Notes on data, AI, IT
and security
No marketing fog. The way I think about real problems with founders and managers.
Where RPA breaks: the process complexity ceiling
Robotic process automation delivers fast wins on simple, stable workflows. When processes have exceptions, it starts to cost more than it saves.
Warehouse automation: what is behind pick rate numbers
How to think through the economics of warehouse automation and why picking speed is not the main metric.
Cloud vendor lock-in: the tradeoffs that actually matter
Lock-in is not automatically bad. The question is whether you are trading flexibility for something you actually need, or just for a lower list price today.
The unexpected cloud bill: what companies discover a year after migration
Why cloud costs end up higher than projected - and what you can do before it becomes a problem.
Colonial Pipeline: when a cyberattack stops physical infrastructure
The May 2021 Colonial Pipeline attack showed that the boundary between IT security and operational security has disappeared.
Data mesh: what it means for managers, not engineers
The data mesh concept is gaining popularity. I break down what it actually means and when it makes sense for a real business.
GPT-3 one year on: what actually changed for business
A year after GPT-3's release is a good moment to separate real shifts from noise and understand where language models already work.
API-first or integration spaghetti: the choice your architecture makes
Why the way your company's systems talk to each other determines growth speed and the cost of change.
GitHub Copilot and the start of mass AI-assisted development
What the GitHub Copilot launch means for companies that hire developers and manage engineering teams.
Why cloud migrations run long: three systemic reasons
Cloud migrations almost always take longer than planned. Three causes I see consistently, and how to work with them.
Streaming data processing: does your company need it
What streaming data processing is, how it differs from batch processing, and in which real situations it is a justified choice.
Colonial Pipeline: when cybersecurity becomes physical resilience
A breakdown of the Colonial Pipeline attack for managers: why the incident changes the security conversation for companies with physical infrastructure.