Building an AI operating system, in public.

I share what I build as I build it: what worked, what didn't, and how a non-technical operator makes real systems with AI. These are the pieces, one at a time.

On building
Risograph illustration of AI agents passing an ad around a loop, one grading it, a human approving at a gate, and a compounding stack.
JUL 2026

Built to compound: the marketing engine we run at Tandem

How a small, part-time team runs whole marketing campaigns with a system of AI agents that grade each other's work, and where we keep human judgment in the loop.

Risograph illustration of a person interviewing a friendly geometric figure across a small table.
JUN 2026

Treat AI like a new colleague

Most people I speak with don't know where to start. Onboard AI like a new team member and let it interview you. Prompt included.

Risograph illustration of building a modular structure and filling its gaps.
JUN 2026

Build, find the gaps, fix them, repeat

I heard one prompt on a podcast and ran it against my AI operating system. Here's how I keep it improving as new features ship every day.

Risograph illustration of a pile of paper forms beside a health worker greeting a mother holding her baby.
JUN 2026

Better work, not better paperwork

Building Zanzibar's community health system taught me to redesign work around outcomes. Most teams are making the same mistake with AI today.

Risograph illustration of two presses: one spraying crumpled pages, one guided by a hand producing a clean print.
MAY 2026

AI slop isn't the whole story

Everyone hates AI slop. I'm more interested in what it takes to get real value out of AI, and the patterns others can learn from.

Risograph illustration of a browser, database, and gear connected by cables with a document flowing through.
MAY 2026

A few times a week, I catch myself whispering "holy crap"

Watching Claude build a multi-platform procurement system through MCP connectors, end to end.

Risograph illustration of a drawer of plain files rising into a glowing constellation shaped like a mind.
MAY 2026

AI memory is just markdown files

The "memory" everyone asks about isn't magic. It's plain text files, read and updated every session. Context engineering, explained.

Risograph illustration of a person unplugging a coin-fed machine while a modest machine keeps printing.
MAY 2026

The $104 experiment I deleted

Not everything works. Here's one I built, measured, and shut down, and what it taught me.

Risograph illustration of many sources funneling into a single briefing envelope.
APR 2026

The Sunday intelligence brief

The AI business analyst I'd wanted for five years: every Sunday it reads 14 podcasts, 20 newsletters, and the research, and writes me a brief.

Risograph illustration of a mind opening into a web of connected nodes.
APR 2026

I was curious about AI second brains. Now I'm convinced.

How I built an LLM Wiki in Obsidian over a weekend, and why it became the backbone of how I work.

Risograph illustration of a woman at her desk as her schedule organizes around her.
APR 2026

I built an AI executive assistant over a weekend. It changed how I work.

The build that reached 90,000 people, with no code. What it does, and why so many people wanted one.

The newsletter

The full write-ups live in AI on Purpose

These notes are the short version. My newsletter is where I go deep: every prompt, every step, and what I'm learning from the people and organizations I work with.

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Everything I write comes back to one idea: adopt AI deliberately, in service of work that matters. That's what I mean by AI on purpose.