---
altdown: 1
canonical: https://www.vivekchopra.com/
title: Thinking in public on intelligence, scale, and the hard parts.
updated: 2026-10-31T00:00:00Z
lang: en
author: Vivek Chopra
description: Notes on AI-native platforms, regulated markets, scaling engineering orgs, and operational reliability.
signals: search=yes, ai-input=yes, ai-train=no
generator: vivekchopra.com-gen
---
# Thinking in public on intelligence, scale, and the hard parts.

Notes on AI-native platforms, regulated markets, scaling engineering orgs, and operational reliability.

## All writing

- Oct 31, 2026 — [Altdown: RSS for agents*](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/altdown) New. Reader mode for agents, made by the publisher. AI-native
- Oct 3, 2026 — [Plan before you prompt](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/plan-before-you-prompt). How to steer coding agents with four small documents (architecture, ADR, plan, tasks) so your team makes the design decisions instead of the agent. AI-native
- May 17, 2026 — [Guardrails for AI-generated code](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/ai-generated-code-guardrails). A four-layer guardrails model for AI-generated code (scope, structural, behavioral, human verification), plus notes on a shrinking architectural half-life. AI-native · Reliability
- May 7, 2026 — [Death to Scrum?](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/death-to-scrum). If the process of software development is changing this dramatically, what happens to Scrum? Scaling orgs · AI-native
- Apr 26, 2026 — [The New SDLC](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/new-sdlc). AI is compressing the development cycle and changing how product, engineering, design, QA, and security teams operate. AI-native · Scaling orgs
- Apr 7, 2026 — [From Reading Changelogs to Finding Zero-Days: LLMs and the Future of AppSec](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/llm-appsec). The old model of security patches cannot survive contact with systems that operate at machine speed. AI-native · Regulated
- Apr 5, 2026 — [Spec First, Then Code](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/spec-driven-development). LLMs have no context. You have to give it to them. AI-native
- Mar 3, 2026 — [Something Has Changed With AI Coding](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/ai-coding-changed). For most of the past year my view on AI coding tools was old-fashioned. Something has changed. AI-native
- Jun 10, 2025 — [OAuth Is Not Enough: Authorization Challenges for Autonomous AI Agents](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/ai-agent-auth). OAuth gives us delegated access, but by itself it can't ensure that autonomous agents stay inside the guardrails. AI-native · Regulated
- Oct 7, 2024 — [Managing by Metrics](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/managing-by-metrics). How to select, use, and think about engineering metrics. The difference between good metrics and the ones that just make you feel good. Scaling orgs · Reliability
- Apr 12, 2024 — [Engineering Culture and Principles](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/engineering-culture). Culture is the default way a team operates when no one is watching. Scaling orgs
- Aug 8, 2018 — [Giving Negative Feedback](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/giving-negative-feedback). Most managers either put off negative feedback or reach for the sandwich method. Scaling orgs
- Jul 25, 2015 — [Parsing Text Files in Shell](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/parsing-text-files-shell). I spent years reaching for awk before landing on something simpler, built right into how the shell reads data. Reliability
- Jun 1, 2015 — [9 Years of Scrum, and All I Got Is a Lousy T-shirt (Sizing)](https://www.vivekchopra.com/posts/nine-years-of-scrum). Nine years of scrum, with varying degrees of rigor. Scaling orgs