Open Venture pt1

From Black Boxes to Open Ventures: My Reflections on a New Model for Trust, Collaboration, and Business

The idea behind Open Venture is simple but radical:
What if we built companies the way we build open-source software?

The original article argues that open-source principles—transparency, shared process, community participation—should extend beyond code and into business itself. After reading it, I found myself connecting the idea to broader themes: B-Corporations, W. Edwards Deming and the Toyota Way, the psychology of trust, and the uncomfortable fact that modern marketing often works better than reality.

This piece is not a summary of the article. It’s my attempt to explore what resonated with me, where I have questions, and why the “Open Venture” model feels relevant to today’s world.

1. The Black Box Problem—and Why It Feels Normal

Businesses today operate like sealed containers. We don’t see how decisions are made, which trade-offs were considered, or how values guide behavior. That opacity feels normal—sometimes even “necessary.”

We protect:

secret recipes
customer data
financial details
internal operations
decision-making practices

But reading this article made me question:
When does privacy serve a legitimate function, and when does it keep us locked into extractive systems?

For example, social media companies gather enormous amounts of data. If the relationship were transparent—if we actually saw what they knew about us—our behavior would inevitably change. The asymmetry of information becomes part of the business model.

And historically, the black box has been abused. Think of tobacco companies not only hiding research but manufacturing pseudoscience. That wasn’t just secrecy—it was weaponized deception.

This leads me to a deeper point:
There’s a difference between trust built through relationship and trust manufactured through repetition.
Modern marketing often relies on the latter: tell a “story” often enough and humans accept it.

Open Venture asks:
What if companies earned trust the way people earn trust—through shared work, honesty, and visibility?

2. Open Source as a Model for Human Systems

Open source breaks down silos, reduces redundant work, and encourages collaboration. Instead of each team reinventing the wheel, we build on each other’s work.

That resonates strongly with me.

In business, redundancy and waste often signal a deeper issue: the system is unhealthy. When I see endless packaging or repeated efforts across teams, I feel that “unease.” It’s the opposite of the Toyota Way—where Deming emphasized eliminating waste, using feedback loops, and designing systems that learn dynamically.

Open source is a living example of what Deming meant. It’s the closest thing we have to a large-scale cybernetic system:

rapid feedback loops
collective intelligence
transparency of process
shared ownership

And yet, while open-source software is collaborative, open-source companies often are not. Their products are open, but the process isn’t so much.

Is that the tension Open Venture aims to resolve?

3. What “Open Venture” Is—And Isn’t

One thing the article makes clear:
Open Venture is not about giving away IP.

It’s about making process visible, not exposing the “secret sauce.”
Perhaps the secret sauce lives like an environment variable, a .env file. The system uses it, but it’s still protected.

What is shared?

strategy
roadmaps
key performance indicators
decision-making processes
community feedback loops

The goal isn’t exposure for exposure’s sake.
The reason is trust, rebuilt in an era where trust has collapsed across institutions.

As I read, I couldn’t help thinking about B-Corps—companies legally required to balance profit with social benefit. [Are ‘normal’ Corps required to generate profit for owners?] Or Deming’s work rebuilding postwar Japanese industry through systems thinking.

They all seem to point toward the same conclusion:

We need new models of business that are trustworthy, collaborative, and transparent enough to allow real community alignment.

4. Strategic Advantages (And My Reflections)

The article lists five advantages of building in public. Here’s how I interpreted them:

1. Trust as a Moat

Most consumers don’t consciously evaluate the trust they give to systems—food, cars, healthcare, tech products. Trust is assumed. But when companies violate it, the consequences are huge.

Google’s “Don’t be evil” era showed us how fragile that trust can be. The Facebook Dilemma that exposed the goals and mistrust of Facebook. Who killed the electric car? And, the business model of buying smaller competition and closing them.

Open Venture creates a ‘moat’ by making trust visible, earned, and inspectable.

2. Operations Become Marketing

In opaque companies, marketing is a performance.
Brand identity is manufactured - like a Potekim city.

In Open Venture, marketing happens naturally when people see the inner workings—like a food company openly sharing ingredient sourcing, quality control, and decision debates.

Marketing becomes reality, not illusion.

3. Attracting Talent and Capital

People want to work for—and invest in—organizations they trust.
Alignment matters. Psychological safety matters.

When operations are open, you’re not just buying a story; you’re buying a relationship. But the counterpoint is: “Do I want to have a relationship with every product I use?” I suppose that in fact, I do have a relationship, but how do I tend to it or care for it or renew it. And, relationships change over time.

4. Faster Product-Market Fit

If a community is truly engaged, not just performing engagement on the surface, feedback loops accelerate dramatically.

This is Deming’s world again:
short loops, continuous improvement.

5. Building Resilient Communities

This one is complicated.

Communities can be resilient when they’re genuinely included—but transparency is hard.
Human nature tends toward:

hero worship
forgiving insiders and scrutinizing outsiders
turning marketing narratives into identity - “Reading one’s own press releases”

Radical transparency counters this, but it’s emotionally and culturally difficult.
It requires discipline—and humility—that many organizations don’t have.

5. Implementation Framework (To Explore Later)

The article ends with a practical guide, which I didn’t fully explore yet. My instinct is that this is where Open Venture will need the most clarity. Implementation is always harder than philosophy. I will return to this next time.

6. Final Reflection: Why This Matters Now

Across the world, trust is eroding. In institutions, brands, media, politics, and technology.

Open Venture feels like a response to a very human problem:
People want to believe in the systems they rely on—but they need reasons to trust, not just slogans.

To me, the heart of the Open Venture idea is this:

Openness is not a branding strategy. It’s a structural advantage that aligns business with human nature—collaboration, curiosity, and the desire for fairness.

If we can build companies the way open-source communities build software—iteratively, collaboratively, transparently—perhaps we can also rebuild trust in the systems that shape our lives.