Much of the world's text-based content has been used to train large language models. There is actually a shortage of available content because LLMs are constantly sucking up the supply, but there is a large untapped supply of unstructured data – sound, video and images. Why aren't
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
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
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
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 TechCrunch.
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't
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's
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
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
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 that
![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)
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
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
Newsletters
ForwardThinking 🤔 Oracle's Tuesday morning massacre 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
Analysis
Over the last six months, I’ve interviewed a range of enterprise leaders. I went back through those conversations looking for one thing: how they’re thinking about the so-called SaaSocalypse (the predicted end of SaaS). We've been hearing a lot about the end of SaaS as we
Profiles
CrowdStrike's Elia Zaitsev spent a decade at the company before being promoted to CTO in 2023, just months after ChatGPT's debut. It was a pivotal moment for his career and for the broader technology landscape. He understood the magnitude of the shift and how generative AI
Commentary
Well, it's been building up inside of me For, oh, I don't know how long I don't know why, but I keep thinking Something's bound to go wrong ~Beach Boys, Don't Worry Baby A backlash against AI has been building
Newsletters
ForwardThinking 🤔 Everyone hates AI Well, it's been building up inside of me For, oh, I don't know how long I don't know why, but I keep thinking Something's bound to go wrong ~Beach Boys, Don't Worry Baby A backlash against
Analysis
Databricks has spent over a decade establishing itself as a cloud data platform company. This week, the company announced a new cybersecurity product that will put it in front of an entirely different buyer: the CISO. The new Lakewatch product is predicated on the idea that security is increasingly a
Commentary
We’ve all heard the relentless hype around AI agents. They will be so potent they will come for our jobs, our software, our workflows. Agentic workforces will force an all-encompassing overhaul of how we do business. Wall Street has bought into this vision so completely, it is starting to
Newsletters
ForwardThinking 🤔 Agents here, there and nowhere We’ve all heard the relentless hype around AI agents. They will be so potent they will come for our jobs, our software, our workflows. Agentic workforces will force an all-encompassing overhaul of how we do business. Wall Street has bought into this vision
Analysis
Last week, Shantanu Narayen announced he was stepping down as Adobe CEO after 18 years, leaving behind a legacy of transformation. Perhaps his biggest achievement was moving Adobe’s popular Creative Suite from boxed software to a cloud subscription business. "He did the impossible by saving and transforming an
Profiles
When you think about a company the size of Amazon, the idea of one person being responsible for everything from the locks on the doors to cybersecurity and employee safety might seem absurd. Yet that's exactly what the company decided to do. That person is CJ Moses, who
Analysis
The following post is a collaboration with my long-time friend, colleague and writing partner Alex Wilhelm. Subscribe to Alex's newsletter ‘Cautious Optimism‘ here. You'll be glad you did! In 2023, following an uninspiring AWS re:Invent, Amazon's enormous annual customer event in Las Vegas,