# AI made output cheap.
Good judgement is now the advantage.
I've been building software for 30 years. I run practical experiments on AI, attention, management and delivery — then publish what worked, what failed, and what I'm changing next.
---
name: Nic Alpi
role: CTO · Amba · Bristol
before: co-founded CookiesHQ → 20 people · £1m+ revenue · sold 2021
writing: [leading teams, AI without losing ownership, useful work without another system]
rhythm: HYROX at 5:30am · hard 4pm stop
---
## Writing
ls -t _posts/ · 10 files
2026-09-22
leadership
Nobody Taught Developers to Delegate
9 min
2026-09-12
ai
If You're Measuring AI by Speed, You're Measuring the Wrong Thing
8 min
2026-01-17
ai
If You Can't Explain the Code, AI Is Not Helping You
9 min
2025-01-07
personal
2025's Word is Intention
5 min
2024-10-03
personal
From Feeling Like a Failure to Regaining Purpose
5 min
2024-07-18
leadership
The CTO's Wardrobe
5 min
2023-09-12
leadership
Why Your Team Isn't Asking Questions (And How to Fix It)
10 min
2023-07-09
business
The Journey of Building a Successful Software Consultancy: Genesis
5 min
all 10 posts →
## Six things I believe
after 30 years
Most technical leaders don't need another tool. The bottleneck is usually attention, and what happens after the decision.
- The best CTOs aren't the busiest. They've designed systems, teams and lives that don't require heroics.
- Boring technology wins. Rails has been declared dead for 15 years. Still ships faster.
- Complexity is a choice. Most teams have simplicity problems, not scaling problems.
- Unexamined meetings become debt. A recurring meeting nobody questions taxes deep thinking.
- AI made output cheap, not judgement. Attention before automation.
- Burnout exposes a systems problem. If your company needs heroes, your systems are broken.