Latest posts
Building on Quicksand
The accelerating deployment of AI reveals three critical challenges: our infrastructure is inadequate, monopolization threatens resilience, and we're eliminating entry-level career pathways. But the same maintenance backlogs that companies defer also represent an overlooked opportunity—if we choose to use AI to address them rather than eliminate the workers who would learn from them.
Engineering is Critical: Three Economic Blocs and the Character of Leadership
They say 'the US innovates, China replicates, and Europe regulates.' This framing captures something real, but misses the deeper pattern. Each of the world's three major economic blocs exhibits a distinctive character—a dominant disposition shaped by professional culture, institutional history, and the backgrounds of those who lead. Understanding these characters—Engineering, Regulation, and Investment—reveals why each bloc approaches challenges differently and what democratic leaders must learn from all three.
The Infrastructure Debt Crisis
Think of AI deployment as running bullet trains on century-old rails. We've built sophisticated AI systems but we're running them on IT infrastructure designed when security was an afterthought and 'move fast and break things' was gospel.
The New Gilded Age
We've been here before. At the end of the 19th century, large industrial corporations captured key economic sectors and the political systems meant to regulate them. Today's situation doesn't just rhyme—it replicates the same logic with a modern twist. Instead of conquering Africa, concentrated capital seeks to conquer cyberspace through what Silicon Valley explicitly calls 'blitzscaling'.
The Entry-Level Extinction
AI is decimating entry-level employment globally. U.S. programmer employment fell 27.5% between 2023 and 2025. Entry-level hiring at the 15 biggest tech firms dropped 25%. This isn't just an employment problem—it's an institutional knowledge crisis. Organizations can't promote from within if there's no 'within' to promote from.