Essays by Ry Walker

Essays on AI, startups, and software engineering by Ry Walker, founder of Tembo and Astronomer.

allagentsaiapisarchitectureastronomerautomationbottleneckbuild-vs-buybusiness-modelcode-reviewcoding-agentscommunicationcompetitioncontextcontext-engineeringcoordinationculturecustomer-developmentcustomer-successdatadecision-makingdeveloper-experiencedeveloper-toolsdevexeconomicsengineeringenterpriseevaluationexperiencefoundersfundraisingfuturego-to-marketgovernancegrowthgtmhuman-in-the-loopincentivesinfrastructureintegrationintuitionjudgmentknowledge-managementknowledge-workkubernetesleadershiplearningmaintenancemanagementmarketmarketingmeasurementmemorymoatsnuanceobservabilityopen-sourceoperationalizationoperationsoutboundpersonalpersonal-agentspersonalizationphasespitchingplatformplatformsplaybookprocessprocurementproductprototypingqualityragreasoningrecommendationsretentionreviewsalessecurityseedshippingskillssoftware-engineeringstartupsstorytellingstrategytembotoolingtrustunit-economicsworkflow
Dec 23, 2025Where AI Defense Is Headed

Two-thirds of your AI firepower belongs on debt, security, and testing. The teams building defensive infrastructure now will outpace teams that either reject AI or deploy it recklessly.

Dec 22, 2025Let the Agents Fight Each Other

If a coding agent introduces a bug and a testing agent catches it and a debugging agent fixes it, that is a win. The developer's time was preserved.

Dec 20, 2025Agentic Defense: The Missing Half of the Equation

For every unit of AI firepower aimed at building, deploy equal or greater firepower at securing, debugging, and testing. Here is what that looks like.

Dec 19, 2025The Offense-Only Problem with AI Coding

Most developers deploy AI almost exclusively to ship features faster. The asymmetry is the problem — not the AI itself.