# Michael Rispoli

> Michael Rispoli is a no bullsh*t, forward-deployed CTO for founders who need software shipped, rescued, or made real.

## Core Pages

- [Home](/): Positioning, services, selected writing, and contact links
- [Blog](/blog/): Essays on product, engineering, AI, delivery, and CTO work
- [Resume](/resume/): Public resume and professional background
- [Contact](/contact/): Contact page for software rescue, CTO, and product work

## Markdown Versions

- [Home Markdown](/index.md): Clean Markdown version of the homepage
- [Blog Markdown](/blog/index.md): Clean Markdown index of all blog posts
- [Resume Markdown](/resume/index.md): Clean Markdown version of the resume
- [Contact Markdown](/contact/index.md): Clean Markdown version of the contact page
- [Full Site Markdown](/llms-full.txt): Concatenated Markdown for the main pages and blog posts

## Recent Blog Posts

- [You Can't Reverse Engineer Taste](/blog/you-cant-reverse-engineer-taste/): AI can help you imitate what already works, but developing your own point of view requires living, making things, getting lost, and trusting your eye.
- [Is AI the End of Engineering, or Just the Beginning?](/blog/is-ai-the-end-of-engineering-or-just-the-beginning/): AI is eating some old software work, but it is also creating a new category of engineering: turning half-working AI systems into durable business tools.
- [The Problem With Abundance](/blog/the-problem-with-abundance/): AI may make digital things cheaper and easier to produce, but the scarce things people actually want will still be controlled, priced, and protected.
- [Cracking the AI Code Interview](/blog/cracking-the-ai-code-interview/): The engineering interview has to change. In the AI era, the work is not just writing code faster. It is judgment, cost, quality, communication, and knowing what should be built at all.
- [I Don't Need More Horsepower. I Need More Road.](/blog/i-dont-need-more-horsepower-i-need-more-road/): AI has made software teams faster than the feedback loop. The harder business problem now is growth, trust, distribution, and having enough road for all that horsepower.
- [The Agent Told Me It Was HIPAA Compliant](/blog/the-agent-told-me-it-was-hipaa-compliant/): AI can generate convincing healthcare software. It cannot declare your product safe, legal, or compliant just because the checklist looks complete.
- [The Software Factory Works Best After You Know What You're Making](/blog/the-software-factory-works-best-after-you-know-what-youre-making/): Agent loops are powerful for mature systems with known patterns. Product discovery still needs human judgment close to the work.
- [The Rise of Mediocrity and the Death of the Real Turd](/blog/the-rise-of-mediocrity-and-the-death-of-the-real-turd/): AI did not make everything worse. It made bad harder to see.
- [The magic in the meeting](/blog/the-magic-in-the-meeting/): AI can make execution cheap, but the real product judgment still happens when the right people stay with the problem together.
- [Cast the Ring Into the Fire: Why Founders Must Resist the Temptation to Add One More Feature](/blog/cast-the-ring-into-the-fire/): Early products need one powerful story. Every extra persona, workflow, and feature can weaken the focus that makes the first users care.