Essays and Notes

The Machine Did Exactly What We Asked Of It

In which the failure happens long before the machine gets involved.

Oct 4, 2026 / Essay / 6 min

Latest

all 32 →

Reading for the Seams

In which polish stops proving there was a mind behind it.

Jul 1, 2026 / Essay / 8 min

Version Eleven

In which the rule outlives the reason.

Apr 5, 2026 / Essay / 7 min

The Interface Was the Meter

In which the interface no longer matters, perhaps.

Mar 21, 2026 / Essay / 12 min

The Drawbridge Theory of Software Survival

In which everyone keeps asking who dies, which is the wrong question.

Feb 27, 2026 / Essay / 17 min

Deep Current

all 7 →

Where software economics are actually heading.

The Systems That Hold

In which the point of all this gets explained.

Apr 13, 2025 / Note / 6 min

How the Tide Is Made

In which the tide gets built rather than waited for.

Feb 7, 2024 / Note / 5 min

The Floor Moves Quietly

In which nobody remembers the baseline until it breaks.

Jul 27, 2023 / Note / 3 min

The Relay

all 4 →

What BizOps does, and why it keeps being misread.

Borrowed Authority

In which the room decides how much authority you have.

Jan 23, 2026 / Essay / 4 min

The Invisible Engine: Why BizOps Builds Belief, Not Just Plans

In which the function refuses to fit on the org chart.

Jul 20, 2025 / Essay / 22 min

Built to Shift: Why BizOps Defies Definition

In which a plan without belief becomes just a PDF.

Jul 6, 2025 / Essay / 18 min

Revenue Operations and the Ghost State

In which the system only works if everyone agrees to use it.

Jun 29, 2025 / Essay / 7 min

The Signal

all 5 →

Measuring a thing is not the same as understanding it.

Reading the Air

In which organizations develop their own weather.

Dec 7, 2025 / Essay / 6 min

The Numbers on the Wall

In which the numbers don't lie, exactly.

Sep 14, 2025 / Note / 3 min

Red Test

In which one small test reveals everything.

Jun 21, 2023 / Note / 5 min

Earning the Right to Explore

In which exploration requires a permit, and the permit is clarity.

Jun 7, 2023 / Note / 5 min

The Scaffold

all 5 →

How organizations get less wrong over time.

The Forgetting Curve

In which hard-earned lessons vanish like they were never written down.

Sep 7, 2025 / Essay / 8 min

When the Star Player Leaves

In which indispensability turns out to be a prison.

Jun 1, 2025 / Essay / 4 min

Tools Only Amplify What You Already Have

In which the new tool changes nothing.

Aug 10, 2025 / Essay / 8 min

Forgetting as Governance

In which agility turns out to be a polite word for lost.

Dec 1, 2024 / Note / 8 min

The Ledger

all 5 →

Money as operating system.

Forecasts Are Lies (But Useful Lies)

In which the forecast is a useful fiction everyone agrees to believe.

May 11, 2025 / Note / 3 min

Finance Is the Feedback Loop

In which finance stops being a veto and becomes a learning system.

May 4, 2025 / Essay / 26 min

Cash Is the Operating System

In which liquidity is infrastructure, not a metric.

Apr 27, 2025 / Essay / 10 min

Cells, Functions, and the Joy of Making Things Behave

In which Excel turns out to have been your first programming language.

Dec 22, 2024 / Essay / 9 min

Common Ground

all 4 →

The politics of having to work together.

Sacrifice Schedule

In which the values page outlives the values.

Feb 2, 2026 / Note / 7 min

The Ghost(s) in the Org Chart

In which every company turns out to have two org charts.

Jun 15, 2025 / Note / 5 min

Start with the Posts

In which structure turns out to be a courtesy.

Feb 14, 2024 / Note / 6 min

The Question Nobody Wants to Answer

In which the rope and compass are not up for debate.

Jun 14, 2023 / Note / 3 min

The Wiring

all 2 →

The org chart is not the wiring diagram.

Centralize. Embed. Repeat.

In which org charts prove temporary, and relationships compound.

Aug 17, 2025 / Note / 6 min

Quote-to-Cash Isn't a Pipeline. It's a Trust System

In which the real process turns out to be the workaround.

Jun 22, 2025 / Note / 3 min

Michael Spradlinmpspradlin.com