Analysis
As companies struggle to implement AI in the enterprise, one of the things that tends to happen is letting perfect get in the way of good enough. One of the problems of working with AI as an individual, team or a company is that it’s easy to go down
Commentary
Last month I attended the CRM Playaz IRL event in Atlanta, where I had a memorable conversation with Alan Berkson, who runs analyst relations at Contentful, a headless content management company. Headless is simply a term for separating the front end user interface from the back end code. It was
Newsletters
Hi everyone. As agents take center stage (at least in the hype cycle), this week I explore the notion of headless everything. If you like my newsletter, please share this week’s edition of FastForward with a friend, it really helps.💌 Sign up here. ForwardThinking 🤔 Get ready for headless everything
Analysis
Ten years ago, people were just getting comfortable with the cloud, never mind worrying about containing costs, but Capital One decided to open source an internal cost-control project based on policy as code. That project was Cloud Custodian. In April 2016 I wrote the story of that release for
Profiles
Even if we never reach the mythological one-person $1 billion startup, it's clear that AI coding tools have helped accelerate the software development process, making that part of startup building faster, cheaper and more efficient than ever before. But just because you can code faster, doesn'
Commentary
Investors are a fickle bunch. They just need to hear a whisper of a rumor, or spy a flash of a headline crossing their Bloomberg terminals, and off they go on a hard sell-off, sure that whatever they heard is going to blow up their positions, when it'
Newsletters
Hi everyone, spring finally sprung here this week, and I launched the FastForward on PPN podcast. You can watch the pilot episode here. If you like my newsletter, please share this week’s edition of FastForward with a friend, it really helps.💌 Sign up here. ForwardThinking 🤔 Wall Street keeps falling
Profiles
Last week at HumanX, I heard a lot about AI, some hype, and some more practical, but however it's presented, it's undeniable that AI is driving changes across every company and industry. I spoke to PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada, who told me how it’s forcing
Commentary
ForwardThinking 🤔 I spent the first part of the week at HumanX, the AI-focused conference in San Francisco where I moderated a couple of panels, talked to a bunch of smart people and caught up with many old friends. One thing that stuck out, especially on the main stage, was
![Human[X] logo on blue background on main stage at HumanX conference.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/37/03/370356ed-dc1d-4cfd-956b-ac4fe1e6cfad/content/images/size/w600/2026/04/IMG_2289-2.jpg)
Newsletters
Editor’s Note: I was at HumanX this week, so this is an abbreviated newsletter without the News of the Week section. If you have any questions or comments, please email me at feedback@fastforward.blog. ForwardThinking 🤔 AI hype...AI reality I spent the first part of the week at
Analysis
Enterprises want to love agentic AI, they really do, but three years after ChatGPT blew onto the scene, companies are still struggling to find value. Agents are the latest manifestation of 'describe it and it will come,' yet like all enterprise automation efforts over the last couple of
Commentary
On Tuesday morning, thousands of Oracle employees were sent packing with an email. While there is no great way to conduct a mass layoff, this move felt particularly cold, waking up to an impersonal missive with the line: "We are sharing some difficult news regarding your position." It