Triangles All The Way Down

Most transformative innovations follow the same quiet underlying pattern.

A straight line becomes a triangle.

Then the triangle collapses back into a line.

Originally, a commercial relationship looks simple: company ↔ customer.

Customer service agents are critical to maintaining that relationship, but they are experienced as part of the company, not as a separate node.

It’s only when that internal component is recognised as a distinct element - with its own constraints, incentives, and limits - that triangulation begins to ferment. The relationship is no longer company ↔ customer, but company → intermediary → customer.

At that point, the logic of disintermediation kicks in. A new technology is introduced that allows the company to connect directly with the customer again.

The technology doesn’t become a new node - it enables a new edge.

Over time, that direct connection strengthens.

Interactions are automated.

The intermediary weakens.

The triangle collapses back into a line.

But the pattern repeats. The technology that enabled the connection develops its own gravity through platforms, contracts, dependencies. The SaaS agreement that once looked like leverage starts to look like toll-taking.

“We’re paying a technology company to talk to our customers.”

The technology now looks like the intermediary. So the next move is familiar: internalise it, bring it in-house, simplify the line again. This is the continual rhythm of disintermediation. 

What we perceive as a node versus a connecting line at any moment is shaped by culture, power, and fashion.

Today, AI is the new connecting line. It promises executives direct access to large parts of the organisation - filtering information, triggering action, and reducing reliance on layers of management that were once simply “the company”. But the pattern won’t stop here. In time, AI models and their providers will start to look like intermediaries too.

Disruption is geometry.

And it’s triangles all the way down.