Author Archives: dselz

About dselz

Husband, father, internet entrepreneur, founder, CEO, Squirro, Memonic, local.ch, Namics, rail aficionado, author, tbd...

Got Five Minutes? The Hidden Work Your Calendar Won’t Show

Posted on 10 July 2026 by dselz

The most consequential parts of leadership rarely arrive as scheduled meetings, they show up as “got five minutes?” interruptions. Those moments carry real context switching costs, but they are also where decisions get unblocked, customers get saved, and the real job happens beyond the calendar. Continue reading →

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“How True” or the Grind nobody sees

Posted on 9 July 2026 by dselz

In 2012 I reposted a Chris Dixon paragraph about how “overnight success” usually hides years of struggle, while quietly living that reality myself. The real story is not that success takes time, everyone knows that now, it is what founders do while they are still inside the grind, and why “fake it till you make it” can be a tempting, costly norm. Continue reading →

Posted in Entrepreneur Confidential, Private Affairs | Leave a comment

Grey, Corporate, or Start Again

Posted on 7 July 2026 by dselz

A founder reflects on an interview moment that revealed an uncomfortable truth: moving into a corporate hierarchy can be a closed door for people shaped by startup operating systems. The piece argues that starting again is often less about skill or thrill and more about rejecting two respectable but suffocating exits. Continue reading →

Posted in Entrepreneur Confidential, PracticalEconomics | Leave a comment

Enterprise software won’t be built. It will be assembled

Posted on 7 July 2026 by dselz

Enterprise software is shifting from multi-year builds to fast assembly for a growing class of judgment-heavy processes. The winning pattern pairs a vertical GenAI judgment layer with a horizontal workflow engine that routes work, logs decisions, and makes governance auditable. Continue reading →

Posted in Artifical Intelligence, PracticalEconomics, Think Different | Leave a comment

Which AI Projects Survive When Token Subsidies End?

Posted on 6 July 2026 by dselz

Many enterprise AI pilots look ROI-positive only because model pricing is still effectively subsidized. As token costs shift and agentic workflows multiply usage, the winners will be AI projects priced and managed around measurable outcomes. Stress-test your business case at 3× today’s rates and demand cost-per-outcome, not cost-per-seat. Continue reading →

Posted in Artifical Intelligence, Business, PracticalEconomics, Think Different | Leave a comment

The switch that crypto never had

Posted on 19 June 2026 by dselz

A single U.S. directive forced Anthropic to abruptly disable its most capable models for users worldwide—without warning—by using export controls that treat access as an “export.” Unlike the cryptography wars, modern AI has a real control point: revocable access to centralized models and compute. The event signals a new operational risk for every company that builds on frontier AI: dependency that can be switched off is not an asset, it’s a liability. Continue reading →

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AI might end up a controlled substance

Posted on 8 June 2026 by dselz

Public sentiment is turning against AI—not over superintelligence fears, but over electricity and water consumption that show up on real utility bills. As compute becomes measurable and governable, regulation is shifting toward licensing and metering AI like a controlled substance. The winners won’t just have the best models—they’ll have accountability, auditability, and paperwork ready. Continue reading →

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AI agents & Marketplaces are like Ryanair & Legacy Airlines

Posted on 7 June 2026 by dselz

Classifieds marketplaces have long operated like hub airports: buyers and sellers are forced through a central portal that charges for the connection. AI agents change that by enabling direct, point-to-point matching across listings—eroding the discovery toll that created outsized margins. With no “long-haul” segment to retreat into, marketplaces face a structural reset toward trust, verification, and assisted closing rather than captive attention. Continue reading →

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A Stress Diagram Cannot Be Scraped

Posted on 28 May 2026 by dselz

Frontier models are becoming interchangeable; the differentiator is context. In industrial manufacturing, the real moat is connecting physical test signals, structured lab data, and cross-system workflow agents that turn measurements into decisions. The winners will pair AI capability with deep domain expertise and the operational wiring that models can’t replace. Continue reading →

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Magnifica Humanitas: The Pope Just Audited the AI Industry

Posted on 26 May 2026 by dselz

Read as an audit, Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical lands three critiques the AI industry already knows but rarely admits: frontier systems are cultivated more than engineered, alignment can’t stay a closed in-lab project, and AI has a very real human supply chain. For practitioners, it’s less sermon than board memo—and it comes with regulatory deadlines and due-diligence consequences. Continue reading →

Posted in Artifical Intelligence, Society, Think Different | Comments Off on Magnifica Humanitas: The Pope Just Audited the AI Industry