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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The Executive Operating Model We Run In Private: Four Sessions That Turn AI Anxiety Into Board-Grade Decisions
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗A detailed, private four-session executive operating model with agendas, timelines, decisions, and risk controls to move from AI confusion to measurable execution.
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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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How to Win Without Disruption: The Senior Director’s Guide to AI That Actually Wins
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗Senior Directors: Win the AI transformation without disrupting your political capital. A practical guide to delivering results while managing up.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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You Trust the Lowest Bidder. But Not the Best Frontier Model?
Executive Deck ↗Exec summary ↗Listen ↗You trust the lowest bidder's pull request. Why not the best frontier model inside a system that actually checks the work?
Corporate fiction
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