Thoughts

Long-form thinking

On tech, AI, business, and what actually works.

June 20, 2026

Addition by Subtraction: What Vercel's Deleted Robot Teaches Small Business

Vercel deleted roughly 80% of its internal AI agent's tools and it got faster, cheaper, and more accurate. The counterintuitive result explains why most business AI fails — and hands small and medium businesses a concrete playbook for landing in the 5% that actually works.

AISmall BusinessAutomationStrategyCase Studies

June 19, 2026

The Margin Machine: What the 2030 Small Business Will Look Like — and How to Build It First

Small businesses now adopt AI faster than big firms — yet roughly 95% of AI projects move no profit at all. Here's what the AI-native small business actually looks like by 2030, and the six-step roadmap that turns cheap intelligence into software-grade margins.

AISmall BusinessStrategyAutomation

June 2, 2026

The Ten-Person Revolution: How Small Businesses Are Quietly Winning With AI

Forget the autonomous "digital employee." The small businesses actually winning with AI in 2026 each did one humbler thing — handed a single tedious chore to a machine, kept a human watching it, and got their afternoons back. Ten real cases, and the wall at the end of the runway.

AISmall BusinessAutomationCase Studies

May 29, 2026

The Quiet Win: Where AI Agents Actually Pay Off for a Small Business

AI agents pay off when you point them at a narrow back-office chore — inbox triage, scheduling, invoicing, lead follow-up — and fail when you ask them to autonomously run your business. A practical, skeptic-friendly guide for SMB operators.

AIAutomationSmall BusinessOperations