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Companies Fired Their Best People to Go "AI-Native." Now They're Quietly Hiring Them Back.
MIT's State of AI in Business report found that 95% of enterprise generative AI pilots fail to deliver measurable ROI. Not “underperform.” Fail — no return the company can point to. Separately, Gartner surveyed companies on their AI-driven workforce reductions and found that 80% had cut headcount, with zero correlation between the size of the cut and any resulting improvement in ROI. Cutting people didn't produce better numbers. It just produced fewer people. Then there's the

Rich Washburn
Jul 84 min read


Two Hundred and Fifty Years of Playing With Fire
Today America turns two hundred and fifty, and I've got a confession: I love this holiday more than almost any other, and it has almost nothing to do with fireworks and everything to do with fireworks. Let me explain. I've been building professional-grade firework shows since I was about ten years old, and I'm fifty-one now, so do the math — that's four decades of taking a legal-adjacent hobby entirely too seriously. It started with wooden shipping pallets, five or six of the

Rich Washburn
Jul 47 min read


I Said We Needed a Billion Robots Last Year. Goldman Just Put a Price Tag On It.
Fourteen months ago I wrote a piece called "Why We NEED a Billion Robots." The thesis was simple: the AI conversation was obsessed with the wrong half of the workforce. Everyone was watching chatbots write emails while ignoring the fact that nobody had figured out how to automate a plumber, an electrician, or a warehouse picker. I argued that solving machine intelligence was the easy part — manufacturing that intelligence into a body that could actually do physical work was t

Rich Washburn
Jul 15 min read


NYC Trip BTS "The Parallel"
I was in New York for a reason. A real one. But while that was happening, something else was running in the background. It always does.

Rich Washburn
May 13 min read


The Quiet Revolution Needs More Rooms Like This One
This morning I joined Ryan Moeller's LinkedIn Live — The Quiet Revolution: How the AI Community Is Building Its Own Launch Pad. I had 60 seconds and a flight to catch. But I've been thinking about that conversation ever since I left the room. Here's what actually happened in that session that you won't get from a highlight reel. Nino Jambalbo — former CTO, now focused on AI literacy — walked the group through a framework he calls the Game of Work. Level zero through level fou

Rich Washburn
Apr 283 min read


The Space Gold Rush Is Coming to Miami Tomorrow Night. Here’s Who’s in the Room.
Tomorrow night at the James L. Knight Center, something worth paying attention to is happening. The Miami Innovation Aerospace Initiative — MIA — takes the main stage at Startup OLÉ Miami ’26. The panel is called The Space Gold Rush: Miami. And if you’ve been watching what’s building in South Florida, you already know this conversation is overdue. I’ll be there with a camera. The story is the people on that stage and what they’re actually building. Two of them happen to be c

Rich Washburn
Apr 203 min read


The Gulf of America Is Open for Business
121 empty oil tankers are headed to the US. Oil just crossed $102. Ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has stopped. The Gulf of America is open for business — and the only country positioned to fill the gap is us.

Rich Washburn
Apr 133 min read


I Strapped a Computer to My Face and Went to the Pet Store
Day one with the Meta Ray-Ban glasses. First stop: the pet store. This is the honest account of a technologist learning new hardware in public — one errand at a time.

Rich Washburn
Apr 113 min read


What Actually Hit Me After the DeepStation Event
I’ve been thinking about last night pretty much since I woke up. It was one of those events where nothing felt overly flashy, but a couple things stuck in a way that doesn’t really let go. Not because they were perfectly explained, but because they pointed at something real. There were two talks. Very different angles, but together they kind of formed a bigger picture that I don’t think either one was explicitly trying to make. The first talk: work is getting compressed had t

Rich Washburn
Mar 264 min read


A Really Good Night at DeepStation Fort Lauderdale
Jimmy from Data Power Supply and I got there early. We ended up walking the space a bit, checking everything out—it’s a really cool setup. Clean, modern, lots of room to move around. Definitely the kind of place you want to host something like this. Took a few photos, jumped on a couple calls, just normal work stuff while things were getting going. Then the event kicked off. The Room Fills In... As people started coming in, you could feel it pretty quickly—this was a good cro

Rich Washburn
Mar 262 min read


Nashville: Coffee, Conversations, and the Power of Showing Up
Some trips are planned down to the minute. Others unfold the way the best stories do — one conversation at a time. This Nashville trip was definitely the second kind. A few meetings on the calendar, camera in the bag, and the rest left up to the simple act of showing up . And as it turns out, that’s usually enough. Nashville Is Real People One thing that stands out about Tennessee pretty quickly: The people feel real. Not overly polished. Not putting on a show. Just people bu

Rich Washburn
Mar 83 min read


Lens on Liberty: Nashville, the Constitution, and the Best Dagum Selfie Photographer in Congress
Some assignments feel like work. Others feel like a mission. For the past several years I’ve had the privilege of photographing the annual fundraiser for the The 917 Society , an organization dedicated to putting pocket copies of the United States Constitution into the hands of eighth-grade students across America. It’s one of those ideas that sounds simple until you realize how powerful it really is: if young Americans actually read the Constitution—not a summary, not someon

Rich Washburn
Mar 84 min read


📍 Miami. Good Rooms. Better People.
I almost didn’t go. Miami traffic and I have a complicated relationship. It usually wins. Jimmy (founder of Data Power Supply ) invited me down, thinking the room might be a good place to show off some of what we’re building with VaporVault. I showed up mostly curious… and ended up fully digging it. Two weeks ago, Praveen Yalmanchi toured a data center project we’re working on (with his friend Art), and tonight was more of the same energy — thoughtful, welcoming, zero ego, r

Rich Washburn
Feb 252 min read


Dining in High-Def: The Full Elysium Immersive Dining Experience
If Netflix, Cirque du Soleil, and a Michelin-starred chef had a love child, it would be this: Elysium Immersive Dining . Six courses....

Rich Washburn
Sep 13, 20253 min read


The Pandemic IT Rehab Road Trip: Better Late Than Never
You ever hear a friend describe an IT mess so vivid you can smell the burnt plastic? A buddy called me recently, pacing through the kind...

Rich Washburn
Aug 24, 20259 min read


I’m Jumping on a Podcast with My Friend Laurence Kaldor
So here’s something fun. I’ll be recording a show soon with my good friend Laurence Kaldor. He asked me to come on his podcast to talk...

Rich Washburn
Jun 18, 20252 min read


Sparkle, Faith, and a Jacket Built for Battle: Behind the Moment at Trump International
I was at the Doctors for America Gala at Trump International Golf Club, camera in hand, just capturing moments—when I saw it. Deborah,...

Rich Washburn
Jun 5, 20253 min read


Photos by Boris Balaban — White Coats & Power Ties Gala
Event gallery hosted with permission for easy sharing “It was an honor to photograph such a powerful evening,” Boris shared. “Thank you...

Rich Washburn
Jun 2, 20251 min read


Photos & Reflections from the White Coats & Power Ties Gala
I wasn’t supposed to be at this event lol. Bob Sutton called me the morning of, asked if I wanted to take a few photos. I said...

Rich Washburn
Jun 1, 20251 min read


Giving Voice Back: Robert Sutton’s Call to Action for Doctors, Patients, and American Liberty
At the first annual Doctors for America dinner at Trump International Golf Club, Robert Sutton delivered a speech that wasn’t just...

Rich Washburn
Jun 1, 20252 min read
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