The Zombie Corp series finds companies that look healthier than they are — whether they hide a dead core behind unwritten goodwill, or broken economics behind a story of future profits. We check the leaves, not just the canopy.
The largest IPO in stock market history — scored the day before pricing, and withdrawn eleven weeks later. The xAI merger was common control: it created $3 million of goodwill, not $250 billion. A failed prediction, published with the original wording intact.
The games industry hit an all-time high — and the layoffs won't stop. The Goodwill Mask Scorecard applied to three roll-ups: one it would have caught early (Embracer), one it flags now (Unity), one it clears (Take-Two).
The first Burn Mask investigation. OpenAI scored the month its IPO filing went public — a genuinely improving business wrapped in a fragile, narrative-funded capital structure. Plus: the AI-capital cycle, who really bears the risk, and the one event that settles it.
A new instrument for catching companies that spend their brand rather than build it — and the company it cleared. Plus: the footnote that tells you which brands are closest to being written down.
Starbucks carries an $8.1bn shareholders' deficit and $3.4bn of goodwill — and trips Layer 2 harder than anything this series has run. It is clean. Why the layer misfires on a company that bought back its own stock instead of other companies, and the one amendment that fixes it.
Another company that looks healthier than it is — in research now, verified against the actual filing before it ships. One every seven weeks, never rushed.
The Goodwill Mask Scorecard (v1.3) is a 20-point repeatable framework calibrated across four test companies before being applied to any live case. It scores one question with evidence, not opinion: is this company hiding genuine weakness behind unimpaired acquisition goodwill?