Consulting
A day is the smallest useful unit.
Engagements are deliberately few and deliberately expensive. The rate is set so that only decisions worth the price are brought to the table — which is also what makes the day worth it.
01
Management consulting
$200,000 per hour. One-day minimum.
$1,600,000
one day · eight hours
- Rate
- $200,000 per hour
- Minimum engagement
- One day, billed as eight hours
- Beyond one day
- Billed hourly at the same rate
- Expenses
- Travel and accommodation billed at cost
What the day is for
Strategy, product direction, pricing and revenue systems, engineering organisation, turnaround diagnosis, and the decisions immediately beneath them. The work is judgement applied to a specific situation, not a report produced afterwards.
How it runs
As TALR. The day opens by establishing the current state and the objective and separating what is known from what is assumed. It closes with the best next action, the result you should expect from it, and the evidence that would tell you the model was wrong.
What you leave with
A decision or a tested hypothesis, the reasoning behind it written down, the assumptions made visible so they can be checked, and the next cycle defined.
02
Development work
Priced against what it is worth, not how long it takes.
Building software is a different engagement from advising on it, and it is priced differently. The hourly rate still applies as a reference point, but it is negotiable — and the negotiation is about the uplift in valuation the work is expected to produce.
The mechanism
A baseline valuation is agreed at the start. The engagement is priced as a share of the measured uplift above that baseline, with the percentage set per engagement according to scope, duration, how much of the outcome the work controls, and how the uplift will be measured.
Why it is structured this way
Hourly billing prices effort. Development that changes what a company is worth is not an effort problem. Tying the fee to the uplift puts both sides on the same side of the outcome and makes the engagement affordable for companies whose value is ahead of their cash.
What is required
A baseline both parties accept, a measurement both parties can verify, and a defined period over which the uplift is assessed. Where those cannot be established, the work is quoted at the hourly rate instead.
03
The record behind the rate
Four decades, and the filings to check it against.
Every figure on this site is drawn from SEC filings, certified election results or contemporaneous press, and the source documents are published in the archive. The full account is in the biography.
Enquiries
Bring the decision, not the introduction.
The most useful first message states the situation, the objective, and the decision you are trying to make. Availability is limited and engagements are accepted selectively.