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Most AI pilots should be killed sooner
The polite fiction around enterprise AI is that every pilot teaches something. Many teach only that nobody defined the decision, owner or failure cost.
Emil Shirokikh · September 21, 2026 · 2 min read
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article
AI agents need boundaries, not personalities
The market is decorating automation with human traits while neglecting permissions, reversibility and evidence.
Emil Shirokikh · September 20, 2026 · 2 min read
article
A computer-vision demo is not a system
Benchmark accuracy says little about glare, drift, maintenance, latency or the operator who must act on an alert.
Emil Shirokikh · September 19, 2026 · 3 min read
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Private AI is an architecture choice, not a product
Buying a server does not make AI private. Data paths, administrative access, telemetry and update channels still decide the boundary.
Emil Shirokikh · September 18, 2026 · 3 min read
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Evaluate the decision before automating it
Teams often score model outputs while ignoring whether the surrounding decision process improves.
Emil Shirokikh · September 17, 2026 · 2 min read
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AI governance without theatre
A policy document is not a control. Governance becomes real only where authority, evidence and intervention meet the system.
Emil Shirokikh · September 16, 2026 · 2 min read
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Satellite autonomy needs boring failure modes
Autonomy in orbit is valuable precisely where communication is limited, but novelty is least useful during a fault.
Emil Shirokikh · September 15, 2026 · 3 min read
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Downlink is a product decision
A mission that collects more than it can move has not solved sensing; it has moved product selection into orbit.
Emil Shirokikh · September 14, 2026 · 2 min read
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The ground segment is the mission
Space programmes celebrate hardware while ground software quietly determines whether operators can command, understand and recover it.
Emil Shirokikh · September 13, 2026 · 2 min read
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Edge inference after the demo
Running a model once on target hardware is not evidence that it belongs in a mission.
Emil Shirokikh · September 12, 2026 · 2 min read
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Space software cannot borrow web risk
The web assumption that software can be patched quickly is dangerous when access windows, certification and physical consequence constrain recovery.
Emil Shirokikh · September 11, 2026 · 2 min read
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Space data moats are overstated
Owning imagery does not automatically create a durable advantage when customers struggle to turn it into an operational decision.
Emil Shirokikh · September 10, 2026 · 2 min read
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Cloud exit is a design requirement
A credible cloud strategy includes the ability to leave parts of the cloud without rebuilding the company.
Emil Shirokikh · September 9, 2026 · 3 min read
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Kubernetes is often organisational debt
Teams adopt orchestration to look mature, then spend scarce engineering time operating a platform their product did not require.
Emil Shirokikh · September 8, 2026 · 2 min read
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Observability is not more dashboards
A wall of charts can conceal that nobody knows which customer promise is currently at risk.
Emil Shirokikh · September 7, 2026 · 2 min read
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Data centers are back in strategy
Compute placement has returned to the executive agenda because AI economics, data gravity and power availability now shape product choices.
Emil Shirokikh · September 6, 2026 · 2 min read
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Reliability needs a price
Calling every service critical is how organisations fund none of them correctly.
Emil Shirokikh · September 5, 2026 · 2 min read
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Modernisation needs subtraction
Replatforming a tangled estate without removing obsolete behavior merely gives old complexity a new invoice.
Emil Shirokikh · September 4, 2026 · 2 min read
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Zero trust is not a product category
No appliance can sell an organisation the habit of continuously verifying identity, device, context and authority.
Emil Shirokikh · September 3, 2026 · 2 min read
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Compliance can make systems less safe
When passing the audit becomes the objective, teams optimise evidence while operational risk moves elsewhere.
Emil Shirokikh · September 2, 2026 · 2 min read
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Incident response starts before the alert
The first hours of an incident are determined by decisions made months earlier about ownership, access and evidence.
Emil Shirokikh · September 1, 2026 · 3 min read
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Security review belongs in product design
Late security review finds expensive facts after customers, contracts and architecture have hardened.
Emil Shirokikh · August 31, 2026 · 2 min read
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Founders should sell before they scale
Hiring a sales team before founders understand why customers buy is delegation of ignorance.
Emil Shirokikh · August 30, 2026 · 2 min read
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MVP does not mean small product
The minimum viable product is the smallest credible test of a business risk—not a badly finished version of the final interface.
Emil Shirokikh · August 29, 2026 · 2 min read
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Venture studios need contractual clarity
Ambiguous promises of partnership become conflict when ownership, control and delivery obligations finally matter.
Emil Shirokikh · August 28, 2026 · 2 min read
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Fundraising is not product validation
Capital proves an investor accepted a risk-return story; it does not prove a customer will change behavior.
Emil Shirokikh · August 27, 2026 · 2 min read
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Unit economics before growth theatre
Growth that becomes less attractive as it scales is not momentum; it is delayed arithmetic.
Emil Shirokikh · August 26, 2026 · 2 min read
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Revenue is not cash
A profitable-looking company can still fail because invoices, collections and delivery commitments move on different clocks.
Emil Shirokikh · August 25, 2026 · 2 min read
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Finance automation needs controls first
Automating an unclear approval process makes errors faster and harder to notice.
Emil Shirokikh · August 24, 2026 · 2 min read
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Dashboards are not management
A metric without an owner, threshold and response is decoration.
Emil Shirokikh · August 23, 2026 · 2 min read
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