Shahid Shah Contrarian Brief
The comfortable assumptions costing teams money, and what to do once you stop believing them.
AI is not primarily a productivity technology. Your architecture matters less than it used to. Healthcare does not really have an interoperability problem. Digital transformation was the wrong goal. Each piece takes a belief that has gone unexamined, shows what changed underneath it, and ends with the decision you should make differently. Short, argued, and useful even if you disagree.
An argument against an assumption that has become too comfortable.
What you will learn
12 pieces published
July 9, 2025
It may sound legacy, but email and document-based workflows are the most effective user interface for launching real-world AI solutions. Here's why AI should start where customers already are.
August 20, 2024
Venture capitalists often overlook the strategic importance of a Chief Technology Officer (CTO), mistaking technical co-founders as a simple checkbox. A seasoned CTO bridges vision and execution, aligning tech strategy with business goals, mitigating risks, and driving innovation, key factors that can make or break a startup's success.
September 26, 2023
While a system may meet all the necessary regulations and standards, it can still be vulnerable to threats and attacks because of human attestation.
September 23, 2023
Staff retention refers to the ability of a company to retain its employees over a period of time. It is a crucial aspect of any organization, especially in the technology sector where skilled professionals are in high demand.…
June 1, 2022
I challenge the conventional wisdom on cybersecurity, focusing on the problem of 'compliant insecurity'.
August 14, 2006
We’ve all seen it: we spend weeks or months in the “sales and demo cycle” for our applications. If we’re lucky we consider all workflows, if we’re even luckier we test drive the UI and make sure training goes smoothly, if…
January 6, 2006
There is a general misconception in the IT community that their database servers are somehow their most secure systems and that *because* they are secure their customers data and their own financial information is safe. Let me…
January 4, 2006
I saw an ad recently for the Real World AJAX One-day Seminar and the contents and discussions all sounce useful.
December 23, 2005
Bruce Eckel, author and Java pundit, writes about the departure of the hyper-enthusiasts. He says, “the Java hyper-enthusiasts have left the building, leaving a significant contingent of Java programmers behind, blinking in…
November 17, 2005
Over the past few months I’ve been playing with Ruby on Rails, and while it’s an innovative solution to small- and medium-scale web development problems, it’s not really the Java killer that everyone’s harping about. Don’t get…
April 29, 2004
Last week I had lunch with a non-technical manager customer of mine who is using our Netspective Enterprise Frameworks Suite for develoment of some heavy-duty mission-critical web applications. After choosing our NEFS, the…
January 20, 2004
I’ve noticed that the term software architect, a term I use quite often to describe myself, is in vogue these days. It’s interesting to hear that many developers who used to call themselves senior software engineers are doing…
Consolidating into
A Shahid Shah Fieldbook · forming
AI does not make technical judgment cheaper. It makes judgment the scarce input, and it moves the technology executive from best engineer in the room to the person who orchestrates machines, teams, and customers toward outcomes.
A Shahid Shah Fieldbook · forming
Assurance built on human attestation produces documents, not security. The organizations that survive scrutiny are the ones whose systems can prove their own state continuously, by machine, without anyone being asked to vouch for it.
