Day Trading with People's Lives
Jack Dorsey laid off 40% of Block, framed it as AI transformation, and the stock jumped 24%. The pattern of hiring binges followed by mass cuts isn't innovation — it's day trading with human capital.
Is Your Organisation Ready for AI? A Practical Framework
Most organisations jump to AI solutions before checking whether their data foundations can support them. Here's a practical framework for assessing your readiness.
Your CTO and CDO Are Not What You Think They Are
The jump from 'most senior technical person' to CTO or CDO isn't a step up. It's a step sideways into a completely different job — one that requires technical knowledge but isn't really about technology at all.
Imagine — Data Centres, but in Space!
The latest Silicon Valley fever dream is data centres in space. As a physicist and rocket hobbyist, I ran the numbers. The 15-20x cost premium and the laws of thermodynamics suggest the real motivation isn't engineering — it's narrative.
Advice for Startups
What I wish I had known starting out, and advice I hope will be useful to startup leadership teams. Creating a successful startup is a bit like a game of Frogger.
AI for Boards
The questions boards ask about AI often reveal more about their assumptions than about the technology. Here's a framework for thinking about AI that acknowledges both its transformative potential and its very real limitations.
When Agents Fail: Compounding Errors in Organisational Systems
How a probabilistic model of Chinese whispers can kill a system of A+ agents. The maths of sequential failure, and why reducing failure stickiness matters more than improving per-step reliability.
The Tower and the (public) Square
How AI has followed the classical power dynamics of human politics, and what the pendulum between collaboration and competition means for the future of AI.
Pareto Frontiers
A tour of how cycles tend to begin and end for scaling technologies, and why the VC-powered model behind big AI companies might be heading for a reckoning.
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Insights on data strategy, AI readiness, machine learning, and building data-driven organisations. Practical advice from a fractional CDO and data strategy consultant.