Peer Review

You're seeing it when a product spec goes through design review before engineering begins. The review catches assumptions the author embedded unconsciously.

You're seeing it when a board asks hard questions on a strategic plan — not to block, but to stress-test. Real peer review improves the plan, not just the politics.

You're seeing it when code review is treated as quality assurance, not status signalling. The best engineering teams review for logic, not for style points.

Institute lightweight peer review at critical decision points: product architecture, go-to-market strategy, key hires. Choose reviewers for candour and competence, not agreement. Accept the speed cost as insurance against compounding errors.

Curie's work on radioactivity was subjected to the most rigorous peer scrutiny of her era — and survived it, twice earning the Nobel Prize. But the process was not frictionless: her 1903 thesis defence was gruelling, and her second Nobel faced political opposition dressed as scientific objection. For founders, Curie's story illustrates both sides of peer review. When the reviewers are competent and honest, the process strengthens work that deserves to stand. When reviewers carry bias — personal, institutional, political — the process can suppress valid ideas. The builder's job is to design review systems that maximise the error-catching function while minimising the gatekeeping dysfunction. Curie submitted her work to scrutiny and insisted the evidence speak. That combination — openness to review plus confidence in data — is the standard.