Dow's defining moves.
The defining strategic moves at Dow — each one explained and grounded in the record.
The Cannibalization Choice · Decision Forks
Dow Spent $18.8 Billion Becoming a Specialty Company. Then It Gave the Specialty Away.
Dow is taught as the firm that smartly split commodities from specialty. The truth is the reverse: it chased specialty for a decade, then activists forced it to hand those assets to DuPont and re-embrace the cyclical materials business it had tried to escape.
8 min
Adjacency Expansion · Adjacency Expansion
Dow Spent 120 Years Expanding. The Endgame Was Splitting Into Three.
Dow's expansion beyond bleach looks like strategy. It was a chain of reactive pivots — war, the consumer boom, an $18.8 billion acquisition — and the 2019 three-way split proved the portfolio was worth more in pieces than whole.
8 min
The Adjacency Expansion · Adjacency Expansion
Dow and DuPont Didn't Merge to Stay Married. They Merged to Get Divorced Cleanly.
The 2015 'merger of equals' is remembered as a deal that failed and split apart. It's backwards: the three-way split was the plan from day one, the holding company was incorporated two days before the announcement, and all three pieces landed inside the promised 18-24 month window.
8 min
The Cycle · Pricing
Dow Calls Itself a Specialty Chemical Company. The Spread Cycle Disagrees.
Dow's largest segment lives and dies on the polyethylene-ethylene spread, and that spread has been negative since mid-2022. So when Dow's escape hatch—a $10-billion low-carbon cracker—got paused in 2025, it told you exactly what Dow really is.
8 min