OPTIMISTIC APOCALYPTARIAN.
I’m Carlo Kruger: agilist, cook, cat-lover, coffee snob, aka grumpycat, and AI enthusiast. I write about engineering, product, and the messy intersection between hype and practice.
Current inquiry
How do capable software teams become late, brittle, and stuck firefighting?
I’m tracing the technical, organisational, and cultural systems that turn ordinary delivery pressure into recurring failure. These essays are working evidence, not a consultant funnel.
The blog.
— 12 essays
11 JUL 2026
AI Is an Outside Context Problem
AI is an Outside Context Problem for the modern corporation. Culture and organisational structure, not technology, will decide who survives it.
02 MAY 2026
The Car Makes Us Bad Systems Thinkers
Traffic flow as a metaphor for systems thinking, fairness, queues, local optimization and organizational behavior.
16 JAN 2026
Case Study: Engineering Management in Action
A case study in diagnosing an engineering team in crisis, finding the systemic causes of delivery failure, and designing a practical intervention plan.