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Alan Williamson

@a1an.bsky.social
22 followers 65 following 72 posts

Interim Chief Technology Officer | PE Scale Up Leader | Cloud Native Platforms | Legacy Modernization | AI Practitioner Author of "Think Like a CTO"; alan.is

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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
I for one, very happy we putting the tools to spot AI generated slop up closer and more accessible to the average person. Ideally love it to be built into browsers, so every page can be flagged as a warning. Baby steps
alan.is
Who Actually Wrote This - Alan Williamson
Anthropic now watermarks AI text, officially for EU compliance, but it also exposes who's faking effort. Bosses, consultants, and lawyers who let AI think for them risk getting caught. LinkedIn's new…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I had to argue twice with Claudia's Fable this week. Twice she conceded I was right.
alan.is
Will AI replace developers? - Alan Williamson
AI won't replace developers, but it changes how they work. Two real examples show frontier models like Claude confidently defending wrong logic until pushed by an engineer who knew better. The…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
and in a completely separate agent, on another machine: "You were right to push back — this was a second, unrelated bug that my earlier fix never touched. " Claude i am making you my beeatch this morning!
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
From Claude Code "Found the actual root cause: it's a real bug, and the user's instinct was right. " THAT'S WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT. I still have a role here.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
This is what living on the AI edge is like
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Clearly Grok needs more time to upload your repositories to their servers
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
"Our team is a family." No. It really is not. That phrase means you will work late without overtime. Boundaries will look like disloyalty. And when you leave, it will feel like a betrayal. The alternative is the Campfire. People gather, contribute, and move on. The fire endures.
alan.is
We Are a Campfire, Not a Family - Alan Williamson
The "we are a family" pitch in hiring is a trap. It demands loyalty and sacrifice without asking, and creates silence when things go wrong. The alternative is the Campfire model. People gather,…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Imposter Syndrome in the age of AI is a serious mental health issue facing technologists. alan.is/2026/07/07/a...
alan.is
AI Imposter Syndrome: The Wave You Can't Skip - Alan Williamson
Every previous tech wave had an escape hatch you could skip and your career was fine. AI does not. 72% of mid-career engineers report AI fatigue. This piece breaks down the five-step spiral from loss…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
US private equity firms are sitting on over 13,000 unsold companies. If the current pace continues, it will take 11 years to clear the inventory. Here is why "AI transformation" isn't the escape hatch everyone thinks it is. alan.is/2026/07/06/p...
alan.is
PE has an inventory problem; AI is not the solution - Alan Williamson
Private equity faces a massive inventory crisis, with thousands of companies sitting unsold as easy multiples vanish. Instead of solving this pricing problem through true innovation, firms are…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
the one thing for sure, when you are doing a lot of local AI llm experimentation - you don't half chew up some bandwidth downloading GB's of GGUF files!
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Stop paying the "complexity tax." If your project doesn't need a massive, multi-layered infrastructure beast, don't build one. For many teams, Cloudflare provides a simpler way to get secure, scalable results without the AWS overhead. Less plumbing, more product alan.is/2026/07/03/t...
alan.is
Beyond the AWS Default: The Cloudflare Alternative - Alan Williamson
The standard move is to default to AWS. It is the safe choice, but it often comes with an unnecessary tax of complexity. For many projects, a faster path exists. By choosing Cloudflare, you can trade…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Ever wondered what those big gnarly AI LLM filenames mean? Allow me to help with that, with a quick guide on what you should be paying attention to.
alan.is
Roadmap to LLM Filenames: From Quantization to Architecture - Alan Williamson
Navigating the world of local LLMs can feel like decoding a secret language. This guide breaks down common model filenames—explaining terms like Q4/Q6, MoE, and MTP to help you understand how…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Stop trading your data privacy for the convenience of public APIs. I’m diving into why "Embedded AI" and local LLMs are the ultimate solution for companies that need to protect their intellectual property while scaling.
alan.is
The Risk Premium: Why Your Next AI Integration Should Be Local - Alan Williamson
Stop worrying about API costs and data leaks. Discover why moving AI to the edge, using local, open-source models like Gemma 4, offers the ultimate solution for data sovereignty. Learn how to build…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Say what you want, but we do have one of the best national anthems. Something everyone can really throw themselves behind. #Scotland
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Local Hero Lego set be would awesome to build.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Claude is everything all right over there? Got a feeling we're going to be seeing a whole more of these
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
When a "Driver" is 754MB in size, can we really still call it a driver? Nvidia doing its part to consume bandwidth
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Recently published a How-To for those wondering how to get their arms around running AI locally. It's real simple.
alan.is
How to run AI locally - Alan Williamson
Let me walk you through how to run AI models locally on your own machine, removing the logistics and figuring out which type of models you can actually run. You will be surprised at how easy and…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Inspired from a reddit thread I recently stumbled upon, I wrote this on enterprise stability alan.is/2026/06/03/e...
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Jack Clark talks AI sense Jack Clark was featured on Rest is Politics podcast, which turned out to be an non-hyped sensible conversation with an honesty seldom seem from the AI founders.
alan.is
Jack Clark talks AI sense
Jack Clark was featured on Rest is Politics podcast, which turned out to be an non-hyped sensible conversation with an honesty seldom seem from the AI founders.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Forget Gorilla/SuperGlue - let's spend the time look at the science of Cheerio's, milk and a metal sink Those little buggers once dried out, just won't budge
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
I had a little fun - built my own company Slack AI simulator. Each person is powered by their own model/context and are free to respond and interact. They have tools to search the web and even generate memes You inject URLs or events to see how they respond Available on GitHub to play with
alan.is
Simulating Corporate Chaos: Your Own Truman Show
Setup your own Truman Show, with personality types, and then sit back and watch them interact in a virtual Slack channel. Each one is run by its own AI agent, learning and interacting.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Ever wondered what happens when you hit ENTER in that #ai chat session? I wager most don't realize how basic it really all is, and when you do, how woefully simple it is to add it to your product. That product moat you thought you had with your new AI feature - nope. The moat is dry
alan.is
Behind the Prompt Curtain
Every AI prompt is a stateless HTTP request. No memory, no magic. Just a JSON array of messages you build and send yourself. Once you see what is actually going over the wire, adding AI to your pro…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Our new world we live in Claude, Cursor and Gemini, I have managed to hit the limits on all 3 - and I am now officially in a time out Being the tight Scotsman, I refuse to upgrade my plans for the sake of a few hours. This is natures way of telling me to take a break and STOP USING #AI SO MUCH!
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Dr. Greg over at The Third Bit published an excellent piece on something that we are all wrestling with; how do we measure the productivity of #AI? He lists out the 12 ways you shouldn't do it - this will bristle many a CEO/board as they try to justify their token spend with old metrics
third-bit.com
The Third Bit: Twelve Ways to Be Wrong About AI-Assisted Coding
Suppose your manager asks you next week to demonstrate that the AI coding tools your company signed up for are worth the subscription cost. Would you measure lines of code generated, or tickets…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
We had KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. #AI has given us BOVINE. Being Overly Verbose In Needless Expositions. Nobody is reading your 4 paragraph Jira ticket. Nobody finished your 12 page proposal. You spent 30 seconds prompting it, we can tell. Quantity is not intelligence. Stop BOVINE
alan.is
AI is Making Us Artificially Intelligent
We had KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. A principle built to stop us drowning each other in noise. AI has replaced it with BOVINE. Being Overly Verbose In Needless Expositions. We are producing more c…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Treat yourself to Ed's piece on the bullshit #ai economics AI is here to stay, it is transformational, but put down the Kool-Aid and figure out how the hell we pay for this. We're in a subsidized token-bubble and it is going to burst. www.wheresyoured.at/ai-is-too-ex...
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
#Cursor announces their version of an #ai agent framework, and this one, is well thought through. I like the unique webhook that is generated to allow you to trigger your automation, or you can use a cron schedule. My only critique is that they have not set a limit on the cost of an automation
cursor.com
Automations | Cursor Docs
Run cloud agents automatically on a schedule or in response to events.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
#Claude is not half a cheeky bugger at times! I am literally paying for this level of abuse.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Nvidia's Chief Software Architect said another quiet thing out loud, that there is AI model confirmation bias allowing you to game the system by letting your resume be written by AI, because 'AI likes to use AI' AI the crap out of that resume people www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-exec-...
businessinsider.com
An Nvidia exec said AI-generated résumés may be favored by AI recruiters because 'AI likes to use AI'
AI résumés might be favored by AI hiring systems, especially if you use the same LLM model as the recruiters, said Nvidia's Jonathan Ross.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Well this is going to get interesting, #AI put in the dock here, as Pizza Hut franchisee says delivery drivers gamed its new AI system. They were forced to use the new Dragontail from the HQ, and well, it went tits up after that.
businessinsider.com
Pizza Hut franchisee says delivery drivers gamed its new AI system
Pizza Hut's AI-powered Dragontail system led to $100M in lost business, a franchisee says in a lawsuit over delivery delays.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Open source once again solving the real problems the corporate world creates A small project, utilizing a $30 hardware unit, to display in real time your #Claude #ai token usage Frankly #Anthropic should be giving these away if they are going to continue to token-pinch github.com/HermannBjorg...
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Was banging my head figuring out why this project #Cursor was not picking up my rules. Was starting to panic thinking this was a feature no longer being supported. The directory should be "rules", not ".rules" Let us not talk of this again
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Let's celebrate #Atlassian are at least saying the quiet part out loud - your data isn't yours, it is merely fodder for their #AI models. Those #Jira tickets with all your sensitive data, how-to and code snippets, now will be guiding others to make their product better.
theregister.com
Atlassian to train AI on user data unless law or cash say no
: From August 17, the outfit will collect customer metadata by default unless you pay for the top tier
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
We all know someone who is this "Michael" #ai #claude www.instagram.com/reel/DYWMsOl...
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
I would have thought security bugs would be a thing of the past, especially for OpenAI who are preaching to everyone that their #ai can find all the bugs Not eating in our kitchen are we?
engadget.com
The ChatGPT desktop app for Mac just got hit with a security breach - Engadget
OpenAI found no evidence that user data was accessed.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
There is so much to enjoy from this story of gross incompetency on so many levels, but the big take away for me was the name of the database for the Dept of Homeland Security: "dhsproddb" Are you kidding me?? Is that it easy? There has to be a "irsproddb" kicking around there too.
arstechnica.com
Twin brothers wipe 96 gov't databases minutes after being fired
A case study in why credentials are revoked before firings.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Everyone is talking about #agent frameworks like they require a PhD and a six-figure implementation budget. They do not. At the core, it is a text file with instructions, a script that does one job, and a place to store state. That is it. You are already closer to being an #ai agent developer than…
alan.is
It’s Just a Series of Prompts
Everyone is talking about agent frameworks like they require a PhD and a six-figure implementation budget. They do not. At the core, it is a text file with instructions, a script that does one job, and a place to store state. That is it. You are already closer to being an agent developer than anyone is telling you.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
It's stuff like this that can eat up a perfectly good weekend
ign.com
LEGO Has Announced the Biggest Lord of the Rings Set Yet, Comprised of Over 8,000 pieces
A massive Lord of the Rings Minas Tirith LEGO set is coming in June.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
#AI coding can make your super lazy. I caught myself prompting that was right in front of me, that I could have edited myself, but no, I thought it better to spend the tokens and watch it talk with itself to make a single line change. We've being seduced PEOPLE! RESIST
static.klipy.com
Jared Dines: Why Don't You Do That?
ALT: Jared Dines: Why Don't You Do That?
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
I think the tech industry is under estimating how anti #AI the general populous is. This is going to be a very tricky balance. I predict #HumanPowered will be a new market differentiator in the future.
gizmodo.com
Graduation Speaker Says AI Is 'The Next Industrial Revolution,' Immediately Drowned Out by Booing Students
Maybe stick to things that don't remind them that the job market sucks.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
mmm everything all right over there #Claude? Your API is throwing 500's periodically for Design
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Attended the #TECHNITE2026 down in Roanoke last night. It was wonderful to see all that is going down in #VirginaTech neighborhood Some seriously cool startups and success stories, that are creating "tech" (not just wrapped AI) to solve real world problems.
TECHNITE2026 @ Roanoke
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
#AI graveyard tracks that out of 42 in 2026 so far: 21 - Acquired 4 - Shutdown 17 - Domain Lapsed 50% startups are there just to be bought by a bigger fish with no real revenue model
tooldirectory.ai
AI Graveyard — discontinued and acquired AI tools | ToolDirectory.AI
Curated list of AI tools and AI startups that have shut down, been acquired and folded, or had their domains lapse. Updated as our editorial team confirms each death.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Maybe not making them look like they belong to a James Bond/Marvel villain's transport fleet may help this #HumbleHauler garner public support
electrek.co
Humble Hauler autonomous trailer takes the truck out of trucking
This startup just showed off a fully driverless, cab-less, and truck-less battery-electric freight platform for container trailers.
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Curious to know what the marketing campaign was that had me as a candidate for beach front property in the middle east! A humble CTO's salary is not enough to even dare to dream
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
You ever stood behind someone, as they navigate a browser, as you give them instructions? the sheer frustration that rages inside as you question their every mouse move or click. ruined many a marriage. that is the feeling you get watching Claude AI navigate a Brower session
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
There should be a token refund process, when the #ai admits to being wrong and doing something it shouldn't, then it goes off and corrects itself, charging you even more. I use you so you don't make mistakes You are all at it! Looking at your #Claude and #Cursor
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
AI has definitely transformed the technical diligence that private equity and investment houses do, but has it replaced the need for it? I argue not - if anything, it brings even more pressure.
alan.is
Diligence in the AI Era
AI has transformed technical diligence. What took weeks of painful access negotiations and siloed tooling now takes days. But a faster, broader report still lands on a desk, and someone experienced…
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Alan Williamson @a1an.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
what does one do when you've hit your #Claude session limit? Hit the Peloton that is! At this rate, I am going to be one ripped CTO'of'a'beeatch
static.klipy.com
Mommy Daddy Meme Shout
ALT: Mommy Daddy Meme Shout
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