Method
Operational systems and philosophical foundations from a decade of building production systems and designing a sovereign life.
Production Systems
Seven lessons from building where failure was not an option
Boring choices are right choices
PostgreSQL over the new distributed database. React over the framework that launched last month. Boring technologies have been debugged by millions before you.
Observability is non-optional
Logs, metrics, traces. Spend 20% of initial development time on observability. It feels like overhead when building—it feels like salvation when debugging.
The database is the system
Your API can be rewritten. Your frontend redesigned. But your database schema is permanent. I spend more time on data modeling than any other part of system design.
Complexity is debt
No abstraction until the third time. Most abstractions are created too early, based on imagined future requirements that never materialize.
Failure modes matter more
When a junior builds a feature, they think about success. When a senior builds, they think about failure. I design for failure first.
Humans are part of the system
The system that runs is your software plus human behavior plus organizational constraints plus unwritten rules. Observe how people actually use systems.
Technical decisions are business decisions
Every technical choice is a business choice wearing engineering clothes. The right technical decision is the one that serves the business.
Operating Principles
Foundational frameworks for decisions and design
Sovereignty Through Systems
Ownership over convenience across all platforms. Control your domain, data, keys, and revenue streams. BYOK (Bring Your Own Keys) for independence.
The sovereignty problem is the most important problem most creators aren't solving. Every platform offers the same deal: distribution in exchange for control.
The Problem XY Framework
Think from first principles, not surface symptoms. Understand root causes, not side effects. Don't confuse the labyrinths you're in with their origins.
Most solutions fail because they solve the wrong problem. Distinguish between the primary problem (X) and the attempted solution (Y).
Factory Reset Methodology
Personal transformation through deliberate reset. Understand stress dependency, minimize environment, calibrate your foundation, then rebuild with neuroplasticity.
What brought you here won't take you further. You need new methods, new practices, new ideas.
Stress Dependency Management
Stress is an acquired habit and cultural inheritance. Prioritize being/self above all else. Create conditions for productivity and clarity.
No one lives without stress. But understanding its layers—land, people, family, environment—lets you manage it deliberately.
Three Lenses
How I organize knowledge and content
Founders & Solopreneurs
Building systems for client acquisition, product delivery, and financial automation. Working on the business, not in it.
Engineers & Specialists
Meta-skills: C-suite communication, project management, career negotiation. Transforming from doer to strategic thinker.
Ambitious Individuals
First principles living. Building a personal operating system: values, money management, and a clear plan to escape the default path.
Influences
People and ideas that shaped this method
Charlie Munger
Long-term thinkingPlay games where your position doesn't weaken over time. A successful investor can win until 100 years old.
Gabor Maté
Trauma & neuroplasticityTraumas are hereditary and fundamental. But personality flexibility and brain neuroplasticity are proven facts—you can create anew.
George S. Patton
ExecutionA good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.
Robert A. Heinlein
Goal clarityWithout clear goals, you become enslaved to daily trivia. The routine is everything.
The Sovereign Individual
Flag theory & autonomyCombining flag theory with deliberate infrastructure design for optimal living using offshore business and international banking.
The Synthesis
Production systems are not about code. They're about reliability, observability, simplicity, and humility. Humility about what you don't know. Humility about what can go wrong. Humility about the difference between the system you designed and the system that actually runs.
Your job is not to build software. Your job is to build something that works, keeps working, and can be understood and maintained by whoever comes after you. Everything else is vanity.