In the first part of this essay, we explored businesses that reduce entropy through inevitability, biology, and operational discipline.
If you missed Part I, I’ll leave the link below so you can read it before continuing.
But structure can emerge from other forces as well.
Not all order comes from repetition or restraint.
Sometimes it comes from rules.
Sometimes from ritual.
Sometimes from geography.
The companies in this second part operate in very different industries. Airports. Spirits. Alpine railways. Yet each is anchored to something that moves slowly, or not at all.
One operates inside contracts written decades in advance.
Another aligns with habits that outlive marketing cycles.
The third controls access to a mountain that cannot be relocated.
Low entropy takes many forms.
These are three more.
Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte (OMA) — A business that operates inside fixed lines
The runway does not move.
Flights are delayed.
Passengers complain.
Airlines change routes.
But the runway stays exactly where it is.
That stillness is not just physical. It is contractual.
OMA operates under long-term concessions granted by the Mexican government. These agreements do not merely allow the company to manage airports; they define the boundaries of the business decades in advance. The network is fixed. The geography is fixed. The framework is fixed.
In most industries, companies fight to expand their territory. OMA begins with it already assigned.
That constraint creates order.
At the heart of the model lies a simple separation. On one side, aeronautical services: landing fees, passenger charges, use of gates and security infrastructure. These are regulated. Prices are capped. Returns are negotiated through a maximum tariff system.
On the other side, commercial activity: restaurants, parking lots, advertising, hotels, logistics parks. These are largely unregulated. Here, the company has flexibility.
The result is a deliberate balance. The core utility is stable but capped. The surrounding ecosystem is flexible but anchored to passenger flow.
The airport becomes less like a transportation business and more like a regulated mall attached to a runway.
Every few years, another stabilizer enters the system: the Master Development Program. Investments are not impulsive. They are negotiated in advance with the government. Expansion plans are tied to tariff adjustments. Capital spending and future revenue are linked in a structured loop.
Growth, in other words, follows a script.
This matters. Because in many capital-intensive industries, volatility comes from mistimed expansion. Too much runway. Too little traffic. OMA’s structure reduces that risk by forcing discipline into the investment cycle itself.
Even internally, the company avoids fragmentation. Its thirteen airports are not run as isolated profit centers. Profitable hubs help sustain smaller locations through a solidarity mechanism. Administrative functions are centralized. Standards are shared. The network behaves as one organism, not thirteen separate ones.
Entropy often enters when units compete with each other or drift apart. OMA’s structure prevents that drift.
Airports look dynamic from the outside. Planes taxi. Screens flicker. People rush through terminals. But beneath the motion lies a system built around permanence—steel, concrete, contracts, and regulatory formulas that move slowly.
That is the hidden advantage.
OMA does not need to reinvent air travel. It does not need to persuade customers to adopt a new habit. It does not need to redesign its core product every season. Its primary task is operational execution within clearly defined limits.
Some businesses generate complexity by chasing expansion.
Others reduce complexity by accepting their boundaries.
OMA belongs to the second group.
Its low entropy does not come from innovation or cultural ritual. It comes from operating inside fixed lines—and allowing those lines to do most of the stabilizing work.
When the rules are written decades in advance, the system has fewer ways to surprise you.
Diageo — A business built on ritual
The bottle shape does not change.
The label remains familiar.
The liquid tastes the same.
The ritual repeats.
A wedding toast.
A holiday dinner.
A quiet drink after work.
Diageo’s advantage begins there.
Unlike many consumer companies, Diageo does not sell novelty. It sells continuity. Its portfolio is built around what it calls “icons”—brands that have survived decades, sometimes centuries, without needing reinvention. Scotch, tequila, gin, stout. Categories that are less fashion than tradition.
That distinction matters.
Most consumer businesses decay when tastes shift. They chase trends, launch extensions, refresh packaging, and experiment constantly to stay relevant. Diageo’s core brands do not need to chase. They occupy rituals that already exist.
The company’s strategy reflects that understanding. Rather than focusing on volume growth, Diageo leans into premiumisation—the idea that consumers may drink less, but drink better. As incomes rise, the trade-up effect supports value growth even when total consumption stabilizes.
The system is not built on acceleration. It is built on upgrading.
Behind the label lies another stabilizer: time. In spirits, maturation is not optional. Scotch ages for years. Sometimes decades. The company’s vast inventory of maturing stock represents revenue secured far in advance. Decisions made today will only be realized years from now.
Few businesses operate with such embedded patience.
Supply chains stretch from grain fields and agave farms to distilleries and warehouses filled with aging barrels. Yet despite the scale, the model remains coherent. Diageo centralizes operational processes globally while allowing local market teams to focus on execution. The structure absorbs complexity so the brands do not have to.
Entropy often enters consumer goods through fragmentation—too many SKUs, too many campaigns, too many experiments. Diageo’s discipline lies in protecting the core. The icons remain central. Innovation happens around them, not in place of them.
Even shifting social norms are incorporated rather than resisted. As moderation trends rise, the company expands into non-alcoholic variants, preserving the ritual even when the alcohol content changes. The habit survives. The brand remains.
That is the deeper layer of stability.
Alcohol consumption may fluctuate with economics and culture, but human rituals move slowly. Celebrations persist. Social bonding persists. Identity expressed through brand choice persists.
Diageo does not need to create those behaviors. It aligns with them.
Some businesses depend on constant novelty to stay alive.
Others endure because they anchor themselves to traditions that outlive any marketing cycle.
Diageo belongs to the second group.
Its low entropy comes not from avoiding change, but from embedding itself in habits that resist rapid change. When a business is tied to ritual, time works with it rather than against it.
And rituals, unlike trends, are patient.
Jungfraubahn Holding — A business anchored to a mountain
The mountain is not moving.
Snow melts.
Tourists arrive and leave.
Currencies fluctuate.
But the mountain stays exactly where it has always been.
Jungfraubahn’s advantage begins with that fact.
The company operates railways and cableways that lead to one of the most iconic high-altitude destinations in the Swiss Alps: Jungfraujoch — “Top of Europe.” It is not simply transportation infrastructure. It is access to a fixed point in geography, carved into rock more than a century ago.
Unlike most leisure businesses, Jungfraubahn does not invent demand. It channels it.
The model is built around control of the entire service chain. A visitor does not just buy a train ticket. They purchase a journey: transport, restaurants, retail, observation decks, curated experiences. By integrating the elements along the route, the company reduces operational fragmentation. One ticket. One path. One controlled flow of people.
Order replaces improvisation.
Stability also comes from diversification, but not the kind driven by expansion into unrelated industries. Jungfraubahn balances three seasonal pillars: the high-altitude Jungfraujoch attraction, winter sports operations, and summer “experience mountain” tourism. When one weakens, another strengthens. Snow-dependent revenue is offset by year-round international tourism. The seasons hedge each other.
The system breathes, but it does not lurch.
A quieter source of low entropy lies beneath the tracks: energy. The company operates its own hydroelectric power plant, generating electricity to power its railways and cableways. In a business dependent on elevation and transport, energy sovereignty removes a layer of external volatility. The trains run because the water flows.
Centralization further tightens the structure. Through a shared management entity, marketing, IT, procurement, and technical expertise are pooled across the group. What could have been a collection of isolated mountain railways becomes a coordinated organism. Standards are uniform. Decisions are aligned.
Entropy often enters when subsidiaries drift apart. Here, they move in formation.
The most powerful stabilizer, however, remains geography. The railway climbs into a UNESCO World Heritage landscape that cannot be replicated or relocated. There is no substitute mountain next door. No alternative “Top of Europe” to be built by a competitor. The asset is not scalable—but it is irreplaceable.
That distinction is subtle but important.
Jungfraubahn does not grow by multiplying locations. It grows by improving the experience of reaching the same place. Capacity projects like the V-Cableway increase flow and reduce waiting times, but the destination remains unchanged. The company evolves around a constant core.
In a world where businesses chase flexibility, Jungfraubahn is anchored to stone.
Some companies endure because they control habits.
Others endure because they control rules.
Jungfraubahn endures because it controls access to something that does not move.
When the destination is fixed, the system has fewer ways to unravel.
Conclusion
In the first part, low entropy emerged from discipline and inevitability.
Here, it emerges from boundaries, habits, and geography.
OMA operates inside fixed rules.
Diageo aligns with rituals that change slowly.
Jungfraubahn controls access to a place that does not move.
Different industries. Different risks. Different growth paths.
But the same underlying pattern.
Each business is structured around forces larger than management decisions. Contracts. Culture. Stone.
In investing, we often look for innovation, disruption, and acceleration.
Perhaps we should also look for gravity.
The forces that keep systems in place.
Because when the foundation moves slowly, the business above it often does too.
And in the long run, stability can be just as powerful as speed.
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Really nice post. Love the schematic of entropy and how these different countries have (different) entrenched moats. Don't know anything about the third one, so will look into it more.