Filed under AI Usage & Adoption.
Notes, numbers, and hard-won lessons from helping small and medium-sized businesses actually put AI to work. No think-pieces, no vendor takes — just what the math said after we ran it.
The most advanced AI operation in Richmond makes ice cream
The Richmond Times-Dispatch published a survey of Richmond-area businesses and AI on Sunday (Richmond Times-Dispatch, Aug. 30, 2026). Sixteen percent of the businesses surveyed are actively using AI. Another 44%...
Your approval step is a formality by Thursday
AI prepares, a human reviews and approves. That’s kind of the current, standard starting spot for AI automations in small businesses. It feels really good too: you’re not putting anyone...
Don’t Let AI Become Your New Tupperware
You know this kitchen. The oatmeal you eat every morning lives behind a bottle of white wine vinegar that expired in April. There’s a moldy heel of bread under a...
5 Things Uber Just Got Right With AI
Uber has 30,000 engineers, 2,500 agent skills, and a platform team most companies would kill for. And their number-one lesson is still: sit next to the person doing the work for two days. That's it.
The most powerful AI model of 2026 got pulled offline. Your month-end close still takes four days.
Both of those things are true right now, and only one of them should change how you run your business this quarter. There’s a story all over the news that’s...
Bolt a motor to a line shaft and you’ve still got a line shaft
Paul David's 1990 paper explains why electricity took 40 years to show up in productivity statistics: factories bolted motors onto steam-era line shafts. AI seats on unchanged workflows repeat the mistake.
Your job was never typing
Jensen Huang says the task of your job and the purpose of your job are not the same. For SMB operators, that's the difference between losing your week to typing and getting it back.
Cuban’s right. The AI bill is for the workflow you never rebuilt.
Mark Cuban on Big Technology Podcast: F500s waste money on AI because they're running the business the way they always have. ROI comes from rebuilding the workflow on AI — not bolting AI on the old one. SMBs have the asymmetric advantage.
Ken Griffin Went Home Fairly Depressed
Ken Griffin called AI "garbage" at Davos in January 2026. Four months later at Stanford GSB, the $50B Citadel founder came home "fairly depressed" because AI agents now do in hours what his PhD finance team does in months. The reversal is the story.
You can just decide to be AI-native
Part II of our “you can just do things series.” You can decide today. You don’t need a 90-day roadmap, a steering committee, or a transformation consultant in a quarter-zip....