Field notes
Expert opinions. Independent views.
Real experiences from operators building with AI in the SDLC, including what worked, what failed, and what changed. We freely give our content. Our only requirement is that you attribute it to here.
By Norman and Nathan — practitioners who build production software with AI agents.
All content reflects the personal opinions of its authors and does not represent any employer, client, or affiliated organization.
Articles
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First Principles for AI-Native Engineering Execution (For CxOs)
Executive Deck ↗Listen ↗The first principles behind agent-driven development, distilled from our published body of work into a clear, executive guide for decisions, governance, talent, and operating cadence.
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Congratulations: You Just Reinvented Peter Gibbons from Office Space
Executive Deck ↗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.…
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Your Engineering Team Ships in 28 Days. Ten of Those Days Are Work. The Other Eighteen Are a Leadership Problem.
Executive Deck ↗Listen ↗Your engineering team reports a 30% velocity improvement from AI tooling. Your CFO sees 5% on the P&L. The gap — millions per year — is…
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The Quiet Gift of 2025: Three Models That Changed Everything
Executive Deck ↗Listen ↗Three frontier AI models from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI arrived in December 2025. The gap between engineers using AI to reason through problems and those using…
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Gen 1 Lights-Off Development: I Am Building It and You Can Watch
Executive Deck ↗Listen ↗Everyone talks about autonomous AI development. Norman is actually building it. A system of agents that predicts what players want, builds a browser game, ships it,…
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You Are About to Hire a VP of AI Capability. Do Not.
Executive Deck ↗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…
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You Added AI. Congratulations — You Now Run a Slop Factory.
Executive Deck ↗Listen ↗You gave your engineers AI tools and skipped the governance conversation. Now your PRs are tripling, your review queue is drowning, and nobody can tell the…
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Every Consultant Says They Can Fix Your Legacy App with AI — Here Is the Test
Executive Deck ↗Listen ↗This is the third time your company has tried to fix the monolith. The first two attempts cost millions and changed nothing. AI agents make the…
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Dear Coding Agent Builders and Corporate Leaders Funding These Tools: Just Give Me the Best Model
Executive Deck ↗Listen ↗An open letter to the companies building AI coding tools and the leaders paying for them. You built something that made software fun again. Now stop…
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Dear Jim in Detroit — Don’t Punish Your Top AI Dev
Executive Deck ↗Listen ↗An open letter to engineering managers: why punishing your fastest AI adopters creates a lose-lose situation. Here's what to do instead.
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 →