Seldo · Laurie Voss
We write about systems in context.
ReferenceWorks publishes stories about software, data and AI inside real businesses.
We look at these systems through the operating questions they shape: how performance is measured, how acquisitions integrate, where decisions break down, and when new technology changes the economics of an operation.
Stories may begin with a system to build, a process that no longer works, unreliable data or a technology still to be proven. We focus on the problem behind the system, the trade-offs involved, and what changed in practice.
Stories
View all stories →Featured story · Software engineering
More problems are now worth solving through Software Engineering
AI-assisted software engineering is changing the range of operational problems worth solving with software.
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The reading notebook
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Hermit Tech · Nikhil Suresh
AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making
Our note
A sharp counterpoint to the enthusiasm around AI. Suresh describes how pressure to demonstrate adoption can displace basic questions about usefulness. Our takeaway: start with the operating problem, listen to the people doing the work, and measure what improves.
Sequoia Capital · Julien Bek
Services: The New Software
Our note
Sequoia makes the case for AI businesses that deliver completed work rather than sell another tool. For us, the interesting question is what it takes to own that outcome: fitting into existing operations, handling exceptions, and taking responsibility for the result.
Behind the publication
ReferenceWorks brings together senior engineers with deep business experience, developed through years of work on complex operational change.
Much of that experience comes from mid-sized businesses navigating growth, acquisitions and operational change. These are the environments behind many of the stories published here.
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Our note
As code becomes cheaper to produce, understanding what to build takes on more weight. What interests us here is the connection between engineering and product judgement: working with the people who know the business, defining the problem, and checking whether the solution actually helps.