SD

Writing

Strong opinions, held usefully. Short essays on operating, investing, AI, media, and the decisions underneath the headlines.

Arguments,
not updates.

Original essays and timely responses.

Nov 2025—now

July 2026

  1. EssayMedia Technology · AI2 min read

    Generating the sports clip will be the cheap part

    The defensible layer in sports video is the rights and delivery system around the clip, not the act of finding the moment.

June 2026

  1. ResponseAI · Management1 min read

    Sixty hours of agent work a day is a management failure

    Parallel agents can create more work than one person can review. The bottleneck moves from generation to acceptance.

May 2026

  1. ResponsePublic Markets · Governance2 min read

    Staying private can hide a weak operating cadence

    Public readiness forces mature companies to explain their economics, close their books, and accept price discovery.

  2. EssayEnterprise AI · Operations2 min read

    Enterprise AI should attack waiting, not headcount

    The strongest enterprise use case is compressing handoffs, approvals, and queues instead of converting recovered minutes into a layoff model.

March 2026

  1. EssayVenture · Governance2 min read

    Operator-investors should operate less

    Operating experience helps investors when it improves a founder's judgment. It becomes a liability when advice turns into shadow management.

February 2026

  1. EssaySacramento · Ecosystems2 min read

    Sacramento does not need another accelerator

    The region's next entrepreneurship dollar should recruit repeat operators and buy customer access instead of adding another pitch cohort.

January 2026

  1. EssayM&A · Operations2 min read

    Every integration plan needs a no-integration list

    Acquirers should name the systems and practices they will leave alone until they understand what creates the target's value.

December 2025

  1. EssayInternational Expansion · Operations2 min read

    Your first U.S. hire should not be a salesperson

    Complex companies entering America need a customer operator before a quota carrier because delivery creates the repeatable sales motion.

  2. ResponseAI · Infrastructure2 min read

    Open standards will erase most agent moats

    As agent connectivity standardizes, connector counts lose value. The durable work moves to permissions, exceptions, and recovery.

November 2025

  1. ResponsePrivate Markets · Venture2 min read

    Private equity wants your 401(k)

    Broader access to private markets may solve fund managers' distribution problem before it improves retirement portfolios.

  2. EssayOperations · Company Building2 min read

    Management latency breaks growing companies

    Growing companies slow down when decision rights lag headcount. Tracking the delay exposes where authority stopped scaling.