I’m Writing a Book. Come Build It With Me.

A special Tuesday announcement - and I need your help with something at the end.

I’ve been sitting on this announcement for a few weeks because I wanted to be sure before I said it out loud.

I’m sure.

I’m writing a book.

It’s called The Builder’s Compass: A Practitioner’s Playbook for Building 0-to-1 AI Products…for now. That’s the working title. More on that at the end.

And I’m not writing it in private and dropping it on you when it’s done. I’m writing it here, on this Substack, one chapter at a time - out loud, in public, with you following along as it takes shape.

The Prologue drops this Thursday.

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Why this book

Honestly? Because this Substack has been teaching me that I have something worth saying - and that writing it down helps me think.

For the past couple of years I’ve been publishing fragmented posts about what it actually looks like to build AI products from the inside. Launches. Failures. Frameworks I’ve developed the hard way. And what I keep hearing back is that the specific vantage point - someone who’s not writing about the AI moment but actively building inside it - is hard to find.

Real products, real launches, and plenty of real dead ends - including those calls to shut things down and, hopefully, a few rocketship moments. My hiring frameworks for AI PMs are now the subject of a Harvard Business School case study, which is a surreal way to see my work at Google Labs taught in a classroom. In between, I’ve used agents to plan my twins’ birthday party and spent a weekend self-publishing a Yosemite coloring book on Amazon just to see what would break.

What I’ve realized is that those fragmented posts have a shape to them. There’s a through-line. And stitching them into something cohesive - with the connective tissue filled in, the frameworks made explicit, the lessons made transferable - could be genuinely useful to a lot of people trying to navigate the same terrain.

That’s the motivation. Not to write the definitive AI PM book. To share what I’ve learned, in a form people can actually use, while I’m still close enough to the work that the details are honest.

And because this is what I do: the act of writing it will teach me things too. That’s not a side effect. That’s the point.

Why in public

Because writing a book in public is itself a product decision - and the right one.

Serializing on Substack means every chapter gets pressure-tested before it’s locked. You’ll tell me when something doesn’t land. You’ll tell me when a framework is too abstract or a story needs more friction. By the time this goes to print, it will have been through more real-world feedback than any book written behind closed doors.

It also means you get the thinking as it develops, not after it’s been packaged. Some of the most interesting ideas in this book are still forming. I’d rather work them out with you than hand you the finished version and pretend I always knew.

What’s in it

Four parts. A prologue and an epilogue. The chapters are taking shape now - and since this is being written in public, the structure will evolve as the ideas do. That’s the whole point.

Part 1 is the mindset shift - unlearning pre-AI product thinking, replacing the PRD with tools that actually work in a non-deterministic environment, and designing for failure from day one instead of treating it as an exception.

Part 2 is the builder’s toolkit - the actual how, before you have a team. Prototyping workflows, pattern recognition, when to ship before you’re ready, and how to build the instincts that let you move fast without breaking things that matter.

Part 3 is the honest field reports from Google Labs - real products, real outcomes, real stories. Including clean shutdowns, hard pivots, and hopefully some rocketship moments.

Part 4 is the team - how to hire elite AI PMs, what to look for, the exact take-home assignments and interview scorecards, and guest Q&As with hiring managers from Meta, Microsoft, Google, and YC founders.

Woven throughout: two live projects I’m building alongside the writing. You’ll see them develop in real time.

I have a strong sense of where this is going - but I’m building it in public, which means if something needs to change, it will. That’s not a hedge. That’s the process.

What I’m asking

Three things.

First: subscribe if you haven’t. Every chapter comes here first, free, before anything else.

Second: share this post. The best way to make this book useful is to get it in front of the people who need it - aspiring AI PMs, practicing PMs, founders, and anyone trying to build or lead in a world being reshaped by AI. If that sounds like someone you know, send this to them.

Third: tell me what you want. What’s the chapter topic you can’t find a straight answer on anywhere? What’s the question you keep asking that nobody’s giving you a real response to? Reply here or drop it in the comments. The depth and direction of every chapter is still being shaped - and the things you’re actually wrestling with are the things I want to write toward.

One more thing - I need your help with the title.

I’ve been calling it The Builder’s Compass but I’m not married to it. You’re helping build this thing - you should get a vote.

Which title would make you actually pick this book up?

Drop your vote in the comments. If something here doesn’t land and you have a better idea, I want to hear that too!

The Prologue is this Thursday. And if you want to talk through any of this live - I’m hosting Office Hours tomorrow, on Wednesday at 9:30am PST.

Join here. And if you have questions, add them here.

Let’s build this thing 🚀