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 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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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.
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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Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗VPs of Engineering: your playbook is obsolete.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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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.
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He Cannot Hire the Engineer He Needs. Here’s What He’s Doing About It.
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗When you can’t hire the engineer you need, build one. How one leader is using AI to upskill existing team members and close capability gaps.
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I Think I Know Where Your High Performers Are
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Your heaviest AI users are probably your best people. That’s the easy part. The harder question, the one that actually matters, is who still is not really using it. Go find out. It’s going to be an awkward conversation.
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You Do Not Have Time for a Two-Hour Kickoff but You Have Time to Fail for a Year
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗A VP told me his org only had 30 minutes for AI training. I recommended the two-hour kickoff that has consistently produced results. He said they did not have time. That told me everything I needed to know.
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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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You Are About to Hire a VP of AI Capability. Do Not.
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗You diagnosed the CoE pattern. Now you are about to repeat it by hiring a VP of AI Capability. Here is why forcing your organization to build the competency itself is the only path that works, why it will be rough, and what the end state looks like when you get it right.
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Hello New CTO : Your Loan Engine Cost More than Giving Billionaires Free Cars
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗New CTO reality check: Your legacy systems cost more than you think. A frank analysis of technical debt and the business case for AI modernization.
Corporate fiction
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