Communications
Deny enough false rumors and you’ll eventually turn “no comment” into confirmation. Why companies need a consistent policy for responding to rumors—and why the time to adopt it is before you need it.
AI
Katie Prescott’s biography of Mike Lynch is a compelling read with particular relevance in today’s AI boom. My review explores the danger of sustaining an aura of success, the difference between loyalty and truth, and the questions I wish the book had pressed harder.
AI
There's a question I've been mulling for a while now, and I think it's time to write it down: when is it okay to use generative AI in a given business context, and when does it cross a line? I'll focus on
Entrepreneurship
I recently read The Magic Box Paradigm by Ezra Roizen. It's self-published, was first released in 2016 [1] , and you won't find it on most startup reading lists. The writing is uneven and inconsistent. The metaphors are weird. There are too many TLAs (three-letter
AI
I'm a big fan of Dave Gerhardt and the Exit Five marketing community he has built. While I have always liked the idea of peer-networking communities, I think they change from vitamin to painkiller in times of rapid change. Why? Because the playbooks haven't been
Enterprise
What were we reading as the enterprise software industry took shape? A stroll through the books that shaped Silicon Valley thinking on marketing, strategy, sales, and software — a reading list for understanding the present through the ideas of the past.
Growth
[This article was previously published in the Topline newsletter; see notes.] The idea was always that, once at scale, software companies could print money. With SaaS, revenue recurred. If you could buy a dollar of annual recurring revenue (ARR) for one, or even two, dollars, then why not buy a
AI
Today, we continue my annual tradition of making ten predictions for the coming year while reviewing my ten predictions for the prior one. As always, I’ll remind you of some disclaimers: (a) don't view this as investment advice or anything resembling it, (b) while I generally avoid
AI
Below I’m cross-posting an article I wrote for the launch of Topline Media, the media spin-out from Pavilion, a popular community for go-to-market (GTM) leaders. This article was originally published by Topline on 10/9/25. Since this was written for the launch of a
AI
I first met Ian Howells in London long ago, as fellow footsoldiers in the early relational database wars. While you had to be pretty technical to do product marketing in those days, Ian was technical with a capital T, having just sprung from university with a PhD in distributed databases.
Boards
So, you're on the executive staff of a startup and you've been asked to present at an upcoming board meeting. That's great news. Board exposure is a key benefit of working on the e-staff. You’re getting the chance to build relationships with
Branding
I’m late with this year’s predictions post because I’ve discovered that writing while recovering from knee surgery, zonked on painkillers, is a surprisingly difficult endeavor. Onward, through the fog. And apologies for the delay. I’m always humbled by the act of making predictions. A few months