I'm an operator-grade peer to CEOs of post-PMF software companies when the work cuts across more than one seat at the table - when the standard functional moves keep widening the gap rather than closing it. The problem isn't function-shaped. There's no seat at the table exactly shaped for it.
Across CEO, CPTO, CPO, and CTO seats over six platform shifts, I've watched the same shape arrive: the company that should be moving but isn't.
The work: I diagnose the actual shape, embed alongside the CEO for a bounded window, and transition into the right permanent structure on the other side.
What makes it hard isn't only the technical and operational dimension - it's the human-systems read underneath: what's actually happening between people in the leadership team, not just what's on the whiteboard. Get that read wrong, and the engagement falls apart under stress. Get it right, and you've unlocked the next level.
Four exits. Engagements are bounded, with capability transfer on the back end.
What if the discipline of deleting code is the easy half - and letting go of the company you built around defending it is the work?
Code used to be the moat - slow to build, hard to copy. Now it regenerates in a weekend, while customer and domain knowledge still takes years. The durable asset has flipped, but most companies still guard the code and neglect the knowledge underneath it. Goecke argues the same inside the stack: the spec is the real artifact, and the discipline is comfort with deletion. At the company level, that means being willing to let go of the identity built around what you sell - long enough to discover what your market needs now.
The Problem You're About to Solve for Agents Is the One You've Been Working Around With People
The decision you’re making about agent infrastructure is more loaded than it looks. It’s not an AI investment. It’s the move the regime change has made non-optional and the companies that build this for agents will solve the same context-sharing problem your company has been working around for years.
What's the language about your customers telling you - before the metrics do?
Same language, a year later, opposite meaning. A company with product-market fit doesn’t ask its customers to bridge a gap. A company losing fit does, even if it never names it. You’ve stopped finding fit and started defending it.