9/11

First and foremost, reflecting on 9/11. Was visiting Tokyo, Japan back then. Received messages on my yahoo email. Pre-social media. My flip phone was not configured for international calls. NTT DoCoMo had not rolled out their 3G services yet. It happened a month later. The first widely deployed smartphones originated in Japan well before the iPhone and other devices. I can’t imagine what life would have been like if these existed on 9/11.

Some colleagues and family were able to reach me at my Tokyo hotel. Some reached me from the US to check if I was in NYC and directly impacted. The internet was widely deployed in Japan. The coming week was spent staring at a desktop computer and watching English language TV. Travel slowed to a crawl internationally and on the streets of Japan.

9/8 First Light Books: Event with Politicos

Former Mayor Steve Adler (not to be confused with the former drummer of rock band Guns N’ Roses) was joined by Congressional Representative Greg Casar in this event. They represented two approaches to what Austin needs: pragmatic governance and ambitious efforts to challenge the status quo. Adler’s tenure (2015-2023) helped balance competing interests while preserving Austin’s appeal, while Casar could represent the next generation of mayoral leadership. Austin’s challenge is to attract capital and growth without losing affordability, quality of life, or its distinctive character. As the city becomes more politically and economically diverse, unresolved issues such as data centers, climate change, and affordability could test its national reputation. Adler’s book offers useful lessons for navigating these competing priorities. Austin’s main customers are its residents. The competition for these talented workers is fierce. And they can just easily leave for the coasts based on the local and regional politics.

What I learned from this event (and prior experience) is that it’s very hard to break into the Austin civics scene and maintain involvement like what transplants Steve Adler and Greg Casar have been doing for decades. It appeared that Adler mentored Casar in his journey— having been a transplant himself. There’s friction between longtime Austinites and the newcomers — just amongst progressives. I found it much easier to do civics on the West Coast where political NIMBYism is less strong.

Alternatives to Austin

I did some research about where I could move with family if this Austin narrative fades. Wrote an essay in this blog about my qualms while living in the South. My narrative skewed towards suburbia versus living in the urban core of a Blue city. I turned to AI for more analysis of my blog post:

🤖 Objective: Seeking a less religious, less car-dependent, more culturally diverse and intellectually pluralistic lifestyle in a place less impacted by Climate Change. 🤖 Here are several US cities/regions with their strengths and tradeoffs:

• Washington, D.C. – civic energy, transit-friendly, but expensive and status-conscious

• Chicago – strong urban/cultural balance at relative affordability

• Philadelphia – best value, gritty but civically rich

• New York City – maximal density and anonymity, at high cost

• San Francisco Bay Area – highest concentration of artists/intellectuals, extreme cost

• Seattle – progressive, tech-oriented, but gray and pricey

• Portland – independent, bike-friendly, smaller-scale

• Minneapolis–Saint Paul – underrated, strong civic infrastructure, but harsh winters

Winner: TBD

Dreamforce becoming just a Dream?

This year’s Dreamforce feels especially significant, with both hope and trepidation about AI’s impact on Salesforce and enterprise SaaS. George Roukas’s “Anthropic’s Trojan Horse?” LinkedIn article raises a compelling question: who owns the workflow—and the policy? If AI assistants become the primary interface for enterprise work, Salesforce could become more of a back-end system while value shifts to the AI layer. The durable moat may increasingly be data, governance, security, integrations, and business context—not the UI.

I built eventcarpooling.com this summer using AI, recreating capabilities that would have required multiple Salesforce modules—without a Salesforce license or consulting partner. After about 20,000 lines of code, it worked. My industry and CRM knowledge became critical, effectively making me the engineer, product leader, QA manager, and growth lead. The experience blew me away, but also exposed the gaps: token usage expenses, security, governance, maintenance, and scalability being automated. Could AI close that gap without my permission? Probably. How quickly is the big question. I’m eager to hear directly from leaders of Salesforce, OpenAI, and Anthropic next week.