How this is funded
Editorial independence.
Decision Files only works if you can trust what you’re reading. The whole point is keeping the doubt in — the weak evidence, the disagreement, the option that was nearly taken instead. That’s worth nothing if the person in the story, or someone paying on their behalf, got to decide how it reads. So here’s how this is funded, and what money does and doesn’t buy.
Nobody pays to be in a file
No one pays to appear in an editorial Decision File — not the subject, and not their investors, board, vendors, or employer. Nobody pays to be left out, either. We don’t sell placement or prominence, and money never changes what a file concludes.
Commissioned files exist, and they’re always labelled
Sometimes a company pays us to map a decision as marketing — usually a firm telling the story of work done with a client. Those files are published on the client’s own channels, not here, and they always say who commissioned them. If you’re reading something on this site, nobody paid to put it there.
The separation is enforced
We don’t publish an editorial file about anyone who has paid us within the past twelve months, and we don’t take their money for twelve months after. Paying us doesn’t earn coverage, and declining to pay doesn’t cost anyone coverage. Editorial files are the majority of what we publish — if that ever changes, this page will say so.
What subjects control — and what they don’t
Everyone we interview can check their file for factual accuracy before it goes live, and can pull out entirely at any point before publication. Nobody gets to approve the analysis or soften the parts that didn’t go well. If a call looks wrong in hindsight, the file says so. That’s what makes it worth reading.
Where this comes from
This is the analyst model: nineteen years running an independent cybersecurity analyst practice, where independent research was never for sale and commissioned work was always marked as commissioned. The two never touched. Same rules here.
Questions about any of this, or about a specific file? Ask us.