Field Notes
Practical writing for product leaders and boutique advisors – on deciding what to build, answering the hard questions, and running a sharper practice.
$100 Billion of Consulting Value Evaporated. The Market Wasn't Wrong.
Accenture and Cognizant have shed a combined $100 billion in market value. What investors repriced isn't advice – it's advice delivered as headcount.
AI Helps Weak Teams 4x More Than Strong Ones. That's Not a Win.
AI cut lead time nearly 50% for low-performing teams and 10–15% for elite ones. That gap isn't the good news everyone is reading it as.
Not One of 300 QA Engineers Fully Trusts AI-Generated Code
Three hundred QA engineers rated their trust in AI-generated code. Not one gave it full marks, and their workload rose while their headcount didn't.
Most M&A Happens in Private Markets. Most AI Was Trained on Public Data.
AI due-diligence tools mostly learned from public disclosures. Most M&A deals never generate a public disclosure at all.
82% of Clients Expect AI-Powered Service. Only 1 in 4 Firms That Built One See a Return.
A survey of 200+ accounting firms found 82% feel more AI pressure from clients. Only 1 in 4 who acted on it saw a real return.
AI Doesn't Fail on Capability. It Fails on Governance.
A 950-leader survey found governance failures beat model capability as the top reason AI projects underperform – by 15 points.
Knowledge Stopped Being the Moat. Here's What Replaced It.
As AI makes knowledge and effort nearly free, one coach who works inside OpenAI argues the scarce skill left isn't expertise. It's something else.
57% of Your Team Is Hiding Their AI Use From You
A global study of 48,000+ employees found 57% hide their AI use and pass the work off as their own. Most managers have no idea.
Meta Replaced the PRD With a Morning Dashboard. Here's What That Costs You.
A Meta exec replaced his own status reports with an AI system. It took six months before he trusted it – and that six months is the actual story.