Welcome to my blog, which I do not always write about my business or work, but other hobbies like politics, philosophy, and religion! The publication dates are a reference for when the texts were made available, but I keep updating them as I continue to go deep into the subjects.

We Are All Believers: The Invisible Faith That Holds Everything Together

TLDR: Every morning you trust the floor exists without checking—that’s faith, not reason We’ve never met the number “2” or visited “the past,” yet base our lives on these abstractions Science celebrates these tools while ignoring they’re built on pure belief Project management taught me we always work backward from faith in an unseen future If we all share this foundational belief system, we should build societies that reflect it The Floor Beneath Your Feet You wake up. Your feet hit the floor. No structural analysis, no existential crisis, no flashlight to confirm reality. Just pure, unconscious faith that the world continues to exist between yesterday’s last glance and this morning’s first step. ...

September 26, 2025 · 4 min · 811 words · Joel Zamboni

Hic et Nunc (Here and Now)

There’s a phrase in Latin that refuses to let us hide: hic et nunc—here and now. Whatever your story—your religion, your cosmology, your philosophy of where souls come from or where they’re headed—today you are a human among humans. You woke up inside this species, on this planet, with agency. That is enough to give you a duty. Respect the origin story. Respect the destination. But protect the present. I’m convinced of something simple: if, by whatever cosmic lottery, your consciousness ended up in a living human, then you are responsible for what happens to us—now. Not responsible for everything, but responsible to someone. Responsible for the choices you touch, the systems you influence, the harms you prevent, the goods you can advance. ...

September 14, 2025 · 5 min · 943 words · Joel Zamboni

AI Skills for Teens: A Parent's Guide to What Actually Matters

As a father of teenagers, I’ve been thinking hard about what skills they’ll actually need in a world where AI is everywhere. Not the hype, not the fear-mongering—just practical skills that will serve them well whether they’re applying to college, starting their first job, or building something of their own. This guide is for teens, but also for parents who want to understand what’s worth focusing on. It’s based on research, but written in plain language with real exercises they can actually do. ...

August 18, 2025 · 6 min · 1253 words · Joel Zamboni

The Inevitability of Regulation

TLDR: Regulation is inevitable—if democratic institutions don’t write the rules, corporations will through their “permission systems” Current complex regulations favor large companies while crushing small competitors, creating digital feudalism where platforms extract rent from participation The solution isn’t eliminating rules but creating thin, open, transparent protocols like the early internet that enable innovation without permission How We Traded Democratic Rules for Corporate Permissions Regulation is the landscape, not the weather. Whether you’re building an app, writing a newsletter, selling crafts online, or just trying to share your work with the world, you will encounter rules that shape what’s possible. If democratic institutions don’t write them, the market’s largest players will. The question isn’t whether we’ll have rules—it’s who writes them, and whether they serve the many or the few. ...

July 20, 2025 · 7 min · 1301 words · Joel Zamboni

Why We Need AI Agents: The Answer is Still 42

TLDR: LLMs are like Deep Thought from Hitchhiker’s Guide—they provide answers without context, making them less useful for specific tasks AI agents solve this by providing specialized intelligence with domain knowledge, tools, and appropriate context boundaries The future isn’t one omniscient AI but a constellation of specialized agents working together, each excellent at their specific domain In Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” the supercomputer Deep Thought spent 7.5 million years calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. The answer? 42. The problem? Nobody knew what the actual question was. This comedic masterpiece offers a profound lesson for our current AI revolution: answers without context are meaningless, and context without specialization is overwhelming. ...

June 29, 2025 · 5 min · 1018 words · Joel Zamboni