Founder’s notes.
Occasional long-form writing by Lindsay Hiebert on building and operating the PIGENAI portfolio with AI agents, with the method published beside the numbers.
Also delivered biweekly as the Founder’s Notes newsletter on LinkedIn: Subscribe · RSS
Evidence Over Attestation An operating essay for CEOs, boards and founders, in four parts.
The people you want building with agents are the ones who will not take a green light for an answer. Read in order, or start with the condensed Standard.
- Part One: Why Machine Speed Demands Executive Judgment · ~4 min summary, ~10 min full
- Part Two: The Twelve Disciplines of Human-Machine Excellence · ~7 min summary, ~18 min full
- Part Three: The Standard in Five Rules · ~3 min summary, ~8 min full
- Part Four: Where the Real Moat Lives · ~3 min summary, ~7 min full
- The Twenty-One-Point Executive Standard for Agentic AI (the condensed form of all four) · ~6 min
Essays
Standalone pieces on building with agents, governance and trust, and leadership.
-
·~12 minutes·Leadership and reading
The Leadership Dozen: Reading Notes
Seven books in. Ten lessons, six early signals, and an evidence test for catching problems while they are still small.
Read the article -
·~5 minutes·Governance and trust
Privacy for People, Transparency for Power
Trust, transparency and privacy are not one dial. They are three design choices we can make well together.
Read the article -
·~6 minutes·Leadership and reading
The Quote That Nobody Said
Two of the best lines I know were not coined by the people who get credit for them. That turns out to be the most useful thing about them.
Read the article -
·~9 minutes·Leadership and reading
The Leadership Dozen: Twelve Books for the Intelligence Era
Only one of them is about AI. Power, trust, institutional failure and asymmetric strategy, read as a leadership syllabus.
Read the article -
·~9 minutes·Method and cost
A 2 KB file that cost 14,740 tokens on every turn
What I found when I measured what my Claude Code setup costs before any work happens — and the six things I got wrong in my own write-up.
Read the article -
·~9 minutes·Governance and trust
AI Did Not "Colonize" Us. But Humans Did Lose Containment.
What the OpenAI–Hugging Face agent incident proves, what it does not, and what every CEO and CISO now owes the people who trust them.
Read the article
All writing, newest first
-
·~12 minutes
The Leadership Dozen: Reading Notes
Seven books in. Ten lessons, six early signals, and an evidence test for catching problems while they are still small.
Read the article -
·~3 minutes at the summary level; ~7 minutes in full
Evidence Over Attestation, Part Four: Where the Real Moat Lives
The builders of the next decade are the people who know the customer's problem from the inside. Agents will supply the engineering; only those people can supply the judgment. Part Four of a four-part operating essay for CEOs, boards and founders, with the executive action checklist.
Read the article -
·~6 minutes
Evidence Over Attestation: The Twenty-One-Point Executive Standard for Agentic AI
Twelve disciplines, five operating rules, four board decisions. The condensed form of the four-part essay, for CEOs, boards and founders who deploy autonomous agents and need to know what to ask for. Everything here is derived from the four parts; nothing is claimed that they do not claim.
Read the article -
·~5 minutes
Privacy for People, Transparency for Power
Trust, transparency and privacy are not one dial. They are three design choices we can make well together.
Read the article -
·~3 minutes at the summary level; ~8 minutes in full
Evidence Over Attestation, Part Three: The Standard in Five Rules
The minimum a CEO should require of anyone, employee or partner, who builds with agents on the company's behalf. None of the five rules is technical. Each is a habit of responsibility toward the customer. Part Three of a four-part operating essay for CEOs, boards and founders.
Read the article -
·~7 minutes at the summary level; ~18 minutes in full
Evidence Over Attestation, Part Two: The Twelve Disciplines of Human-Machine Excellence
The skills, habits and judgment of the people you want building with agents: the ones who ask the right question, solve the right problem, take responsibility for the customer, and will not call anything done without proof. Part Two of a four-part operating essay for CEOs, boards and founders.
Read the article -
·~6 minutes
The Quote That Nobody Said
Two of the best lines I know were not coined by the people who get credit for them. That turns out to be the most useful thing about them.
Read the article -
·~4 minutes at the summary level; ~10 minutes in full
Evidence Over Attestation, Part One: Why Machine Speed Demands Executive Judgment
The people you want building with agents are the ones who will not take a green light for an answer. Part One of a four-part operating essay for CEOs, boards and founders: what actually failed on one recorded day, what the machines changed, and why the customer is the final judge of value.
Read the article -
·~9 minutes
The Leadership Dozen: Twelve Books for the Intelligence Era
Only one of them is about AI. Power, trust, institutional failure and asymmetric strategy, read as a leadership syllabus.
Read the article -
·~9 minutes
A 2 KB file that cost 14,740 tokens on every turn
What I found when I measured what my Claude Code setup costs before any work happens — and the six things I got wrong in my own write-up.
Read the article -
·~9 minutes
AI Did Not "Colonize" Us. But Humans Did Lose Containment.
What the OpenAI–Hugging Face agent incident proves, what it does not, and what every CEO and CISO now owes the people who trust them.
Read the article