The CTO Substack

The CTO’s AI Provider Predicament

Why getting cozy with your AI coding vendor might be the most expensive decision you make this year

Jan 13 • Etienne de Bruin

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Made as a Service (MaaS) Will Eat SaaS

AI Made Building Cheaper Than Renting. Now What?

Jan 8 • Etienne de Bruin

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December 2025

The CTO’s Missing Partner

The one thing I want for you in 2026

Dec 30, 2025 • Etienne de Bruin

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$23 Million Is Not a Plan

How to transform vague revenue targets into objectives your technology team can actually deliver

Dec 19, 2025 • Etienne de Bruin

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The CTO’s Translation Failure

Why being technically correct can cost you your job—and what I wish I’d known about showing complex work simply

Dec 10, 2025 • Etienne de Bruin

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November 2025

The CTO’s Double Diamond

A two-diamond design model that aligns engineering and product teams through divergence and convergence across four phases: Discover, Define, Develop…

Nov 27, 2025 • Etienne de Bruin

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The CTO’s Community of Practice

Your participation in both internal and external communities shapes who you become as a CTO. Neither is sufficient alone.

Nov 20, 2025 • Etienne de Bruin

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The CTO’s Necessary Friction

When being “difficult” is exactly what your C-suite needs from you

Nov 12, 2025 • Etienne de Bruin

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The CTO’s Lost Joy

We’ve become administrators of innovation rather than innovators.

Nov 5, 2025 • Etienne de Bruin

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October 2025

The CTO’s Communication Breakdown

You're not having a conversation with your CEO. You're having a conversation with your story about your CEO.

Oct 29, 2025 • Etienne de Bruin

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What If We’re Building AI for the Wrong Decade?

We’re in the middle of a technology shift that feels as significant as the move from command line to GUI. Our response is to make better command lines…

Oct 22, 2025 • Etienne de Bruin

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The CTO’s Seven Sins

There’s a pattern among the survivors, the CTOs who make it past the two-year mark and build lasting legacies. They avoid seven specific sins that…

Oct 15, 2025 • Etienne de Bruin

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