Your Competitors Are Already Invisible to AI. Are You?
AEO is not SEO with a new acronym. In AI search, if your site is not structured, credible, and parseable, you are not ranked lower - you are not in the room.
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My thoughts on life, love, and everything.
I built my wife a band. The lock on the vault was the real story.
This is an article about a vault. The one in the back of my head marked 'you don't have the talent for this.' It just lost its lock, and I want to tell you how.
Read more →I Learned About AI from a 40-Year-Old Chatbot
RAG systems retrieve and synthesize. Then they discard. Every query starts fresh. That's not knowledge management — it's fast lookup with a language layer on top. Eliza did the same trick.
Read more →Gardeners, Not Gatekeepers
The instinct most companies reach for when AI starts spreading through the org is gatekeepers. I think that is the wrong answer. My answer is gardeners.
Read more →Your Moat Is Responsibility
Vibe coders can clone your features overnight. They cannot clone your compliance, your data obligations, or the promise you made to the people who trusted you.
Read more →It's Not Cheating
My son is using AI like a search engine, and getting burned by hallucinations. The fix isn't a better model — it's learning to treat your first prompt as a draft.
Read more →You Bought the Tokens, Now What?
Buying everyone an AI seat and watching the usage dashboard is not a strategy. If you did not define what behavioral change looks like before you rolled out, you are flying blind.
Read more →The Lights Just Came On
Coinbase cut 14% and said every leader must be an individual contributor. AI doesn't change that judgment call — it just makes the gap between those who get it and those who don't impossible to hide.
Read more →The New Developer Superpower Isn't Writing Code
AI writes code faster than most developers can type. The bottleneck is no longer implementation — it's judgment. And judgment is the one thing the agent can never have.
Read more →Shite Code That Works Is Still Shite Code
When AI writes your code and it works, does code quality still matter? Cal reflects on V1 of his distillery booking bot and wrestles with what it means to be the client instead of the coder.
Read more →The Maintenance Gap: Who Owns This After It Ships?
AI has lowered the bar to build software, but the bar to maintain it hasn't moved. Before you ship, ask who owns it after it's done.
Read more →AI Discipline: Having the Tools Isn't the Same as Using Them Well
Teams are great at adopting new tools and slow at building discipline around them. The teams that figure out the discipline part first will have a real advantage.
Read more →AI Is Eating SaaS
With AI, anyone can build exactly what they need. The old question of 'Is it our core competency?' is fading, and the per-seat subscription model is in trouble.
Read more →Build Something: Why I Built My Own AI Assistant
I built a personal AI assistant instead of buying one. The process of mapping out my own workflow turned out to be just as valuable as the tool itself.
Read more →Doubling Down: Even a Tiny Budget Can Build a SaaS Now
I'm doubling down on my SaaS post. Even as an extremely small business with no real budget, I was able to build something that would have cost me a hundred dollars a month.
Read more →Citizen Developers Need Guardrails
Handing employees an LLM account doesn't make them citizen developers. They also need source control, proper access, guardrails, and support to truly contribute.
Read more →Clone Your SaaS: What's Your Moat?
AI makes it easy to clone SaaS tools from scratch. If you run a SaaS, what's your moat when a company can just build the parts they need and walk away from yours?
Read more →Try Multiple AI Coding Tools Before Committing
Before committing to a single AI coding tool, let your developers experiment. Cal shares why GitHub Copilot works best for his personal projects and why you shouldn't overlook OpenAI Codex.
Read more →Sometimes the Workaround Is the Workflow
Cal tried Claude's slide deck skill, hit a wall with Google Slides, found a workaround, and discovered that sometimes the roundabout path is the better workflow.
Read more →Eternal Sunshine Drink Recipe
A potent rum and fruit juice cocktail recipe inspired by the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Read more →Tequila Fruit Smoothies Recipe
A recipe for a "healthier", fruit-based tequila smoothie that skips the artificial sugar found in traditional margaritas.
Read more →Open Teams
Open source projects thrive by inspiring developers to be passionate about their work. What if your corporate team could do the same? This article explores how to apply the principles of open source to build better, more motivated corporate teams.
Read more →Leadership In Software Development
A developer's perspective on moving into management, why it's necessary, and how to improve the state of software development leadership.
Read more →Banana Banshee Recipe
A creamy, frozen cocktail recipe featuring vodka, banana liqueur, and fresh frozen bananas.
Read more →Nerd Herding
Managing software developers requires a different mindset than managing other types of employees. By its very nature, software development is a cross between the rigorous detail of engineering and the craftsman pursuits like fine carpentry. Because Nerds have to be equally at home in both halves of the brain, they are different and must be treated so.
Read more →Of Deadlines and Due Dates
Do not commit to a deadline you did not help set. A look back at managing development teams, aggressive deadlines, and the 'Ship Happens' mentality.
Read more →Stay away from the dark corners of your mind
A personal story about the dangers of pushing software developers too hard and the lasting impact it can have.
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