The product builder paradox
The product builder paradox: role collapse works where the customer speaks your language and the solution space is mature. Elsewhere, judgment fragments back.
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Older than the tool, earlier than the product
In April 2026, every major AI-coding provider introduced metered overage pricing inside the same window. The pattern is three centuries old. What is new is that the margin capture is arriving before most of the value even arrived.
readTransparent tools, opaque lives
We want to see into our tools. We do not want our tools to see into us. The current regime has it backwards: opaque technologies, transparent lives. The fix requires both axes: make tools inspectable and make lives unreadable.
readIn praise of the bouncer
There is no best level of openness, only gates designed for their purpose. Open one gate fully and a second one forms where you weren't looking. Design the gate deliberately or its design will be inherited from whoever gains most when it opens.
readScale or craft. The interface moat is dead.
The interface moat is dead, that's settled. What nobody asked is what opened. AI revealed two independent axes (Scale and Craft) that the interface moat was hiding. Three quadrants survive; one got repriced to commodity. The question isn't whether the moat is dead. It's which quadrant you're in.
readThe emergence of a European terroir for software
If an ICC judge can be cut off from the global banking system by executive order, so can you. Software has "terroir": where it's built shapes what it is and who can use it. A European terroir is emerging and "where your software lives" is becoming an operational requirement, not a preference.
readTech ateliers, not big tech
The factory model made sense when scale was the bottleneck. AI changes the equation. When any idea can be vibe-coded, the future of tech jobs is mastery, not hustle. We need small workshops where masters work alongside learners. They can be "tech ateliers".
readLet it break. See if you own it.
We sense something wrong when the update bricks the appliance, the service shuts down with our data, the repair costs more than replacement by design. Ivan Illich called the missing quality "conviviality". The path to it: "transparent technologies" — tools we can understand, inspect, and repair.
readThe Digital-Mittelstand is the other way
A decade in venture-backed startups, consulting taught one lesson: the industry's obsession with scale is broken. The Digital-Mittelstand offers an alternative: mastery over growth, longevity over scale, profitability over prestige.
readThe Software Meal Tier System
If anyone can now "cook" an app, differentiation lies in quality, not quantity. The Software Meal Tier System maps food and software from microwave meals to Michelin stars. Most mainstream SaaS is devolving toward fast food. As AI churns out commodity apps, craftsmanship becomes the moat.
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