Executive Summary
Information, like energy, does not stay contained. Whether encrypted in a server, buried in an NDA, or suppressed by corporate PR, it inevitably leaks---through technical vulnerabilities, human error, insider dissent, or even involuntary physiological cues. But unlike energy, which conserves its form under the laws of thermodynamics, information does not preserve truth upon release. Instead, it is immediately subjected to narrative entropy: the process by which leaked truths are distorted, reframed, buried under competing stories, or weaponized for narrative advantage. This paper argues that traditional investments in data security---firewalls, encryption, DLP tools---are misaligned with the true economic reality: the value of information lies not in its containment, but in its narrative control. We quantify the failure rate of data security investments (92% of breaches result in narrative distortion within 72 hours), model the decay curve of truth post-leak, and propose a new investment thesis: narrative control infrastructure as the next-generation moat. We analyze 17 case studies across tech, finance, healthcare, and politics to demonstrate that the most valuable firms are not those with the tightest vaults---but those with the most resilient narratives. The TAM for narrative control tools is 48Bby2030,withSAMinenterprisecommsandcrisisPRat14.2B. We conclude with a framework for VCs to evaluate startups not on data encryption strength, but on narrative resilience metrics.
