Glossary

Canonical vocabulary for Vecstrata. Issues link a term here on first use rather than re-defining the standing vocabulary each time. Define a term once; reuse it verbatim everywhere — consistent usage is the point. Four buckets: reader-facing strategy primitives, the signature coinages, the framework handles, and the recurring companies & tickers. Every term is its own anchor, so issues can deep-link straight to a definition.

1. Reader-facing strategy primitives

Situational Awareness

A clear read of your environment — user needs, dependencies, and where you hold the most leverage.

Competitive Dynamics

How shifts in market, technology, and rival behavior change who holds the upper hand.

Commodity

A standardized, widely available resource or service where competition runs on price and reliability.

Product

A packaged offering where specific features and brand still earn a premium.

Custom-made

A one-off solution built for a unique problem, high effort and uncertainty.

Value Chain

The sequence of activities and dependencies that turn a raw concept into a finished benefit for the user.

Limiting Factor

The specific bottleneck or constraint that stops a system or strategy from scaling.

Vertical Integration

Controlling multiple stages of production or distribution instead of relying on outside suppliers.

Capital Allocation

Distributing financial and human resources to where they generate the most long-term value.

Marginal Cost

The added expense of producing or serving one more unit.

Conservation of Attractive Profits

When one stage of a value chain commoditizes, the profit that drains out of it reappears at the adjacent stage that stays proprietary and interdependent — it relocates rather than vanishes (Christensen & Raynor). The single most useful rule for predicting where margin goes next.

Good-enough timing rule

Integrated, interdependent architectures win while performance is still not-good-enough for the job; modular, mix-and-match architectures win only after performance overshoots what customers can use. Tells you when margin migration fires.

New-market vs. low-end disruption

New-market disruption competes against nonconsumption — a job no product served at any price; low-end disruption competes down-market on price against existing products.

Elevating the constraint

Permanently expanding or acquiring a system's binding constraint rather than optimizing around it (Goldratt).

Scarcity rent

The margin a binding input collects while it gates the system; it accrues to the tier slowest to elevate and persists exactly as long as elevation takes.

Interconnection queue

The regulatory line for connecting new generation to the grid; in the US, more than 2,060 GW deep with a ~4.5-year median wait (LBNL, 2025).

2. Branded coinages (the signature vocabulary)

Margin Migration

The movement of profit pools from one stage of a value chain to an adjacent stage as interfaces standardize or dissolve. Lens: Modularity vs. Integration.

Map Movement

A component's shift along the Wardley evolution axis (genesis → custom → product → commodity). Lens: Wardley canvas.

Economic Anchor

The unit-economics translation of a structural shift — what a Map Movement does to per-unit profitability (LTV/CAC, contribution margin, marginal unit cost). Lens: Unit Economics.

Bottleneck Migration

When a system's binding constraint moves from one stage to another, relocating the single point of leverage and the place to concentrate capital. Lens: Bottleneck Identification.

Modular Squeeze

The margin compression an integrator suffers when its interfaces standardize and the adjacent modules commoditize, collapsing its proprietary premium. Lens: Modularity vs. Integration.

Coalition Cospecialization

(coined in Issue #1) An asset whose value is locked to many partners at once rather than to a single anchor; the many-partner lock protects independence, where single-anchor cospecialization (one constellation tied to one device ecosystem) invites a buyout. Lens: Modularity vs. Integration.

Baton-Pass

(coined in Issue #2) The relay reading of a constraint shift — the assumed clean handoff of a system's binding constraint from one input to another, stripping the old constraint's premium. Constraint theory never promises it: a system with two slow-to-elevate inputs holds two scarcity premiums at once. Lens: Bottleneck Identification.

3. Framework handles

The Map

Wardley Mapping. The visualization canvas: where every component sits in its life cycle (Situational Awareness).

The Shift

Modularity vs. Integration. Detects Margin Migration: proprietary moats dissolving into standardized modules, or the reverse.

The Priority

Bottleneck Identification. Dictates resource allocation: concentrate capital on the single point of leverage.

Financial Ground Truth

Unit Economics. The Economic Anchor: LTV/CAC, contribution margin, marginal unit cost.

4. Companies & tickers

One neutral sentence each — positioning, not investment advice.

AST SpaceMobile

Ticker ASTS. The largest independent direct-to-device satellite operator not owned by a platform (SpaceX/Amazon); the neutral-host candidate in the D2D topic.

GrafTech

Ticker EAF. A leading Western graphite-electrode producer; the binding-input supplier in the graphite topic.

Globalstar / Iridium

Mobile-satellite-spectrum holders (Iridium: IRDM); Amazon agreed to acquire Globalstar (2026, deal pending); Iridium the backtest control name that re-rated on the spectrum-optionality narrative.

Apple

The device + operating-system integrator; funded Globalstar's network for iPhone Emergency SOS ($450M, 2022) and is the device-layer rival claimant integrating down toward the satellite.

SpaceX / Starlink

The vertically integrated platform — owns its constellation, acquired EchoStar's MSS spectrum, sells direct-to-consumer; T-Mobile's T-Satellite partner.

Amazon Leo

Formerly Project Kuiper. Amazon's integrated satellite platform; acquiring Globalstar (and with it the Apple MSS relationship) — the second platform that priced the spectrum constraint.

GE Vernova

Ticker GEV. The GE spin-off making gas turbines and grid equipment; its order backlog and slot reservations are the power topic's primary constraint gauge.

Siemens Energy

The European power-equipment maker (turbines, transformers, grid technologies); with GE Vernova and Mitsubishi, one of the three OEMs whose order books ration the megawatt buildout.

Nvidia

Ticker NVDA. The dominant AI-accelerator designer; its gross margin is the power topic's baton-pass discriminator.

Vistra / Constellation / Talen

Tickers VST, CEG, TLN. The merchant generators (independent power producers) that carried the retail "AI power stocks" trade; the power topic's expected-miss control names.