Author
Antoine Buteau

Antoine Buteau

2 min read Free

The Builder Shift series #7: The Maintenance Trap

AI makes the first version cheaper. That is useful. It is also the trap. A prototype can appear in a day. A useful internal tool can appear in a week. A workflow that once required a formal project can now be assembled by a motivated operator with AI assistance, APIs,
3 min read Free

The Builder Shift series #6: Shadow IT Becomes Shadow Product

Shadow IT used to mean teams buying tools or building workarounds outside official channels. AI changes the shape of the problem. The risky artifact is no longer only an unauthorized app or spreadsheet. It is a working internal product: a workflow assistant, review queue, dashboard, agent, approval tool, research system,
2 min read Free

The Builder Shift series #5: Build Around Buy

The strongest builder-shift pattern is not replacing every purchased tool. It is building around buy. Most companies already own useful systems of record. The problem is that work does not happen neatly inside one system. A renewal risk workflow might require product usage, support tickets, CRM history, contract terms,
2 min read Free

The Builder Shift series #4: The Rise of Internal Builders

AI expands who can build. That does not mean every employee becomes a software engineer. It means the boundary between operator and builder gets more interesting. The most valuable internal builders are often not the people farthest from the work. They are the operators who understand the workflow deeply enough
2 min read Free

The Builder Shift series #3: The First Target Is Spreadsheet Ops

The first serious target for the builder shift is not the polished SaaS stack. It is spreadsheet ops. Every company has them: business-critical processes running through spreadsheets, copy/paste work, manual lookups, Slack nudges, CSV exports, calendar reminders, and one person who knows which tab is the real one.
3 min read Free

The Builder Shift series #2: SaaS Was a Compromise

SaaS won because it was better than the alternatives. Most companies did not buy SaaS because every product perfectly matched the way they worked. They bought it because building custom software was slow, risky, expensive, and hard to maintain. SaaS converted a capital project into a subscription, shifted maintenance to
3 min read Free

The Builder Shift series #1

The wrong question is whether AI will make companies build more software. The better question is what kind of software becomes worth building when the cost of building drops, who is suddenly able to build it, and what operating model is required so the company does not drown in its
Digest 7 min read Free

Daily Digest - 2026-05-02

1. AI agents are briefly overhyped — stevekrouse.com * Why read: Offers a pragmatic, near-term reality check on the current state of AI agents for business use. * Summary: While AI agents like Claude Code are incredibly powerful for software engineering, their broader business application is currently overhyped and bleeding-edge.

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