The Market Fortress Papers, No. 3. Institutional Grade

Public companies are held to a higher standard. The systems behind them should be, too.

Serious responsibility deserves serious infrastructure. A public company operates under responsibilities that extend far beyond the business itself. Technology is increasingly involved in carrying that responsibility. Yet "Institutional Grade," a phrase commonly used to describe technology built for serious work, has become easy to claim and difficult to measure. This paper gives the phrase a practical meaning. The true standard of a serious system is not what it promises when everything goes right. It is what it does when something goes wrong.