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
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If Your Engineers Only Get Thirty Minutes to Learn, That Is Not Their Failure. It Is Yours.
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗You called to talk about AI adoption. But you do not know your value streams, your engineers get thirty minutes a week to learn, and you are still defending manual QA that produces no ROI. That is not an adoption problem. That is a leadership problem you built and now own.
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Congratulations: You Just Reinvented Peter Gibbons from Office Space
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗A 2025 parody exploring how enterprise AI adoption recreated Office Space. Your measurement systems train top performers to do just enough. That is not their failure. It is yours.
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Stop Asking for “Advanced” AI Training
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Advanced AI training is a status marker, not a learning objective. Discover what you actually need to know based on your role and current skill level.
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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.
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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.
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Dear Jim in Detroit — Don’t Punish Your Top AI Dev
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗An open letter to engineering managers: why punishing your fastest AI adopters creates a lose-lose situation. Here’s what to do instead.
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What Got You Here Won’t Keep You Here: A Letter to Technology Executives
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Technology executives: the skills that got you here won’t keep you here. A frank letter about adapting your leadership for the AI-native era.
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What Got You Here Won’t Keep You Here: A Letter to VPs of Engineering
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗VPs of Engineering: your playbook is obsolete. Here’s how AI changes everything about how you lead, measure, and develop your organization.
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What Got You Here Won’t Keep You Here: A Letter to Engineering Directors
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Engineering directors have 18 months to prove they can transform teams for AI. The market in 2028 will have directors with proven transformation track records. Will you be one of them?
