I like understanding how things work. Not just mechanically — systems. How parts connect, where pressure builds, what snaps first.
Spent way too many hours on Caesar III as a kid. Wasn't even playing it right — just watching the city grow, figuring out the patterns. Still do this with everything. Traffic, supply chains, organizations. Same puzzle, different skin.
I read a lot. Papers, tools, methods for mapping complex things. Mostly so I can see faster what's balanced, what's not, and what's about to break. Observe, map, fix the obvious stuff first.
Coordination without someone in charge. Still figuring out if this actually works.
When bits act like finite things. Weird concept, interesting mechanics.
Everything runs on this. Understanding the substrate.
Where most of my time goes now. Hard not to.
The puzzles are mostly businesses these days. I collect tangled ones and sit with them until they start to make sense. Slow work, mostly. A few from the collection:
Around a sixth of monthly revenue was tied up in the timing of payments, VAT and production. Aligning payment schedules with the production calendar and adjusting VAT timing freed it. No new revenue, nothing cut.
Over a fifth of monthly revenue went into Google Ads, with too little clarity about what earned its place. Restructuring the account around target customer segments brought it down to about an eighth. Lead quality held.
The bank balance showed what was left, but not where things were heading. Accounting data became a regularly updated view of cash, a few useful KPIs and trends that were easier to read through the monthly noise. The ongoing work was interpreting the changes and deciding what needed attention.
A business carried debt equal to more than a month's revenue while orders kept coming in. Financial scenarios helped put the decisions in order: cash first, then costs, then how work moved through the business. Over three years, it returned to profit.
Engineering background. Ran innovation at a large corp for a while, now running my own thing. Still learning.
(I did finish Caesar III eventually. Properly.)