Read My Philosophy
- My Philosophy
Guiding Principles for a Pragmatic Technologist
The Lens I Bring
In the age of AI, advantage comes less from the tools themselves than from the judgment that directs them. My perspective is shaped by two disciplines: the rigour of corporate law and the practice of founding and running software ventures. Both have taught me the same lesson—clarity and results matter more than noise.
These principles are not a method for chasing trends but a framework for disciplined, durable progress. They challenge outdated business models, refram
1. Outcomes, Not Hours
For decades, outsourcing prospered on a time-and-material model. The promise was simple: lower labour costs, measured in hours billed. Offshore development centres, particularly across Asia, grew into powerful industries on the back of this equation.
That era is ending.
AI and automation have dismantled the advantage of selling hours. Machines will always be faster, cheaper, and more consistent. The only measure that now matters is the outcome: what problem was solved, what revenue was generated, what risk was reduced.
As someone from the supply side of this global outsourcing economy, I see the stakes clearly. If service providers in emerging markets cling to the old model, they risk losing their relevance entirely. The centre of gravity has shifted from the supply of labour to the delivery of outcomes.
This shift demands new discipline
- Define value in terms of measurable business results.
- Align incentives with shared outcomes, not consumed effort.
- Deliver not just capacity, but clarity and impact.
It is no longer enough to sell time. What is bought and sold now is certainty of result.
2.Pragmatism Over Complexity
The technology industry is addicted to complexity. New frameworks, new acronyms, new “next big things” flood the market daily. But for most businesses—especially SMBs—complexity is not a sign of sophistication; it is a tax on progress.
My philosophy runs counter to that current. Pragmatism is the highest virtue.
- Law taught me restraint. In a courtroom, irrelevant detail can sink a case. The discipline is in narrowing to the material facts.
- Software ventures taught me trade-offs. Every new feature, every new tool adds hidden costs—maintenance, onboarding, fragility. Leaders who mistake complexity for innovation often build systems that collapse under their own weight.
Pragmatism means choosing the smallest intervention that unlocks the biggest result. It means preferring tools that integrate into existing behaviours rather than demanding an organisation reinvent itself. It also means acknowledging human limits: employees don’t adopt “futuristic” tools that overwhelm them; they adopt ones that make tomorrow’s work easier than today’s.
The future belongs not to those who build the most complex systems, but to those who can deliver the simplest durable results.
3. Strategy Before Technology
The great trap of this era is technological determinism—the idea that the mere presence of a new tool will transform a business. But tools without direction are liabilities.
The right starting point is not “What AI can we use?” but “What problem are we trying to solve, and what opportunity are we trying to unlock?”
This principle reframes technology as a follower of strategy, not its master. It has three critical implications:
Capital discipline.
In a market crowded with hype, companies waste fortunes chasing technologies with no link to revenue or resilience. Beginning with strategy avoids the trap of expensive pilots that go nowhere.
Cultural fit
Cultural fit. A solution that does not align with how a business actually operates will not be used. Starting with strategy ensures alignment between tool and behaviour.
Resilience
Technologies change quickly; strategic problems endure. Building around the latter prevents obsolescence when the next tool emerges.
Strategy-first thinking is not anti-technology. It is the only way to ensure technology remains what it should be: a servant of business goals, never a master of them.
4. Defensibility by Design
In a rush to “move fast,” the modern business world often forgets the cost of fragility. Systems are not valuable merely because they function—they are valuable because they endure.
My legal background instills a bias toward resilience. Every decision must consider second-order effects: privacy, compliance, risk exposure, and long-term competitive defensibility. A system without these qualities is not an asset; it is a liability waiting to surface.
Three dimensions define defensibility:
Legal defensibility.
In a regulatory landscape that grows more complex by the year, systems must be designed with compliance and auditability embedded. Retrofitting governance after the fact is both costly and insufficient.
Operational defensibility
Resilient systems anticipate failure modes—downtime, data loss, turnover—and are built to absorb shocks without collapse.
Competitive defensibility
True advantage comes not from deploying a tool, but from embedding capabilities that are hard to replicate. This might mean proprietary data, unique integrations, or workflows that compound value over time.
The era of disposable experiments is over. In a world where small businesses cannot afford failure, and large businesses are increasingly scrutinised, durability is as important as speed. Defensibility is not an afterthought—it is the design principle.
Closing Note
These principles—Outcomes, Pragmatism, Strategy, Defensibility—are not abstract ideals. They are responses to structural shifts: the collapse of the time-and-material outsourcing model, the addiction to complexity in tech, the misplacement of technology before strategy, and the fragility of systems designed without defensibility.
They are, in short, the discipline required to navigate the next decade of business and technology with clarity and impact.
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If you are ready to move beyond discussion and start implementing intelligent solutions that deliver a measurable impact, let's talk. I am selective about the projects I take on, focusing on partnerships where I can create significant, lasting value.