The Alpha Lifecycle: How to Structure P&L Bets That Actually Resolve

Operational hunches become capital allocation decisions when they have a thesis, causal chain, baseline, kill criteria, and bet size. The lifecycle then forces the bet through pre-registration, measurement, and a verdict: scale, iterate, or kill. That structure prevents the expensive failure mode where a KPI moves, everyone claims credit, and nobody can tell whether the P&L actually changed.