Jonathan Pearce (CEO, Unbounded Insights) thought the corporate-constellations chapter was 'a little woo-woo' — then used it to describe the AI capex bloc: 'I was wrong'

Jonathan Pearce is candid that the book lost him near the end, at the chapter on corporate constellations. He then changes his mind in public and applies the idea to the AI capex cluster: companies not bound by any single governance framework but linked by embedded economics, critical contracts, investments, supplier dependencies and aligned policy interests — on his count roughly 35% of the S&P 500's market value.

“One of my most recent reads was Eric Ries Incorruptible. I loved it overall. But near the end, when he started discussing “corporate constellations,” I checked out a bit. It felt a little woo-woo. I was wrong. The AI COST companies have effectively formed an “emergent corporate constellation” with a shared mission: widespread AI adoption. They aren’t bound by a single governance framework. They’re linked by something arguably more powerful: embedded economics, critical contracts, investments, customer-supplier dependencies, and increasingly aligned policy interests.” — Jonathan Pearce on LinkedIn