What we think about when we build

Raw takes, honest retrospectives, and the stuff we wish someone had told us. Written by the people doing the work.

Latest

Briefing

The open source AI landscape in 2026

Open source AI sounds simple until you look closely. A practical survey of the major models, the licensing reality, the geopolitics, and what it all means if you are trying to make real decisions.

February 9, 2026

Industry

The SaaS-pocalypse is real — but not for the reasons Wall Street thinks

The software sector lost $285 billion this week. The hot takes split into "software is dead" and "this is overblown." Both miss the point. AI didn't kill SaaS. It held up a mirror.

February 6, 2026

Strategy

Your company doesn't need an AI strategy — it needs a trust strategy

The bottleneck to AI value isn't technology. It's trust. Employees, buyers, infrastructure leaders, and markets are all saying the same thing from different directions. Until you solve for trust, your AI strategy is theater.

February 2, 2026

Your company doesn't need an AI strategy — it needs a trust strategy
AI Strategy

AI agents can't replace your best people (and that's exactly the point)

The best AI model scored 24% on real consulting, banking, and legal tasks. A research paper argues reliable agents are mathematically impossible beyond a certain complexity. This isn't a failure story. It's a strategy story.

January 30, 2026

AI agents can't replace your best people (and that's exactly the point)
Productivity

The workslop crisis

Stanford researchers put a name to the AI-generated content flooding your inbox. It looks like work. It costs $9 million a year. And the problem isn't the tool.

January 26, 2026

The workslop crisis
Productivity

The case for small AI

The AI narrative is all moonshots. The results are coming from chatbots, coding agents, and service assistants. Meanwhile, companies that cut headcount to fund big AI bets are quietly hiring people back.

January 23, 2026

The case for small AI
Productivity

The AI productivity paradox

Executives say AI saves them a full workday every week. Their employees say it saves them almost nothing. Both are telling the truth, and that's the problem.

January 19, 2026

The AI productivity paradox
Culture

The real innovation bottleneck isn't technology — it's fear

Companies are spending billions on AI while half their workforce doesn't feel safe enough to say it isn't working. The bottleneck isn't the technology. It's the culture.

January 16, 2026

The real innovation bottleneck isn't technology — it's fear
Leadership

Why the best founders are getting worse at leading

The traits that make founders great in the early days become liabilities at scale. 100% of founders in a recent survey reported burnout. The fix isn't self-care. It's structural.

January 12, 2026

Why the best founders are getting worse at leading
Culture

AI is your worst yes-man

AI has a deep positivity bias. Your org chart has a deeper one. Together they produce a confidence signal that looks stronger than ever and means less than ever.

January 9, 2026

AI is your worst yes-man
Productivity

AI is creating more work, not less

The dominant narrative is that AI saves time. The research tells a different story. Saved hours are being absorbed into more work rather than better work, and AI-generated noise is creating costs nobody budgeted for.

January 7, 2026

AI is creating more work, not less
Process

How we work

What it actually looks like to work with Peppercrest. The principles behind our process, the order we do things in, and why most of the important decisions happen before anyone writes a line of code.

January 5, 2026

How we work

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