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From Interface to Infrastructure: The AI Shift Most People Still Miss
For a while, the AI conversation was basically a cage match between benchmark charts. Which model is smarter? Which one codes better? Which one hallucinates less? Which one scored higher on an exam written by people who probably alphabetize their spice rack? That phase mattered. Better models matter. But that’s not the center of gravity anymore. The real shift is bigger: Intent is becoming executable. That sounds small. It isn’t. Because once AI can take intent and turn it in

Rich Washburn
Mar 66 min read


Sneaky Sam Just Stole the Center of Gravity
Alright. A week ago we were arguing about whether ClawdBot was reckless, revolutionary, or both. Security threads were on fire. Open source was vibrating. Markets were twitching. GPU chatter went thermonuclear. Now? OpenAI just pulled the builder into their orbit. And whether people want to admit it or not, that’s a strategic coup. Let’s Be Honest About OpenAI for a Second For the past year, OpenAI hasn’t exactly felt like the sharpest knife in the drawer. They’ve been shippi

Rich Washburn
Feb 163 min read


The Compression Event
Eighteen to twenty-four months. That’s my call. Not because I read a headline.Not because a VC said “AGI” on stage.Not because ChatGPT can write your kid’s book report. Because I’ve been watching the guts of this thing. And the guts don’t lie. Everyone’s Arguing About Chatbots This is the part that makes me laugh. The public conversation is still stuck at: “Is it a bubble?”, “Is it conscious?”, “Will it take my job?”, “Can it write emails?” That’s the toy layer, the demo laye

Rich Washburn
Feb 154 min read


The Window Between Hype and Reality: Where AI Actually Stands Right Now
If you were sitting across from me right now and asked, “Okay, what’s really going on?” — this is what I’d tell you. First, take a breath. Yes, something big is happening. No, the world is not ending next Tuesday. And also — this is not incremental. We are in the middle of a structural shift in how cognitive work gets done. Not a feature upgrade. Not another SaaS cycle. A structural shift. The mistake people are making right now is choosing sides emotionally. Half the room th

Rich Washburn
Feb 144 min read


Amazon Didn't Cut 30,000 Jobs for Culture. They Did It for GPUs.
Let’s skip the corporate spin and call it for what it is: Amazon didn’t lay off 30,000 people to “return to Day One culture.” They did it to free up capital for AI infrastructure. When a Hyperscaler Posts –$4.8 Billion in Free Cash Flow, It’s Not an Accident Amazon’s cash position last quarter wasn’t a rounding error. It was a liability. Negative $4.8 billion in free cash flow. That doesn’t just “happen.” That’s not belt-tightening. That’s an existential alarm bell. The faste

Rich Washburn
Jan 313 min read


The AI Strategy Myth: What No One Tells You (Because They’re Selling It)
Forget the hype, the frameworks, and the “AI roadmaps.” Here’s what actually works. Let’s get this out of the way: most AI “strategies” are theater. Decks. Demos. Buzzwords wrapped in billable hours. You’ve seen it. A consultant rolls in with a 70-slide presentation full of “maturity matrices” and “transformation frameworks.” They talk about aligning AI to business objectives, governance layers, and something-something operational synergy. And yet—three months later, your tea

Rich Washburn
Jan 115 min read


Groq, NVIDIA, and the Geometry of Courage: How Creative M&A and Constraint Built the Future of AI
Let’s start where everyone’s talking right now — the number. $20 billion. That’s the reported value of NVIDIA’s “not-quite-an-acquisition” of Groq — the little AI hardware company that built a chip so unorthodox, the industry laughed when they unveiled it in 2023. Now? NVIDIA’s folding their architecture, their engineers, and their design DNA into the future of its own inference stack. Except here’s the twist — NVIDIA didn’t buy Groq outright. They structured it as a non-excl

Rich Washburn
Dec 27, 20254 min read


Intelligence, Infrastructure, and the Space Between
I’ve always been a hands-on kind of guy. I like to understand how things actually work —from the power that drives the servers to the AI models running on them, and the capital that fuels it all. The truth is, to build what I want to build in this space, I needed to get my hands around the entire stack . That’s why I’m excited to share that I’ve joined Eliakim Capital as Managing Partner and Chief AI Officer. It’s an incredible opportunity to help shape how compute, power, a

Rich Washburn
Dec 17, 20252 min read


Warren Buffett Just Bet on Google — And That’s Bigger Than It Looks
When Berkshire Hathaway makes a move, markets don’t just react—they pause. Because when Warren Buffett, the high priest of long-term value, decides to buy something, it’s usually not a guess. It’s a signal. This week, that signal came in the form of a $4.3 billion stake in Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The buy makes Alphabet one of Berkshire’s top ten holdings, right alongside American Express, Coca-Cola, and of course, the ever-beloved Apple. And that, in itself, is al

Rich Washburn
Nov 16, 20254 min read


When the Cloud Catches Fire: A Masterclass in How Not to Manage IT
There’s a telltale way to know your IT leadership isn’t qualified.And it’s not when a system goes down, or a server crashes, or a backup takes a little longer than expected. It’s when best practices are treated like optional guidelines instead of gospel. Because best practices aren’t suggestions — they’re guardrails. Ignore them long enough, and you’ll end up where South Korea’s government did last month: standing in front of 858 terabytes of smoldering digital rubble wonder

Rich Washburn
Oct 21, 20253 min read


BrandFlex: The Non-CRM CRM I Didn’t Mean to Build
Introducing BrandFlex Custom Business Platform—Conjured by AI, Shaped by Actual Requirements BrandFlex is a fully customizable,...

Rich Washburn
Jul 5, 20252 min read


Cognitive Architectures for Language Agents: A Bold Step Toward Smarter AI
The world of AI is evolving faster than ever, and frameworks like Cognitive Architectures for Language Agents (CoALA) represent a...

Rich Washburn
Dec 18, 20243 min read
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