// Writing

Decisions, lessons,
and the occasional argument.

Essays written while building: how we decide what's worth doing, what we turned down and why, and what the tools taught us. Judge the thinking for yourself.

Sam Douglas Founder of Catalyst Forge. Two decades building software; now building and operating Exec Foundry, publishing the tools on our shelf, and working with businesses on where AI belongs in their work. Every post here is his.

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For builders· · Updated · 7 min read

Nutrition Labels for Software

One small file per question you have at adoption time: what an app is built from, what it can do, what it touches. Some labels fit any software, others cover the AI layers. We ship them on the tools we publish. Hub at xfacts.dev.

· Updated · 4 min read

What Over How

The kickoff ends early. Everyone nodded at modernize. Three people just heard three different projects, and nobody finds out until month four.

· Updated · 5 min read

What We Didn't Build

We shipped Exec Foundry, a search workspace for senior professionals. The obvious feature we turned down says the most about how we build.

· Updated · 4 min read

Wielding the New Fire

Fire is the lens I use for AI: a primitive, not a tool, and one that became widely accessible faster than we learned to use it well. Most people are still using it to keep the animals away.

For builders· · Updated · 9 min read

Prompts Aren't All You Need

Every workaround you write is a bet against the next model. The work moved off the prompt and into the architecture around it.

Dated perspective· · Updated · 5 min read

AI Just Changed. Most People Missed It.

A February 2026 reaction to one viral post, kept as a dated perspective: what Shumer claimed, why it mattered for your business, and five things to do about it.