CEO and CTO that has done this and learned the hard way
What I keep seeing
AI moves fast. Reading is not doing. You need to act.
You bought AI tools. The seats sit empty.
Vendor pitches all sound the same. You need a peer.
You need three things to do this week. Not another deck.
I use Claude. I use ChatGPT. I use whatever wins next. Your work lives in your own fileshares like SharePoint, OneDrive, or Google Drive. You own it. You can switch any time.
Partner
Blue Sheen
2026 - Present
AI advisory firm for mid-size companies. Co-founded with Pravina Pindoria. Two partners, every engagement. No juniors handed the work. All my consulting work now runs through Blue Sheen.
Co-Founder & CEO
Tallyfy
2014 - Present
Built Tallyfy from scratch - the most easy and cost-effective workflow automation platform available. Invented Workflow Made Easy - a product that anyone can use to document, run and track business processes. Currently running most operations with AI, with deep knowledge of where it works and where it fails.
Co-Founder
SternStella (in stealth)
2025 - Present
Currently in stealth mode.
Partner
BrightKite.ai (in stealth)
2025 - Present
Currently in stealth mode.
Entrepreneur in Residence
Skandalaris Center, Washington University in St. Louis
2025 - Present
Helping deep-tech and all kinds of entrepreneurs with AI, technology, and operations.
Faculty
OneDay (a Woolf college)
2025 - 2026
Taught cohorts of MBA students about lean operations, automation, and effective AI use. Also taught creativity and innovation to early-stage founders.
Process Improvement Consultant
Dachis Group
2007 - 2012
Joined via the Headshift acquisition - Headshift pioneered Social Business consulting and Dachis Group acquired it to scale that work. Clients were City law firms, large corporates, blue chip companies, and charities. Problems mixed technology, culture, and process.
Process Improvement and Systems Integration
Atos Origin
2004 - 2006
BPM, systems integration, and process improvement for UK public sector and enterprise clients including a local authority portal, NHS Choose and Book, and VOSA. Stack: Tibco, BEA WLI/WLP, Java.
University of Bath
Computer Science (BSc)
2004
Most companies are stuck at stage 1 or 2. Here's the full picture.
Shadow AI on personal accounts
Managed AI with proper logins and audit trails
From "I use my own ChatGPT" to everyone on one secure system
Typing prompts at 40 WPM
Voice input at 150+ WPM with structure baked in
From hunt-and-peck typing to just talking
Saving prompts in Word docs
AI asks YOU the right questions
From prompt libraries to AI that knows what to ask
Copy-pasting between AI and your apps
AI acts inside your apps directly
From tab-switching hell to AI that just does it
AI knows zilch about your business
AI loaded with your actual data and rules
From generic slop to answers that know your world
AI only runs when someone remembers to ask
AI fires on its own when things happen
From "oh I forgot to run that" to automatic
Three phases. No fluff. Just the work that gets AI running.
Real testimonials from colleagues and clients on LinkedIn
"Amit was my mentor and teacher during my MBA process. I felt like I was decent with AI at the time- but Amit completely transformed how I think about using AI. He explains complex concepts in an easy to understand manner. He is creative in his thinking with practical outcomes. He was also able to help me one on one which was very productive. Highly recommend working with him and just all around great human!
"
Oncology Partner at Guardant Health
"I had the wonderful opportunity to benefit from Amit's mentorship at the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurship at WashU. Speaking with him was mind-blowing and deeply inspiring, and it gave me new insights while opening fresh and original perspectives for my project. Amit shared many great ideas, as well as a full range of practical advice (spanning from customer discovery, problem solving, to AI...) and actionable tips on how to implement them effectively. He was extremely generous with his time, fully committed, and truly dedicated to his mission as both a mentor and a role model.
"
Post-Doc Researcher in Neurosciences & Entrepreneur
"Amit is a whirlwind of ideas. And what is better, he is usually sharing them with others. Every idea, even the ones that will not make it into a project in the end, is bound to contain some inspiring nugget that will eventually get you thinking about scenarios and possibilities for days.
"
Staff Backend Engineer at Deliveroo
"There really is only one Amit. With a unique blend of strong technical capabilities, entrepreneurial spirit and deep understanding of user behaviour, Amit has the enviable ability to sniff out problems and then (seemingly) effortlessly create innovative business solutions with infectious enthusiasm and relentless follow through. Equally as important, Amit is absolutely lovely to work with. He's got an unflappable positive outlook, loads of energy and is not afraid to ask the tough questions.
"
Jodi Schneck
Head Teacher at Jodanno Learning
"Amit is a fantastic, lateral thinker. His entrepreneurial spirit is matched by his kindness, presence and ability to generate great enthusiasm. Amit can teeter between the logical and the dreamy with an envious ease.
"
VP, Design at Aruliden
"Amit and I had a lot of fun working on some really interesting web projects. With lots of hurdles and challenges, I often found Amit to rise to the challenge with creative technical solutions that complimented business requirements. There simply is only one Amit.
"
Jay Khan
Delivery Manager at V&A Museum
"Amit has the right attitude for the new way of creating business solutions so the technology is not in the way of the experience. Amit is a one-off diamond.
"
Andrew Woolfson
Head of Knowledge Management
"Amit is a great guy both professionally and personally. Working with Amit was always an eye-opener because of the incredible knowledge and skill he brings to the table. I have worked with Amit on various occasions where I was lucky enough to witness some of the innovative skill and thinking that comes from combining a thorough sense for business and incredible skill in Programming and Architecting.
"
Director at Microsoft
"Amit is an excellent technical thinker who always manages to keep an eye on the human nature of what is being built; he can be relied on for sharp, relevant insights into both user centred process/design and technical decisions, and it is always a pleasure working with him, as well as spending time together socially away from the office.
"
Digital Lead at The Chancery Lane Project
"Amit is technical capabilities are combined with a strong business insight and understanding of user behaviours which makes him a great project collaborator. His focus is on getting the work done and problems solved. I always enjoyed working with Amit on development projects both for his ideas and his helpful positive attitude.
"
Co-Founder & CEO at Clouz
"Amit has a fabulous attitude and is a very capable technologist. I have always enjoyed working with Amit and watching him solve the world's problems one entrepreneurial idea at a time.
"
Delivery Partner at Hippo
"Amit offers an impressive background of technological and creative knowledge. I was introduced to Amit through a networked link and his recommendation proceeded his entrepreneurial-ship and effective working practice. His ideas are sharp and original, and provide clear insight for what will be the next big thing. I very much look forward to working with Amit and anticipate his success for the future.
"
Professor at Durham University Business School
"Amit has great vision and knowledge of web design and web usability. He has a real intuition and passion for usability in web applications.
"
Founder at Payara
"I recommend Amit highly. He is a very smart and dedicated person who is also a pleasure to work with.
"
Programme Manager at MultiChoice Group
"Amit is a truly unique and colourful person who will bring light into any group of people he encounters. His commitment to anything he turns his mind to amazed me and he is not only willing but loves to put himself in the firing line for any new challenges or experiences he can find.
"
Dave H
Advocate/Advisor at DIGTL Markets
"Amit is an open minded and very creative entrepreneur. He has very good communication skills and has always a pragmatic approach in getting things done.
"
Partner at IBM
"Amit worked with me on a paper researching Multi-Agent Systems. I found him very knowledgeable, reliable and committed. I regularly see Amit contributing to forum discussions and is always willing to help anyone above and beyond the call of duty.
"
Freelance Copywriter at The Word Booth
The Anthropic Certified Architect, Foundations is the first official Claude technical certification. It is also brand new and still in an early-adopter phase, which makes it hard to value. The free Anthropic Academy courses are the part worth doing today. The credential is a bet on a job market that does not exist yet.
The Anthropic partner program, the Claude Partner Network, launched in 2026. The surprise is how open it is: membership is free and any organization bringing Claude to market can join. That means joining is not the achievement. It is a box of enablement tools, and it gives you a multiplier, not leads. Here is what it actually is.
Claude Code ships with five built-in agent types: Explore, Plan, general-purpose, statusline-setup, and claude-code-guide. Most people know two of them. The other three run constantly and shape how much your sessions cost. This is the full catalog, what each one is for, and why knowing them changes how you read your own terminal.
A large context window in Claude Code feels free, and it is the opposite. Every token you load is re-billed on every turn after. The prompt cache that should make that cheap expires in five minutes, turning a tenth-price read into a higher-price write. And accuracy fades as the window fills. Here is the real cost.
Claude Code effort mode looks like a cost dial: turn it down to spend fewer tokens. The official docs say otherwise. Effort is a behavioral signal, not a strict budget, so low effort does not reliably cut spend and can quietly raise it. Here are the five levels, where they stop, and how to set effort with intent.
The general-purpose agent in Claude Code is not the main agent and not something you pick. It is a built-in subagent Claude routes to on its own for complex, multi-step work. It inherits your model and, in current Claude Code, spawns as a fork of your conversation. This post explains how it actually works and what that costs you.
Claude Code scheduled jobs come in three forms with very different guarantees: the in-session /loop, Desktop tasks, and Cloud routines. A missed run does not queue up a backlog. And despite a common belief, none of them creates a Windows Task Scheduler entry or a .bat file. Here is how each one actually behaves.
A Claude Code stop hook runs the moment Claude finishes a turn and can refuse to let it stop. It is the one hook that inverts control: Claude must pass your check before the turn ends. This post covers what a stop hook is, why exit code 2 is the whole game, the infinite-loop trap to avoid, and the patterns worth wiring up.
A surprising Claude Code bill is almost never one big expense. It is four different cost shapes stacked up: a context window that bills every turn, subagents that each cost a fixed chunk, skills that cost almost nothing until used, and caching that can cut the recurring cost or not. Budgeting tokens means knowing the four shapes.
When a Claude Code subagent fails, you cannot open it and look inside. It ran in its own isolated context and handed back a summary. Debugging a subagent is the skill of reading that summary, recognizing context-isolation failures, and designing subagents that report enough to be diagnosed. Here is how to do it.
A subagent in Claude Code is a specialized worker that runs in its own fresh, isolated context window, with its own tools and permissions, and reports back only a summary. It is how Claude does a noisy side task without flooding your main conversation. Here is what a subagent is, what file defines it, and when it earns its cost.
Making AI emails sound like you is not a prompting trick. A tone guide produces press-release sludge. The fix is a voice corpus built from your own sent folder, a style file you version like code, and a draft-only rule. Harper Reed trained Claude on roughly 200 sent emails and the gap closed.
Feeding the right background data into prompts so AI isn't guessing.
Making sure AI can grab what it needs, even when data's scattered.
Small model for grunt work, big model for thinking. Match the tool to the job.
Splitting big problems into tiny prompts. One thing at a time.
Building things that actually run in production, not slide decks.
When one prompt won't cut it - chaining dozens together.
When AI should just click buttons and move the mouse for you.
Baking in checks so AI doesn't go off the rails.
Prompts and instructions that improve themselves automatically.
Most AI fails because the problem was badly defined. I've spent decades on this.
Sometimes a simple script beats a fancy prompt. Knowing when matters.
Running many prompts at once without them stepping on each other.
Tech changes are easy. Getting people on board is the hard part.
When should AI fire? On a schedule? On an event? On a hunch?
I work with everyone from college students to C-suite execs.
