Why technology exists
A living being holds together within a narrow band of conditions. When the world moves outside it there are two ways out: change the body or change the environment. Technology is the second, done on purpose.
Read
The essays of the Volcano model.
Ten texts that hold up the model, ordered to be read from the first question to the last number. Each one stands on its own; together, in this order, they are an argument. At the end of each essay, the link to the next.
Stage 0 · The foundation
Why technology exists, before there is a market that sells it.
Stage 1 · The problem
Why innovation stops where it stops, and what has to be asked before spending.
The frontier of knowledge
Volcano maps the edge of knowledge so that each invention starts at the right point, without rediscovering what exists, and turns the detours into value.
The four questions of risk
Why take risk, the best case, the most likely and the worst: an almost mathematical protocol for deciding on the whole distribution, not on the expected value.
Stage 2 · The method
How much you need to know in order to decide, and how problems and solutions are ordered before choosing.
How much information is enough to decide
Nobody decides with 100% of the information: it never arrives. Why the optimum lies earlier and what part of the uncertainty cannot be bought with more analysis.
The problem-solution matrix
Eight axes, and on each the real problem of anyone trying to innovate alongside Volcano's concrete answer, with a link to the page that demonstrates it.
Stage 3 · Capital and risk
What multiplies capital when it goes into R&D, where the risk lives and where the reward.
The multiplier effect of capital
More capital, more R&D projects in parallel: the arithmetic of the average project and the recovery by the treasury and by private capital in a single chart; indicative.
The map of risk and reward
The risk and the prize of venture, on an interactive map: eight controls, real data and no promises.
Investing in innovation, the honest comparison
What innovation has historically returned against bonds, housing and equities, with sources and charts; and the small print: only a part of your capital.
Being right early
Four times years in advance, four times not believed: the founder's founding essay, and the reason why Volcano removes the need to convince anyone.
The window of time
Timing decides more than the idea, the team and the capital put together; and window urgency is not desperation for funds: it is physics.
And now, the whole path: the ten essays prepare the reading of the thirteen phases, from problem to profit, with their two thermometers and their phase-by-phase funding.
We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
John F. Kennedy, 1962
John F. Kennedy, 1962