Writing
Notes from the build.
On building companies, engineering, and finding your footing in the age of AI. I write a lot. Here's some of it, in case it helps you find solid ground. Some notes are written for the brands we're building; those are tagged, and open on the brand's site in a new tab.
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Ledger Collective
AI, Meet Me Halfway.
I embraced it, built my half — the data — and got out of the way. Two planes, two authors, and the labor in between.
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Ship Smaller. With Proof.
We batched software into releases because shipping was expensive. It isn't anymore. Now batching is the risk.
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Prose Is the Programming Language Now.
If you can write a memo to a new hire, you can write software. Most teams still can't write the memo.
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It Was Never the Code. It Was the Translation.
For decades we priced software by the engineering. The expensive part was always the explaining.
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aura.refract
the engine is open.
We published the math behind the aura read — white balance, chromatic adaptation, a continuous hue read — running live, sliders and all. The edge was never the algorithm.
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↗aura.refract
your color isn't fixed.
If you refract twice and get two different bands, congrats, you're alive. On why the read changes, and why that's the point.
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↗aura.refract
we measure light, not energy.
A short, honest piece about what aura.refract is and what it isn't. Because someone always asks.
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↗aura.refract
why I built the lens.
I've never actually had my aura read. I only ever saw the pictures, in cities I wasn't in. That gap is the whole reason aura.refract exists.
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↗aura.refract
the booth is over. the light isn't.
Aura photography had a great two years. Here's why the next two won't look like the last.
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Not Stepping Away. Stepping Into the Lab.
On July 1 I move from full-time CTO of Ledger Collective into a board and advisory seat. Not a goodbye, just me going back to what I'm built for.
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Code Is Cheap Now. So What's Defensible?
Everyone's panicking that AI killed the software moat. It didn't. It just showed us the moat was never the software.
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Go to Bed. Especially When You're Thisclose.
My sleep schedule got wrecked. Not because anything was wrong, because everything was right. On building systems that run while you rest.
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Build Fast. Pull Back on Purpose.
AI can generate almost anything. What it can't do is decide what's worth keeping. That part is still yours.