The organisation is solving the problem it used to have rather than the one it has now.
Synaptic Quanta
Difficult decisions rarely fit within one discipline.
We work on consequential situations where strategy, capital, markets, institutions and technology interact — and where understanding any one of them in isolation can give the wrong answer.
We help investors, founders and organisations understand what is actually happening, identify the structure beneath the immediate problem, and turn that understanding into a decision, strategy, transaction, venture or working system.
The work usually begins when the obvious explanation no longer explains what is happening.
What brings the work into view
What is actually blocking progress?
A strategy may fail because the organisation is solving the problem it used to have. An opportunity may be credible but lack a structure through which people can act on it. Different participants may be making rational decisions from incompatible models of the same situation.
These situations need more than additional analysis. They require the underlying structure to be identified and a workable route forward to be found.
A promising opportunity exists, but nobody has yet found a structure through which the participants can act on it.
Different participants are making rational decisions from incompatible models of the same situation.
A market, institution or technology has changed faster than the assumptions being used to make decisions about it.
A transaction contains viable pieces, but incentives, risk or timing prevent them from fitting together.
More information is being generated while the actual decision becomes less clear.
The practice
From a difficult situation to a workable decision
Definition→Integration→Abstraction→Dynamics→Strategy
Forms of work
What the work can become
The form of the work depends on the situation. It may result in a strategy, investment view, transaction structure, venture, analytical model or working system.
Strategy & complex decisions
For situations where the problem itself is unclear, conventional analysis produces conflicting answers, or an important change has made the existing strategy obsolete.
Capital & transactions
Investment questions, opportunity assessment, transaction design and situations where viable components have not yet become an executable deal.
Ventures & new opportunities
Examining whether a change, insight or emerging possibility can become a viable business, and helping shape the route from idea to action.
Systems & applied intelligence
Models, diagnostics, forecasting tools, AI systems and experimental architectures when understanding the problem requires building or testing something.
A recurring method
DIADS
DIADS is the working sequence we use to move from an unclear situation to something that can be decided or acted on.
- DefinitionWhat is the actual question, decision or object?
- IntegrationWhat information, disciplines and perspectives have to be considered together?
- AbstractionWhat underlying structure explains what is happening?
- DynamicsHow is that structure changing through time, feedback and interaction?
- StrategyWhat can now be decided, tested, built, changed or abandoned?
Selected evidence
Different domains. A recurring kind of problem.
We draw on experience across institutional finance, investment, technology, climate, transactions and experimental systems. The domains differ, but the recurring task is similar: understand a changing situation, identify the structure that matters, and determine what can actually be done.
Institutional financeInvestment & venturesStrategy & marketsClimate systemsTechnologyArtificial cognition
View work and experience →About the practice
Led by Arik Shimansky
Synaptic Quanta is led by Arik Shimansky, who founded the practice in 2023. His background spans institutional finance, investment, strategy, technology ventures, climate systems and the development of experimental AI architectures.
We work across domains, identifying patterns and underlying structures, and turning those insights into strategies, ventures, transactions or systems.
Arik’s research also examines how biological and artificial systems maintain attention, evaluation and action under uncertainty.
Read Arik’s full biography →Contact
Bring the difficult situation
A useful first message explains what is happening, why it matters, what has already been tried, and where progress has stopped.
Describe the situation