01.1 · Allocation
Allocation memos
How to think about AI spend across the Three-Horizon portfolio. What to fund this quarter. What to kill. How to defend it to the board.
Applied AI Leader's Memo
Director-altitude AI strategy, in your inbox every Thursday.
A weekly memo for operators and founders allocating AI budget, hiring AI talent, and shipping AI in production. Framework-anchored. No tool reviews. No prompt tips. No hype.
Free. One issue per week. Beehiiv embed coming soon, email Edwin directly to be added.
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Every issue is one of four shapes.
Allocation, org design, debriefs from the field, or frameworks applied. No filler.
01.2 · Org design
Org design memos
How to structure AI ownership inside the company. Leadership-Lab-Crowd patterns. Hiring tradeoffs. When to consolidate, when to decentralize.
01.3 · Debriefs
Engagement debriefs
Anonymized lessons from active client work and from shipping Baxie in public. What worked, what didn't, what I changed my mind about.
01.4 · Frameworks
Frameworks in practice
Named frameworks (Three-Horizon, Leadership-Lab-Crowd, agentic patterns) applied to real operator and founder decisions, not abstract theory.
The Memo · What lands in your inbox
Director-altitude thinking on what to actually do with AI at the budget, org design, and portfolio level.
Not the prompts. The allocation.
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Who it's for. Who it isn't.
Director altitude, not implementer altitude. If you are looking for one-line LinkedIn takes or prompt tips, this isn't it.
02.1 · Subscribe if
You'll get value if you're
- A CEO, COO, CTO, or VP allocating AI budget
- A Head of Product or Head of Engineering deciding what AI ships next
- A fractional or full-time AI leader looking for framework anchors
- A founder building AI-native products
02.2 · Skip if
Skip it if you're
- Looking for prompt tips or tool reviews (plenty of those exist already)
- Hoping for hype cycles or model launch coverage
- Looking for one-line LinkedIn takes (those are on LinkedIn)
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One issue per week. Free. Unsubscribe in one click.
No drip sequences, no upsells. The memo is how I think out loud, not how I monetize.
03.1 · Cadence
One issue per week
Lands Thursday morning.
03.2 · Length
800 to 1,500 words
Enough to be useful, short enough to read with coffee.
03.3 · Price
Free. No paid tier.
The memo is how I think out loud, not how I monetize. Unsubscribe in one click. No drip sequences, no upsells.
§04
Issue #1 lands Thursday, May 28, 2026.
Subscribe now to get it in your inbox. After issue #1, this section auto-populates with the most recent 3 to 5 issues.
§05
The fractional AI consulting market in 2026 is loud and shallow.
Most content is implementation tips and tool reviews. There's no shortage of "10 ChatGPT prompts" content.
The gap I'm writing into is Director-altitude thinking, what to actually do with AI at the budget, org design, and portfolio level. Not the prompts. The allocation.
Every Thursday I write the memo I would have wanted when I was running cross-functional programs at eBay and AI wasn't quite real yet. Now it's real. The thinking should catch up.
§06
Subscribe before issue #1 lands.
Free. One issue per week. Unsubscribe in one click.
Beehiiv embed comes online shortly. Until then, email Edwin to be added manually, or follow the LinkedIn cross-post.