03 / Beliefs in detail

Beliefs in detail

Each of these pieces develops one idea behind our practice. They are specific enough to question, and useful only insofar as they help us make better decisions.

  1. 03.01 Taste as Infrastructure AI only differentiates when it carries a point of view. Encode judgment so teams can reuse it in tools, workflows, and decisions. Published
  2. 03.02 The Ratio Shift Human attention does not scale. More AI will move into background workflows, so the judgment inside those workflows has to be explicit. Published
  3. 03.03 Software Inversion AI moved the hard part from building software to knowing what should be built, how it should behave, and where it should fail safely. Published
  4. 03.04 Niche-Making Economics Collapsed build cost makes smaller, more opinionated companies more viable. You can be exactly right for a specific customer. Published
  5. 03.05 Factory Thinking Buyable features depreciate. A company that builds the factory can keep producing better tools, workflows, and customer experiences. Published
  6. 03.06 Capabilities, Not Systems Start with small useful capabilities that amplify people in existing workflows before committing to large systems. Published
  7. 03.07 Useful, Not Done Useful is a better milestone than done. Ship small improvements, learn from real use, and compound. Published
  8. 03.08 Friction Reduction The north star for AI work is lower friction - less searching, rework, handoff drag, and administrative load. Published
  9. 03.09 Capability Compounding Early wins should create context, tools, and confidence that make the next win cheaper. Published
  10. 03.10 Recursive Tooling We build our own tools, then use them to help customers build theirs. The method is visible in the work. Published
  11. 03.11 The New Consulting Paradigm The valuable partner is a senior builder who installs capability, not a deck consultant who leaves recommendations behind. Published
  12. 03.12 AI Pipeline Factory Chat is only one interface. Durable value often comes from structured workflows that extract, classify, route, synthesize, and trigger work. Published
  13. 03.13 Primitives Over Platforms When AI lowers the cost of engineering, durable cloud primitives often beat rented abstraction layers. Published
  14. 03.14 Exploration vs Execution Discovery and delivery need different modes. Know when you are learning and when you are hardening. Published
  15. 03.15 Collaboration Is Contribution What becomes easier, clearer, or more possible because we work together? That includes helping someone else become able to contribute. Published
  16. 03.16 The Happy Mascot Problem Office theater protects itself by turning the subject of a system into the system's cheerful spokesperson, but the positive aim is shared dignity. Published

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