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James Urquhart

@jamesurquhart

Product leader, field CTO, futurist, tech strategist, author (Flow Architectures, O’Reilly). Open to new opportunities/work.

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25.04.2023
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Latest posts by James Urquhart @jamesurquhart

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When Building Software with AI, Think Outcomes, not Tasks I have been spending a lot of time lately working with AI swarms in building applications and services. I still find it hugely challenging, but I am slowly learning how to go beyond the "demo" and to ...

I wrote a thing about why you should think outcomes” not “tasks” when building software with agentic AI SWARMS.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-b...

29.07.2025 19:41 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Hot take: If you go public, by law you won't be able to fully resist it. You'll get sued by shareholders who believe your unwillingness to raise prices or lower pay is not in their fiduciary interest.

IMHO, its pretty rare that a startup enshitifies (is that the word?) quickly. Post IPO, though…

15.07.2025 16:53 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
MSN

This battle between OAK and SFO on naming seems mostly to revolve around the "San Francisco Bay" in any new name.

I think the solution is easy, and Donald Trump showed us the way. OAK should just unilaterally rename "San Francisco Bay" to "Oakland Bay". Problem solved.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/u...

12.07.2025 00:06 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Current status…

20.06.2025 23:57 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Alameda in the house…

14.06.2025 19:49 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Current status

14.06.2025 18:39 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Interesting. I wonder what drove its adoption. There must be a story.

29.04.2025 04:01 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I learned something new today. In California High School Softball, a “fake tag” (defined as applying a tag without the ball) is considered obstruction. Weird rule, but I guess it makes sense.

28.04.2025 23:46 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0
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Finally did it. I wrote down how to build a code-editing agent.

In 315 lines of code. And yes, it works. Very well.

There is no moat.

Read it here: ampcode.com/how-to-build...

15.04.2025 19:56 👍 119 🔁 20 💬 9 📌 5
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Why MCP and A2A Help Make AI "Flow Ready" In 2021 I wrote a book, published by O'Reilly, that explored a future in which event-driven integration across domain boundaries (especially between disparate organizations) leverage widely supported ...

Is AI changing the way Flow Architectures are evolving? I explore this question in my new blog post, Why MCP and A2A Help Make AI "Flow Ready"; www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-mc... via @LinkedIn

15.04.2025 23:29 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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The Strategy Behind MCP Model Context Protocol (MCP), first defined by Anthropic, is surfing a wave of enthusiasm right now. MCP has, incredibly quickly, become a…

Some reading :) medium.com/@fintanr/the...

04.04.2025 09:02 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0

Did anyone else notice that Ferrari managed to get IBM and HP to put their logos next to each other on the car’s new livery? We live in interesting times.

20.02.2025 02:17 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Looking forward to it!

20.01.2025 12:17 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Ooo! Ooo!’Pick me!

Happy to help in any way I can.

18.01.2025 16:43 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Tile maketh the kitchen.

Lots left to do, but Mia’s vision is coming together nicely.

16.01.2025 00:29 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

This is phenomenal advice. Always ask yourself “so what?” Or “what’s the point?”. Work towards building the listener’s mental model, rather than just filling it with mostly useless facts.

14.01.2025 21:44 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Just catching up again would be great. You are one of my favorites, as well.

14.01.2025 21:41 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I’m all for catching up! I’ll send you a message.

14.01.2025 17:48 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Just one ask, hirers. It’s ok to test the waters with interviews, but please make it clear if there is a chance I may get rejected for being overqualified.

Having offered concessions up front (for this *one* employer), I was honest about the situation. Some reciprocation would be appreciated.

14.01.2025 17:27 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Licking my wounds a little today. Found out yesterday I didn’t get a job I was fairly certain I landed. Basically they decided I was overqualified and hired someone younger/with less experience.

This has happened twice now, and friends have also had several similar experiences. <more>

14.01.2025 17:27 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0

Happy 2025, all. Just a reminder that I am still looking for my next opportunity, and that I would love to talk to you about your enterprise software sales engineering and product management leadership needs.

03.01.2025 18:08 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I will be paying attention to Flatcar. The time seems right for an impovement to container OSes. Is this it?

Or, alternatively, is there a modern computing replacement to containers waiting in the wings?

It's always a fun market in enterprise tech if you know what to look for.

03.01.2025 18:05 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Happy New Year to you and yours, Mark. So happy to see your musical journey bringing you so much joy in 2024. Wishing you much more in 2025.

31.12.2024 16:32 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Other than dealing with that one uncle, I mean.

25.12.2024 20:17 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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a merry christmas card with a gold christmas tree on it ALT: a merry christmas card with a gold christmas tree on it

To all, a very merry Christmas. May your day be filled with joy, love, and contentment.

25.12.2024 20:17 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

The "Nothing Burger Franchise" problem? ;)

23.12.2024 15:50 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I just used claude.ai to diagnose a problem connecting to javadoc.io from any device on any network in Alameda, CA. It seems Cloudflare has a misconfigured connection to javadoc.io from this area.

Has anyone else encountered problems in the Bay Area?

I will try to file an issue with javadoc.io.

13.12.2024 05:10 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Ok, folks. Is anyone else having trouble reaching Javadoc.io? I get either a 522 error or nothing when I try to access on WiFi or cellular, via Chrome or Safari, and after clearing out all cookies. I’m stumped.

Netbeans also can’t connect.

11.12.2024 15:09 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

The next door neighbors to this rental left their dogs in the back yard while they went on a trip for Thanksgiving. The damn things haven’t stopped barking for close to 15 hours.

Sanity is in short supply right now…

28.11.2024 05:42 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0

Doing a ton of homework on network security this week for a technical interview. Not sure how I'll do, but at least I'll be buzzword compliant…

In all seriousness, it is amazing how far this tech has come since my three years at Cisco. I am suitably impressed.

20.11.2024 18:57 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0