Founder Ego Kills Startups Faster Than Bad Code
Founder ego sinks more startups than market fit or capital. Twelve patterns I see across due-diligence calls, with the questions that surface them in 20 minutes....
Technical Debt Isn't Debt - It's Rot
Debt implies payback. You won't. It compounds faster than interest. Every startup that says 'we'll clean it up after we raise' never does....
How 'Piracy' Actually Helped Technology Move Forward
Software piracy in the 80s and 90s built the networks, protocols, and communities that became legitimate tech infrastructure....
Code Review Is Broken
Code review as practiced by most teams is a bottleneck that provides less value than we pretend. Small PRs, distributed reviewing, and time SLAs can fix it....
I Work Faster Alone
After 45 years in tech, I know I work faster alone. The collaboration-industrial complex says more interaction is always better. My shipped code says otherwise....
The Real Cost of Cheap GPUs
Alternative GPU clouds offer 50-80% savings over hyperscalers. The AI revolution is being democratized, but AWS would prefer you didn't know....
Agile Is a Cargo Cult
Standups, sprints, and story points without the underlying values. How Agile became a certification industry that produces the opposite of agility....
The Myth of the 10x Engineer
I've been called a 10x engineer - sometimes 20x. The variation in programmer productivity is real....
What Prodigy Taught Me About Walled Gardens
Prodigy invested $1 billion building walls that collapsed when the open internet arrived. The pattern has repeated with every major walled garden since....
The Rewrite Trap: Why 90% of Rewrites Fail
Software rewrites fail 90% of the time. The Netscape disaster proved it. Here's why incremental improvement beats the clean slate fantasy, and what to do instead....