Craig Bailey

Consolidation only works when you treat it as an ongoing action, not a one-time cleanout, because complexity re-enters the moment you stop removing it.

The tools you'd rebuild a business on are your foundation; the tools you can swap next week are disposable, and you should never run the first through the second.

Keeping every platform, channel, and product open feels like optionality, but it's usually just a pile of choices you were too comfortable to actually make.

Every app, domain, and streaming service you keep 'just in case' is a monthly tax on your attention, and attention is the only real inventory you run low on.

The mark of a good setup isn't that you found the perfect tool, it's that you could replace any disposable one this afternoon without the business noticing.

Cutting channels and tools feels like giving up growth, but it's actually removing the noise so the one thing that matters can finally get loud.

Ideas versus Perspectives It's unlikely people have an original idea, but it is likely they have - almost by definition - an original perspective if they share an observation of it. (Provided it's not a regurgitated AI slop summary of course.)

AI that removes bad stress (repetitive admin, formatting, data entry) is good. AI that removes good stress (the productive struggle of writing, thinking, problem-solving) is dangerous. The golden age makes both cheap. Only one is worth accepting.

Who works for who? A review of Cory Doctorow’s book on AI: letters.craigbailey.com/p/co…

WeWork sold luxury offices at a loss. AI companies are selling cognition at a loss. Both are propped up by the same thing: someone else's money and the assumption that users will stick around when the price triples. The assumption is wrong.

There is no permanent subsidy. Every golden age ends the moment the people paying for it decide they want a return. WeWork, Uber, AI — the names change, the pattern doesn't. If you're not planning for the post-subsidy version of your business, you're planning to be surprised.

Kindness, generosity, presence, patience - the things actually worth pursuing more of don't require a subscription, an upgrade, or a new device.

The word 'innovation' has become a shield for bloat, and the most useful products in your life are the ones that resisted the temptation to keep adding.