AI and the Art of Building Backwards

There are two ways to build backwards. One starts with the answer you actually want and works its way toward the plumbing. The other starts with the plumbing and hopes the answer is in there somewhere. Consulting has historically been awfully fond of option two.

AI makes that harder to defend. When you can get something working in front of the business early, there’s no particularly good reason to disappear into the infrastructure for six months first. Give people something they can see. Something they can use. Something they can tell you is wrong. Then fix it while fixing it is still easy. Better yet, let what you learn change what you build next.

Rob and Justin start with AI and eventually wander into the hazards of building in the dark, the value of building in plain sight, and a particularly useful new term: “Byzantine Consulting.” It’s a conversation about working backward from the answer instead of forward from the infrastructure. Because if nobody can react to what you’ve built yet, there’s a decent chance you haven’t built the important part.

Also in this Episode:

Rob’s Substack