Notes
Short things worth sharing. Quotes, small ideas, and moments, a couple of times a week.
The dev shop repricing, 22 July 2026
My own forecast for what happens to custom software firms between now and 2029. The squeeze is already showing up, shrinking tickets and clients asking whether AI can just do this themselves. Then the middle hollows out. Commodity build work goes to zero margin, and the firms that come through it are the ones that own outcomes instead of selling hours. Code is no longer the moat. Accountability is. That is the side I am building ScalaCode for.
Saturday, 18 July 2026
Quiet office, one coffee, no meetings. Saturdays are for the work the week is too loud for. Not about grinding every weekend, just that every so often the quiet is where the real progress hides.
A deal worth losing, 17 July 2026
We lost a deal this week. An energy-sector client, an on-prem AI project. Their tender speced a GPU we knew was undersized for real production work, so we priced for hardware that would actually hold up. That made us more expensive, and they went with someone cheaper. I would bid it the same way again. The cheapest proposal and the honest one are rarely the same document, and the honest one is why close to 90% of our clients come back. Some weeks the job is just to stay standing. Onto the next.
What leadership actually is
Saw this today and it is exactly how I have tried to work for twenty years. "Great leaders are not the best at everything. They find people who are the best at different things and get them all on the same team." Building teams like that is most of what I actually do. (via Leadership First, @giffordthomas)
The ScalaCode team, off the clock
We spend most of the year heads-down, so we make room for evenings like this. Good software gets built by people who actually like showing up for each other. That does not happen by accident, you build it the same way you build anything worth keeping.
The whole team on one screen, 2020
Early COVID. We had never worked apart before, and suddenly that was the only way. Everyone showed up anyway, day after day, and the work kept moving. You find out what a team is really made of when the office disappears overnight.
A thank-you from Ketto, 2021
I keep this part mostly off the timeline, and I would rather it stay quiet. But the line on the note is a good one to carry around: keep doing what you can to leave things a little better than you found them. It is only a short trip.
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi
Winter 2025. Every inch of that marble courtyard is hand-laid inlay, flowers set into stone by people whose names no one will ever know. A reminder that the things people travel to see are built slowly, by people who cared about the parts nobody was watching.
An evening in the Maldives
The sky did all the work here. Some views you just put the phone down for, then pick it back up because you have to keep one.
Jaa St. Julien, over from the US
Some friendships survive the time zones and the long gaps. You sit down and pick up right where you left off.
Building TransferLogix, 2011
John-Paul, JP, flew from Canada to India so we could build TransferLogix side by side. That is Delhi behind us. The best partners get on a plane, and the good ones you keep working with for years.
A road with no one on it
An empty road during the quiet years. Open sky, nowhere to be. I do some of my best thinking when the noise finally drops out.
Some love from the team
Found this on my seat on my birthday. The people you build with are the whole point. The rest is just the work.
Virtual try-on, 2018
Trying on clothes through a screen at a mall in 2018, no changing room needed. I have always been the one who has to go play with the new tech before anyone asks me to.
Two things from my college days
A bat and a book. These two got me through college, and honestly they still do. One taught me patience. The other taught me to keep learning.
With Eric Benny, 2013
Eric Benny, who coached India's football side at the Commonwealth Games. We met in 2013, and that meeting turned into something I did not see coming.
Launching EduKick, 2013
The day we launched EduKick, Eric's football venture. I came in on the tech and the build. Two people, a lot of belief, and a bet that it was worth the shot.
Bali
Stillness at the Gates of Heaven. The best thinking usually arrives when you finally stop chasing it.
Merry Christmas, 2024
Christmas at the ScalaCode office with the team. The people you build with matter as much as the thing you build.
Workation, Kerala
A workation from Kerala. Waves on one side, laptop on the other. Some of my clearest thinking happens a long way from the desk.
Poda Islands, 2023
Sunset over the Poda Islands. A reminder to stop and watch the horizon every once in a while.
A quote I keep coming back to
Something I shared a while ago and still believe. It is only a short trip. Enjoy it.