Field notes
Practitioner essays on building production software with AI agents.
Operator-grade reports on the systems, decisions, and economics of shipping software with AI — what worked, what failed, and what changed.
Articles
-
Your AI Investment Is Failing. Here’s Why.
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Most enterprise AI investments are failing. Here’s the real reason: you’re measuring tools, not outcomes. Learn how to fix your approach.
-
Waste Density vs Value Density: Managing the Emotions of Your Board with Real Economics
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Learn to communicate AI value to your board using waste density vs. value density. Move beyond emotional arguments to real economics.
-
Gen AI in the SDLC Is Infrastructure Now,And Every One of Your Engineers Picked Their Own
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Download EPUB ↓Gen AI in the SDLC is now infrastructure, not innovation. But every engineer picked their own stack. Here’s why that’s a governance problem.
-
If Your Vendor Doesn’t Ask These Three Questions Before the Demo, Politely Ask for a Field CTO Who Will
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Before your next AI vendor demo, make sure they ask these 3 critical questions. If they don’t, you’re getting a performance, not a partnership.
-
The Bottlenecked CEO: You Don’t Need New Metrics to Quantify AI Value. You Need the Courage to Eliminate the Silos That Make Measurement Impossible.
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗A CEO watches a startup take 10 percent of his market in 8 months. The problem is not metrics. It is the silos that make measuring AI value impossible. A story about organizational courage.
-
Dear CISO — Your Job Is Not to Stop AI. Your Job Is to Make It Safe to Ship.
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗If your answer to AI is “no” until further notice, you are not reducing risk. You are pushing it into the shadows while your competitors learn to ship faster with guardrails you should have built.
-
If You Want to Measure Macro Results, Answer These 3 Questions Before AI Touches Your SDLC
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Measure AI impact at the macro level by answering three critical questions before implementation: what you’re solving, how you’ll measure it, and who owns results.
-
Every Agile Artifact Was Built to Derisk Humans Writing Code
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Every agile artifact exists to derisk humans writing code. AI changes that equation. Here’s what to keep and what to throw away.
-
How to Negotiate Your new AI Leadership Comp
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Negotiating an AI leadership role? Here’s how to structure compensation that reflects your value in transforming engineering organizations.
-
If Your CFO Is Picking Your AI Tools, You Do Not Have an AI Strategy
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Your CFO should absolutely control the money. Your procurement team should absolutely manage the buying process. But neither of them should be deciding which AI capabilities your company adopts, because AI is not a printer.
Essential or Ornamental
Three companies. Three choices. One satisfactory ending.
One does nothing. One maps the waste. One bets everything on twelve people in a warehouse.
Read free online →