Thorstein Veblen noticed something in 1899 that most technology builders are still blind to: artifacts don't just solve problems — they perform status. The telephone wasn't adopted quickly because it was useful; early adopters fought over who could credibly claim to need one. Veblen's insight, sharpened by Yoruba Ifá philosophy's concept of *ori* — the inner head or personal destiny that must be aligned before external power becomes meaningful — suggests that technology adoption fails not when the tool is bad, but when it doesn't fit the user's story about who they are. This is why technically superior products lose to inferior ones with better symbolic fit. The practical implication: when a product stalls in adoption, the engineering team asks 'what's broken?' and the right question is 'what story does using this thing tell about the person using it?' Those are almost never the same investigation.

Name a technology decision you made recently — to adopt, build, or drop something. What story did that choice tell about the kind of person or team you want to be seen as?

Drawing from Institutional Economics / Yoruba Philosophy — Thorstein Veblen (The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899) in dialogue with Yoruba Ifá tradition (concept of Ori)