keystone

Intermediate 💼 Corporate / Business

Definition

The top stone of an arch that locks everything else into place—basically the overachiever of masonry. Remove it and the whole structure has an existential crisis. In business metaphors, it's whatever linchpin thing everyone depends on without realizing how critical it actually is.

Example Usage

Customer retention is the keystone of our business model; lose that and everything else collapses like a poorly constructed Roman bridge.

Source: Architecture/structural terminology; business metaphor

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