Every engineer should build a few things from scratch search, auth, caching just to understand how much complexity lives beneath the surface. But the real skill isn’t rolling your own; it’s knowing when not to. In the age of AI, understanding how things work under the hood isn’t optional it’s how you keep control over what your tools are actually doing.
AI Vibe Coding vs. Outsourcing vs. Local Developers. What Really Works Best
The way we build software is changing fast.You can now code alongside AI in real time. You can hire an offshore team across time zones. Or you can build with local developers right next to you the old-school way that suddenly feels new again. Each model works, but they work differently. And when it comes…
?? → BI → ML → AI → ??
AI’s past and the future Where acronyms in business come from, what they sold, who won, and what might come after “AI” Acronyms are the currency of business storytelling. They compress complex technology into a neat package a salesperson can pitch in a single slide: CRM, ERP, BI, ML, AI. Each one marked a shift…
The Vibe Code Tax
Momentum is the oxygen of startups. Lose it, and you suffocate. Getting it back is harder than creating it in the first place. Here’s the paradox founders hit early: Both paths kill. They just work on different timelines. Death by Hesitation Friendster is a perfect example of death by hesitation. They had the idea years…
Is AI Slowing Everyone Down?
Over the past year, we’ve all witnessed an AI gold rush. Companies of every size are racing to “adopt AI” before their competitors do, layering chatbots, content tools, and automation into their workflows. But here’s the uncomfortable question: is all of this actually making us more productive, or is AI quietly slowing us down? A…
20+ Years as a CTO: Lessons I Learned the Hard Way
Being a CTO isn’t what it looks like from the outside. There are no capes, no magic formulas, and certainly no shortcuts. After more than two decades leading engineering teams, shipping products, and navigating the chaos of startups and scale-ups, I’ve realized that the real challenges and the real lessons aren’t technical. They’re human, strategic,…
Cocoa, Chocolate, and Why AI Still Can’t Discover
Imagine standing in front of a freshly picked cocoa pod. You break it open, and inside you find a pale, sticky pulp with bitter seeds. Nothing looks edible, nothing smells particularly appetizing. By every reasonable measure, this is a dead end. Yet humanity somehow didn’t stop there. Someone, centuries ago, kept experimenting, steps that made…
When to Hire Real Engineers Instead of Freelancers for Your MVP
Building a startup is a race against time. Every day you wait to ship your idea is a day your competitors could gain an edge. That’s why many founders start with freelancers or “vibe coding” to launch their MVP (Minimum Viable Product) quickly. But this fast-track approach comes with hidden risks. There comes a point…
Why “Lines of Code” Is the Wrong Way to Measure AI Productivity in Software Development
Last week, I had a conversation with another CTO that got me thinking about how we measure productivity in the age of AI-assisted software development. Here’s how it went: CTO: Right now, about 70% of our software output is generated by AI.Me: Interesting. How are you measuring that?CTO: By looking at the proportion of code…
On AI-Generated Code, Maintainability, and the Possibility of Disposable Software
Over the past two years, I’ve been using various AI-assisted tools for programming like Codeium, GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, and others. These tools have become part of my daily workflow. Mostly, I use them for code completion and to help me finish thoughts, suggest alternatives, or fill in repetitive boilerplate. I’m not doing anything too wild…