The British Navy had the world's largest fleet. But someone else drew its charts.
In August 1853, ten seafaring nations met in Brussels, Belgium and argued for fourteen days.
Most were represented by naval officers. But there was an astronomer there. And an American with a bad leg.
His name was Matthew Maury, and you can read about him here.
The seafaring nations gathered to argue about a form.
A form for collecting data.
In the Age of Sail, a ship's log had the data.
Then Maury saw that he could use a room of clerks to organize that data and perform some analysis. The analysis produced charts.
Charts which were used for sailing safer and faster.
With the charts that Maury produced, a ship captain could pick a better route. That was the decision.
Then he sailed. That was the action.
The DADA Chain: Data, then analysis, then a decision, then action.
Maury made his charts free to everyone who would send their logs to him.
But those logs came in different forms. The British had their own form. So did the French and the Dutch. Which made them difficult for Maury to analyze.
So the seafaring nations argued for two weeks about creating a common form. And what should be in it.
They argued over whether the day started at noon or midnight. Over which thermometers to use. Over how to write down the wind readings.
On September 8, they agreed on a common system for recording observations at sea.
But that wasn't the end of it.
Before Brussels, Maury was the Boss of one part of the DADA Chain of ocean navigation: the analysis.
The data came to him. His clerks did the analysis. His people drew the charts.
For a while, there was no competition for what Maury was doing.
Maury was the Boss of analyzing ocean navigation.
After Brussels, things changed.
The reason "Central" is in the name of the Central Intelligence Agency is because the U.S. intelligence system before Pearl Harbor was broken. There were too many little groups doing their own collecting. And their own analysis. And they didn't talk to each other.
The U.S. government needed to organize intelligence collection and analysis. It needed somebody doing for intelligence what Maury did for ocean navigation.
They needed somebody to organize all the data collected. And do the analysis. And get the results to the decision-makers in a way that answers their questions.
That's the "Central" part of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Maury's office was "Central" in the same way.
Every navy kept collecting its own logs after Brussels. Nobody stopped. What Maury had was the one place where the logs became charts and the charts reached the captains.
Maury didn't own the collecting.
Maury owned the second part of the DADA Chain.
Which was uncomfortable for some of the other nations.
In 1854, the British Navy had the world's largest fleet. And considered themselves the Boss of the Sea.
After Brussels, British sea captains collected the data on the common form. And sent it to Maury. Who incorporated the new data into the next generation of charts.
But the British Navy started to get uncomfortable with that.
Because someone else was organizing their data. And someone else was doing the analysis.
Which meant the British Navy didn't control their own DADA Chain.
For the British Navy, that was a problem.
If you don't own your analysis, you don't own your decisions.
That's what the British Navy saw.
They were grateful to Maury for showing that the analysis could be done (the next Spy's Guide Briefing for paid subscribers showed the parallels to current AI development).
But without their own charts, they weren't confident in their decisions. Their captains were sailing where someone else said the winds were. That would be a big problem in a war.
So in 1854, Britain built an office to do their own analysis.
They still sent the logs to Maury. But copies now went to London too. British clerks did their own analysis.
Soon, the Dutch built their own analysis office, too.
Each one took back its DADA Chain without leaving Maury's Positive-Sum exchange. The form stayed universal. The data still flowed to Maury.
But the analysis became their own.
The British office started producing their own charts.
Britain took back its DADA Chain.
With AI making analysis cheaper, it's easy to outsource the analysis part of your DADA Chain.
And AI may even do analysis you didn't know was possible. Which is what Maury did for ocean navigation.
And you may give your data to AI so it can analyze it, just as the British Navy sent their logs to Maury. Because you get something valuable on the other side.
It's a fair trade, most of the time.
But as you get bigger, it starts to make sense to control your data.
And to do your own analysis.
Just like the British Navy did.
Because if you want to be Boss of something bigger, you've got to be Boss of your own DADA Chain.
That Tuesday, the Spy's Guide Briefing for paid subscribers took this to where we are with AI companies. They're in Maury's position in 1853: the one office that can do the analysis, offering the same trade. What the tradeoff is, which link of your chain to take back first, and what you can keep so you can change analysts without losing a year. Members get two Briefings a week and PDF downloads on the Spy's Guide Frameworks. Join here.
The DADA Chain is in A Spy's Guide to Thinking. The Boss Game is in A Spy's Guide to Strategy.
-John Braddock
As an Amazon Associate, spysguide.com earns from qualifying purchases.