Blog · Field notes from the brain
Notes on running companies with one mind.
Essays, build logs and field notes from the team building Qualia. Operator-grade writing. No thought-leadership.
How Hatay Surf Center Organized Its Knowledge to Spend More Time With Young People
Student records, field plans, volunteer coordination and donor conversations in one shared memory — so the team spends less time on admin and more time on the shore.
The AI Employee Buyer's Guide (2026): 8 Questions to Ask Before You Hire
Ownership, memory, actions, failure modes, custom roles, pricing, security, references. The eight questions that separate real AI hires from assistants in branding.
Not a Tool, Not a Chatbot, Not an Assistant: What an AI Hire Actually Is
Ownership, memory that survives, autonomy across your tools. The four-column test that tells a tool, a chatbot, an assistant, and an AI hire apart in 30 seconds.
How We Run 12 Apps With 5 People: Our Weekly Operating Cadence
The weekly loop a five-person team uses to run twelve live apps: triage, decision records, cross-product context, portfolio review, and a Friday kill list.
AI Chief of Staff vs AI COO: Assisting a Person vs Running the Operation
A chief of staff optimizes one leader's day. An AI COO runs the whole operation across your portfolio. The core split and when each fits.
Company Memory vs Company Brain: Why Storing the Why Is Not Enough
Memory answers when you ask. A brain makes the next move on its own. Where an AI COO sits and why capturing the why is not enough.
Portfolio Operations: How to Run 3 to 20 Live Products as One Operation
Portfolio operations means running 3 to 20 live games or apps as one operation. The mechanics, the cadence, and how an AI COO runs it day to day.
AI COO vs AI Agent Frameworks: What Actually Runs Your Portfolio
Frameworks execute tasks you define. An AI COO decides the next move, holds the memory of why, and orchestrates agents across every product.
The unwritten playbook of running 12 apps with 5 people
Five failure modes that break single-product playbooks at scale.