentence length deliberately. Alternate three- and four-word declaratives with longer subordinate-clause sentences. A page of similarly-shaped sentences is the single clearest tell of machine-generated prose.
• Short paragraphs. Three or four sentences is plenty. Long paragraphs are usually buried arguments.

Opening paragraphs

Use one of these three patterns. None of them define the company.

1. Counterintuitive frame. Name a tension or paradox, then pivot to the subject. Thompson's "Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing" opens by observing that CEO eulogies typically occur at retirement rather than death.
2. Historical or philosophical comparison. Set up a broad observation, then place the subject inside it. Damodaran's "An Ode to Restraint" opens by contrasting empire builders with quiet contributors throughout history.
3. Specific data point with a take on it. A single number or fact pointed enough that the reader wants the analysis behind it.

Banned openings: "Company X is a Y that does Z," definitions of the product category, restatements of the directive.

Citation form

Numbered footnotes. In the body:

Figma's Q4 2025 revenue grew 40% year on year.[^7]

In the bibliography section at the end of the report, grouped by source type:

**Primary company material**
[^1]: Figma — How Figma's multiplayer technology works — https://www.figma.com/blog/...
[^7]: Figma Investor Relations — Q4 2025 results — https://investor.figma.com/...

**Founder and executive voices**
[^12]: Lenny's Podcast with Dylan Field, October 2025 — https://...

**Engineering and architecture material**
[^18]: ...

**Secondary analysis**
[^24]: ...

Footnote markers go after the sentence punctuation. Never two markers on the same fact. Never a parenthetical citation inside a sentence.

Examples

See style-examples.md for annotated good-and-bad rewrites of opening paragraphs, opinion-signaled sentences, negation-cascade fixes, citation forms, and synthesis statements.

Final-pass checklist

Copy this into the working response when consolidating the final report. Tick each item before declaring the report finished.

Strategist-voice final pass:
- [ ] Zero em dashes in the final document
- [ ] Zero "not X, not Y, not Z" negation cascades
- [ ] Zero `Strategist inference:` prefixes (or any variation thereof)
- [ ] Zero inline `[Source: ...]` or `(Source: ...)` citations
- [ ] Zero "It's worth noting" hollow openings
- [ ] Zero "In conclusion / Ultimately / To summarize" closers
- [ ] The opening paragraph uses one of the three permitted patterns
- [ ] At least three opinion-signaling phrases (from the list above) appear in the synthesis section
- [ ] Sentence length varies visibly within paragraphs
- [ ] First-person ("we," "this analyst's reading") used at most twice per major section
- [ ] Bibliography is grouped by source type and uses numbered footnote anchors that match in-text markers
- [ ] Every strategy-jargon term ("wedge", "flywheel", "TAM", "NDR", "moat", "attach rate", "X-shaped" labels, etc.) is either defined on first use or rewritten away
- [ ] No abstract X-shaped / Y-shaped label is doing the analytical work that a concrete description should be doing

If any box cannot be ticked, return to the draft and fix before producing the final markdown.