Blog posts by Colin Steelehttps://colinsteele.org/https://colinsteele.org/blog/distribution_is_dead/https://colinsteele.org/blog/distribution_is_dead/I built a product that solves a real problem. The internet doesn't care. Here are my four options, all of them bad.Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/majors_and_generalizations/https://colinsteele.org/blog/majors_and_generalizations/You don't generalize from cups. You specialize from physics. Cognition is navigation of a single manifold where intent is the tangent vector, risk is the curvature, and the metric is the scar tissue.Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/cad_and_real_estate/https://colinsteele.org/blog/cad_and_real_estate/Dassault sells you the right to read your own design files. NAR sold you the right to see the housing market. Same grift, different industry. One got sued. The other won't.Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/superfantastic_sidecars/https://colinsteele.org/blog/superfantastic_sidecars/The enterprise UI was a 30-year workaround for not being able to talk to databases. The workaround is over. A builder's guide to the $5-50M vertical opportunities the giants will never touch.Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/softare_saas/https://colinsteele.org/blog/softare_saas/The industry forgot how to build software that runs on the user's machine. Some of us didn't. Here's what happens next.Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-5/https://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-5/Why CRAWL! combat works. One action, two trays, and nowhere to hide.Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/the_paleozoic_era_of_agentic_frameworks/https://colinsteele.org/blog/the_paleozoic_era_of_agentic_frameworks/99.99% of agentic frameworks are evolutionary dead ends. The Permian extinction is coming.Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/ground_beneath_the_map/https://colinsteele.org/blog/ground_beneath_the_map/There's a layer in your brain between reality and symbols, that both language and logic rest on. Transformers lack this layer.Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/elegy_for_dnd/https://colinsteele.org/blog/elegy_for_dnd/Lonely fun is lost. What remains is pale in comparison.Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/lightning_talks_part_i/https://colinsteele.org/blog/lightning_talks_part_i/A collection of deliberate bear poking.Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_iv_skyvida/https://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_iv_skyvida/You can't file a flight plan for a million delivery drones.Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-4/https://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-4/Die, usage die! The usage die can kiss my d20.Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/300_nopes/https://colinsteele.org/blog/300_nopes/A Stanford survey cataloging ~300 papers on LLM reasoning failures just confirmed every architectural diagnosis I made.Fri, 13 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/raytheon_ate_my_terrier/https://colinsteele.org/blog/raytheon_ate_my_terrier/Two months ago I proposed layered cognitive-kill drone defense built around cheap autonomous interceptors. Yesterday, Raytheon demoed exactly that. They also revealed the gap I'm most worried about.Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/say_what_you_do/https://colinsteele.org/blog/say_what_you_do/I wrote that whole departments would vanish. Then I proved it twice in a month. AS9100-grade QMS and a complete Team Operating System, built part-time with LLMs. Nobody got fired. The jobs just never existed.Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/the_horse_job_cope/https://colinsteele.org/blog/the_horse_job_cope/Technology has always created more jobs than it destroys. That has been correct for two hundred years. It is about to stop being correct.Sat, 07 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-3/https://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-3/The heist shouldn't feel like a spelling beeThu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/eksterulo/https://colinsteele.org/blog/eksterulo/The failure to reason is a symptom. The failure to relate is the disease. Frontier models do not relate.Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/granna_holchoys_riddles/https://colinsteele.org/blog/granna_holchoys_riddles/Are you paying attention? Granna has some riddles for you.Sun, 01 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/book_smart/https://colinsteele.org/blog/book_smart/LLMs are trained on the compression of human experience, not experience itself. The territory they'd need to become intelligent is fundamentally alien to ours.Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/margin_play/https://colinsteele.org/blog/margin_play/The same optimization that turned feeds into dopamine casinos is now operating on AI assistants.Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/the_last_levee/https://colinsteele.org/blog/the_last_levee/'Massively polygenic' was our security blanket against designer humans. AlphaGenome just pulled it off. The only levee left is ethics. Don't laugh.Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/story_time_for_cxos/https://colinsteele.org/blog/story_time_for_cxos/Meetings replaced memos the same way the feed replaced thinking. Same thermodynamic disease, different host.Sat, 24 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_iii_mini_cricket/https://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_iii_mini_cricket/$100 helmet-mounted edge AI that buzzes 'INCOMING DRONE' before the human ear even registers the sound.Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/sequoias_mission_accomplished/https://colinsteele.org/blog/sequoias_mission_accomplished/Sequoia just declared AGI. Their definition is 'the ability to figure things out.' My Roomba is AGI now. Someone call the LPs.Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/car_keys/https://colinsteele.org/blog/car_keys/RLMs and MoR are real progress. They're also still not reasoning. A critique of the cutting edge.Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_ii_kesslergym/https://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_ii_kesslergym/Train your satellite AI for Tuesday in LEO with bad data. A 'messy reality' simulation environment for autonomous space traffic management.Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/petty_gods/https://colinsteele.org/blog/petty_gods/The accelerationists expect the Rapture. The doomers expect Ragnarok. Both are fairy tales. What actually arrives is worse: narrow superintelligences that solve everything except the thing that matters.Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_i_lensreader/https://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_i_lensreader/Algorithmic feeds are bad for your brain. This startup is vitamins for your brain.Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/axioms_of_polity/https://colinsteele.org/blog/axioms_of_polity/A manifesto for human/machine polity charting civispace. Neither as apex mind. A forest.Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/marvin/https://colinsteele.org/blog/marvin/Your ASI needs a hug.Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/geometry_saves_mawmaw/https://colinsteele.org/blog/geometry_saves_mawmaw/I proposed that goal-space geometry could replace executive function in AI architectures. Then I discovered the math already exists.Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/cargo_cult_civilization/https://colinsteele.org/blog/cargo_cult_civilization/Your attention-algorithm feed isn't corrupting you. It's completing a transaction your biology was always ready to make. And a population optimized for minimum cognitive expenditure is maximally controllable.Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/ludonarrative_puppets_sandwiches_and_ai/https://colinsteele.org/blog/ludonarrative_puppets_sandwiches_and_ai/A TTRPG about self-aware puppets who know they're being controlled, and the only freedom left: laughing at it loudly enough that it hurts.Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/ai_cant_help_mawmaw_but_worms_can/https://colinsteele.org/blog/ai_cant_help_mawmaw_but_worms_can/A robot caring for your grandma needs to fluidly inhabit radically different forms of cognition: creativity, logic, and crisis. Nothing in current AI architectures explains how. Worms might.Wed, 07 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/frontier_models_do_not_think/https://colinsteele.org/blog/frontier_models_do_not_think/Transformers don't reason. They perform reasoning kabuki theater. What's missing isn't capability, it's coordination.Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/the_cockroach_of_capitalism/https://colinsteele.org/blog/the_cockroach_of_capitalism/As automation commoditizes execution and cognition, the most durable form of human labor is not leadership or knowledge work, but illegible, risk-bearing, political coordination. An essay on why corporate politics survives every technological wave.Fri, 26 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/vermin_terriers_and_transformers/https://colinsteele.org/blog/vermin_terriers_and_transformers/If $500 drones can destroy the power grid (or an aircraft carrier), million-dollar missiles aren't a defense strategy. They're bankruptcy. A look at the 'Vermin' problem and why we need an immune system for critical infrastructure.Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/paul_graham_can_kiss_my_app/https://colinsteele.org/blog/paul_graham_can_kiss_my_app/Why I'm intentionally building Taleway wrong (no accounts, no UI, no engagement metrics) and why that might be exactly right for 2025Tue, 04 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/build_bridges_not_moats/https://colinsteele.org/blog/build_bridges_not_moats/Prognistication and contemplation of the nature of sustainable competition, circa 2025Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/invictus/https://colinsteele.org/blog/invictus/I am the captain of my soulThu, 30 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-1/https://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-1/5E: the mall food court of roleplaying gamesWed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-2/https://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-2/Player skill? Character skill? Chocolate AND Peanut Butter?Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/apple_is_a_duopolistic_predator_and_i_know_what_their_next_move_is/https://colinsteele.org/blog/apple_is_a_duopolistic_predator_and_i_know_what_their_next_move_is/Building an ambient audio app revealed Apple's blueprint for the future, and it's not about innovation. It's about control. Here's what they're building next.Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/sears-catalog-moment/https://colinsteele.org/blog/sears-catalog-moment/Your website doesn't matter anymore. Your API does. AI agents are killing web traffic the same way Amazon killed Sears catalogs. Here's what happens next.Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/second-post/https://colinsteele.org/blog/second-post/Thoughts on static site generatorsMon, 20 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/60000-percent-growth/https://colinsteele.org/blog/60000-percent-growth/How we scaled from 1,000 to 600,000+ daily users with zero downtime, no late nights, and a four-person team. The architecture decisions that made it possible.Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/against-the-grain/https://colinsteele.org/blog/against-the-grain/The story of how we fired everyone, rewrote everything in Clojure, moved to AWS, and built a scalable OTA platform with just four developers—then got acquired by the biggest hotel chains in the world.Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT