S2-SDO
Audience · diligence
For investors
Diligence has long turned on distinguishing what a company says from what it does. The Operator Gap names that distance and does not treat it as dishonest by default — often it is a records problem an investor can help address.
Diligence
Evidence quality intersects diligence.
Investors have long relied on being able to distinguish what a company says from what it does. The Operator Gap names the distance between the two — and does not treat that distance as a sign of dishonesty by default. Often it is a records problem, or a systems problem, or a governance problem that a well-run investor can help address. Read the Operator Gap definition.
The evidence signal
What to look for.
- Whether the company publishes machine-readable records of the outcomes it markets.[S2-SDO][S2-JSONLD]
- Whether those records are attributed to specific people and dates, or written in the passive voice.
- Whether the same team owns marketing content and delivery records — or whether the two live in silos that never reconcile.
- Whether the company treats its own definitions of what it does as sealed claims worth defending, or as marketing copy that changes every quarter.