Startups

By early March 2026, the AI startup market looks less like a gold rush and more like a durable industry with clear pressure points. This post lays out where leverage sits, what buyers reward, and what durable execution looks like now.

Every roadmap I've seen this quarter has an AI feature. Most of them start with the wrong question. Start with the user problem, not the model.

Everyone has an AI startup now. Having been through two accelerators and founded two companies, I can tell you: most of these will not survive the year.

Uncertainty is not new for startups, but 2023 brought it to every engineering org. Here is what actually helps.

Most incident response plans are shelf-ware. Here's what actually matters when your infrastructure is on fire -- drawn from real breaches, NATO cyber exercises, and startup chaos.

A direct comparison of cloud cost optimization strategies -- what actually moves the needle vs. what just makes finance feel better.

Lessons from growing an engineering org at the fintech startup -- what breaks, what works, and why clarity beats process every time.

You can't afford a security team at a startup. But you can turn one motivated engineer per squad into a security champion — and that changes everything.

I've been on both sides of technical due diligence -- raising money and evaluating companies. Most of what people worry about is wrong. Here's what actually matters.

You cannot outpay Big Tech, but you can outshine it on impact, growth, autonomy, and clarity. This is how to hire great engineers with a startup offer in 2016.

Most startups have no business running their own servers. The math is not close.

A practical incident response playbook for small teams: define incidents, assign owners, contain fast, investigate calmly, and recover with clear communication.

Most teams adopt microservices too early and pay for complexity they don't need yet. A well-structured monolith is faster, simpler, and keeps your options open.