Dan Stroot

Dan Stroot · Blog

I love building things
Hero image for Pessimists sound smart. Optimists change the world.
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Optimism often requires believing in unknown, unspecified future breakthroughs — which seems fanciful and naive. The nature of problem-solving is we are aware of problems long before we are aware of their solutions. There will always be a frontier of problems we don’t yet know how to solve. To solve them we must believe we can.

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Planning vs. Reacting

Dan Stroot
Dan Stroot
I once worked with an organization that developed five year strategic plans, while at the same time teaching it’s employees that we live in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. Do you see the irony?
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It’s "Humans + AI" not Humans vs. AI

Dan Stroot
Dan Stroot
AI won’t replace humans, but humans that use AI will replace humans without AI. AI is largely incapable of doing entire jobs. However, it is great at doing specific tasks within broader roles. People who are embracing AI as part of their workflow are creating higher quality work faster than ever.
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Artificial Intelligence Is Not a Strategy

Dan Stroot
Dan Stroot
If you read the news covering artificial intelligence (AI) developments on any given day, you may feel pangs of dread. It seems like the technology has evolved so rapidly that it will be difficult to "catch up", let alone "keep up". However, the key is not merely to "keep up," but to strategically integrate AI in ways that enhance efficiency, innovation, and overall competitiveness.
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Data outlives code

Dan Stroot
Dan Stroot
Code is easy to refactor or rewrite. Changing code is computationally inexpensive. Not true with data. Data outliving code is a good problem to have, usually reserved for successful companies..
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Big Ball of Mud

Dan Stroot
Dan Stroot
I wrotes these principles down in 2015. At the time they felt "visionary". Looking back now I love these principles even more, but they seem obvious and ordinary now.
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Building software to last forever

Dan Stroot
Dan Stroot
Engineering teams love full rewrites because they incorrectly think of old systems as specs. They assume that since the old system works, all functional aspects have been settled. Design risks have been eliminated! They can focus purely on adding more features to the new system, or making changes to the underlying architecture without worry. However, the belief that new code is better than old is patently absurd. Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and more importantly fixed.
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