Salt, Sandwiches, and Steel: Why CEOs Can’t Run Everything With the Same Logic

“Salt is a product. Steel is a capability. One runs on price. The other holds up nations. So why do most CEOs manage both the same way?”

We’re not just facing a leadership crisis. We’re facing a classification failure.

In boardrooms and strategy meetings, one mistake gets made over and over again: CEOs, investors, and policymakers apply the same business logic across everything—whether they’re selling toothpaste, booking hotel rooms, or managing a blast furnace.

But when you use the same ROI-first, margin-optimized playbook across every asset, something eventually breaks. And when it does, it’s never the salt that hurts you. It’s the steel.

The Commodity Illusion: Treating Organs Like Ingredients

In the modern MBA world, business is taught as a universal game:

1. Reduce cost

2. Increase scale

3. Maximize return

4. Exit if margins fall

That logic works for low-stakes, high-volume businesses:Fast food. Retail. Salt production. Shampoo distribution.

But the danger begins when leaders fail to distinguish between commodity and capability.

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