The expansion into Southeast Asia takes three years to plan and thirty-six hours to almost fall apart.
Not because the plan is wrong. The plan is correct — Aria has been building it since Singapore, the patient accumulation of intelligence and positioning and the specific relationships that make a regional move possible rather than just ambitious. It is, Marcus tells her in October when they do the final pre-launch review, the most thoroughly prepared international expansion he has seen in twenty years of doing this work.
Which means what almost destroys it is not a flaw in the plan.
It's something they didn't plan for.
