Ideas under pressure
Writing for the world arriving next.
Essays on AGI, artificial superintelligence, Universal Basic Abundance, production AI, forward-deployed engineering, and the stubbornly human work of taste. Facts, projections, scenarios, and personal proposals are labeled so speed does not outrun honesty.
I’m also actively looking for a remote Forward-Deployed Engineer or senior product engineering role. If your team needs someone who can move from an ambiguous workflow to production, tell me about the deployment.
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Universal Basic Abundance
A testable framework for the missing bridge between AI capability and shared material prosperity: production, infrastructure, ownership, governance, distribution, and resilience.
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23 essays
FDEtemplate9 minForward-Deployed Engineer Job Description Template and Interview Scorecard
A copyable forward-deployed engineer job description built around outcomes rather than a stack list, plus the five-stage interview loop and 1 to 4 rubric that make candidate comparison repeatable.
Published Aug 16, 2026 · Reviewed Aug 16, 2026
FDEcompensation7 minForward-Deployed Engineer Salary in 2026: What Ten Reviewed Postings Disclose
Aggregate FDE salary figures hide the qualifiers that decide what an offer is worth. Here are ten first-party postings, the ranges they published, the dates they were verified, and how to read them.
Published Aug 16, 2026 · Reviewed Aug 16, 2026
FDEcareer7 minHow to Become a Forward-Deployed Engineer: A Path Built From Real Postings
Ten reviewed FDE postings name six programming skills, three name none at all, and eight attach a travel expectation. Here is what that implies about the path in, and how to build the evidence.
Published Aug 16, 2026 · Reviewed Aug 16, 2026
Future Intelligenceessay11 minWhat Comes After Intelligence?
What happens when an intelligence can understand and redesign the process of intelligence itself? The edge may be a wall, an open-ended process, or a transition into a new form of organization.
Published Jul 30, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 30, 2026
Universal Basic Abundanceanalysis8 minWhat Remains Scarce After AGI?
Intelligence can become cheap without making a city center, a power line, a trusted doctor, political legitimacy, or your attention infinite. AGI changes the bottlenecks; it does not repeal reality.
Published Jul 26, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 26, 2026
Universal Basic Abundanceownership-analysis9 minWho Owns the AI Economy? Robots, Compute, and the Abundance Question
If labor gets cheaper while models, chips, energy, robots, and distribution stay concentrated, abundance can exist behind a tollgate. The decisive question is not only what AI can do. It is who can direct the machines.
Published Jul 26, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 26, 2026
FDEcomparison6 minForward-Deployed Engineer vs Solutions Engineer: The Accountability Test
Do not choose between FDE and Solutions Engineer by title alone. Compare the customer stage, amount of production code, rollout ownership, success metric, and handoff boundary.
Published Jul 19, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 19, 2026
FDEplaybook9 minFrom AI Prototype to Production: A 30-Day Forward-Deployed Engineering Playbook
Thirty days is enough to produce credible production evidence, not to finish every AI product. This playbook sequences discovery, a vertical slice, evaluation, risk controls, canary rollout, and handoff around that honest goal.
Published Jul 11, 2026 · Updated Jul 19, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 19, 2026
FDEhiring9 minHow to Hire a Forward-Deployed Engineer for an AI Startup
A founder-ready hiring process for the rare engineer who can unpack an ambiguous workflow, ship inside an unfamiliar system, and earn production adoption without turning every customer request into custom debt.
Published Jul 11, 2026 · Updated Jul 19, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 19, 2026
FDEtemplate12 minThe Forward-Deployed Engineering Brief: A Template for AI Deployments
Align the workflow, outcome, evals, authority, rollout, adoption, handoff, and scale-or-stop decision before an AI deployment becomes an expensive collection of assumptions.
Published Jul 11, 2026 · Updated Jul 19, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 19, 2026
FDEownership7 minWhat an FDE Owns After the Demo: A Field Guide for Founders
A polished prototype is only the start. An FDE owns the difficult path into production and the feedback loop that makes the core product better.
Published Jul 11, 2026 · Updated Jul 16, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 19, 2026
Personal Systemsbuild-log8 minHow I Built This Site, and the Easter Eggs Hiding In It
The design decisions, the parts I threw away, and the easter eggs most people will never find. A living log, updated as the site keeps changing.
Published Jul 7, 2026 · Updated Jul 16, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 16, 2026
Production AImethod9 minAgentic Engineering, Not Vibe Coding: How a 12-Year Engineer Ships With AI in 2026
Vibe coding and agentic engineering are not the same discipline. One is fine for throwaway toys. The other is how I actually ship production software with AI.
Published Jul 7, 2026 · Updated Jul 11, 2026 · Reviewed Aug 16, 2026
Personal Systemsfield-note8 minAI Is External Executive Function: What Building With Agents Did for My ADHD Brain
ADHD never made the coding hard. It made starting hard. Here is where AI agents quietly took over the executive-function work my brain is bad at, and where they made it worse.
Published Jul 6, 2026 · Updated Jul 11, 2026 · Reviewed Aug 16, 2026
Creativity and Musicguide4 minHow to Download Air Song Free (and the Hidden Trick Most People Miss)
The direct way to download Air Song free, plus the hidden listener reward that appears after two complete plays.
Published Jul 6, 2026 · Updated Jul 11, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 11, 2026
Production AIessay9 minTaste Is the New 10x: What Software Architecture and an Ambient Record Taught Me About Choosing What to Build
When AI can generate any code on demand, the scarce skill stops being output and becomes judgment: choosing what to build, and knowing when the output is wrong. Here is why taste is the new 10x, drawn from both software architecture and ambient music production.
Published Jul 5, 2026 · Updated Jul 11, 2026 · Reviewed Aug 16, 2026
Production AIretrospective8 minI Built a Product Solo With AI Agents in 2026, and Here's What It Didn't Do
AI agents compressed the building. They helped with distribution tasks but could not manufacture trust, and they quietly handed me a codebase I had to fight to keep understandable. Here's the split.
Published Jul 4, 2026 · Updated Jul 11, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 11, 2026
Creativity and Musicworkflow8 minAI Won't Write Your Record: Where AI Actually Lives in an Ambient Producer's Workflow
The "type a prompt, get a hit" pitch is the least interesting thing AI does for music. Here's where it actually earns its place in my ambient workflow, and the line I refuse to move it past.
Published Jul 3, 2026 · Updated Jul 11, 2026 · Reviewed Aug 16, 2026
Future Intelligencenews10 minClaude Opus 5 Is Here: Features, Pricing, Benchmarks, and What It Means for AGI
Claude Opus 5 is available now. This post separates confirmed product facts and vendor-reported results from what the launch can and cannot tell us about progress toward AGI.
Published Jul 2, 2026 · Updated Jul 30, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 30, 2026
Universal Basic Abundancesupporting-thesis8 minWe Already Tested Life After Work. We Just Called It Being Rich.
The rich did not stop acting when work became optional. They chose projects, causes, hobbies, status games, and obsessions. The post-work question is not whether humans move without fear. It is who gets to own their time.
Published Jun 5, 2026 · Updated Jul 26, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 26, 2026
Universal Basic Abundanceopinion11 minCommunism Needed Abundance. AGI Might Finally Build It.
Communism imagined dignity after scarcity. Capitalism became a powerful discovery engine but left survival tied to labor. If AGI changes production, we will need a third design: a shared floor with an open sky.
Published Apr 30, 2026 · Updated Jul 26, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 26, 2026
Creativity and Musicperspective7 minThe Impact of AI Art on the World: A Catalyst for Creativity
In 2023 I argued that AI could push artists beyond familiar patterns. Three years later, I still believe that. The revised argument must include training consent, authorship, provenance, and the economics of creative work.
Published Apr 21, 2023 · Updated Jul 26, 2026 · Reviewed Jul 26, 2026
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