What Actually Ships https://whatactuallyships.com/ Perspectives from 30 years in product. Organizational dysfunction, decision velocity, and the gap between what leadership thinks is shipping and what actually is. en-us Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 A Warning Nobody Has to Sign For Is Just a Suggestion https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/powerflex-known-risk-signoff https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/powerflex-known-risk-signoff Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 One of the things I found was that early site surveys had already told us where connectivity would be hard. Somewhere between the survey and the install, that input got ignored. I Set a 1% Adoption Rule at PlayStation. Then I Had to Walk It Back. https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/one-percent-rule-walked-back https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/one-percent-rule-walked-back Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 So for the teams I owned, I set a rule. Make a convincing case and we'll build it. Then show us it's actually adopted and used by at least 1% of the user base. I Rode in Two Generations of Waymo on the Same Day. It Felt Like Two Different Companies. https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/two-generations-of-waymo https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/two-generations-of-waymo Thu, 24 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Same company, same city, same day: a confident chauffeur and a teenager behind the wheel. In software-defined vehicles, the software generation is the product's personality. Everyone at the Show Told Me They Were "Doing AI." Nobody Could Tell Me Why. https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/doing-ai-nobody-could-say-why https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/doing-ai-nobody-could-say-why Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT A dozen conversations at Dreamforce, one answer every time: we're doing AI. Not one company could name the problem it was solving. We Built for the Wrong Market and Accidentally Shipped the Heart of the Next Console Generation https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/wrong-market-console-generation https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/wrong-market-console-generation Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT At AMD we aimed the APU at set-top boxes. Every OEM wanted one more feature. The building blocks we assembled quietly became the heart of the next PlayStation and Xbox. We Built a Cross-Platform UI Engine Years Before Flutter. It Didn't Matter. https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/years-before-flutter https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/years-before-flutter Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Our weather app needed one design that rendered on every Android device. We built the engine years before the market proved the problem was real, and never looked up to see it. The Journey Map That Told Us to Do Less https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/the-journey-map-that-told-us-to-do-less https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/the-journey-map-that-told-us-to-do-less Thu, 10 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT OnStar uptake was stuck near 20%. The fix wasn't more research, ads, or education. It was deleting work three teams each required. The Product Test That Was Never About the Person https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/the-product-test-that-was-never-about-the-person https://whatactuallyships.com/articles/the-product-test-that-was-never-about-the-person Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Every new hire at Creative Labs got a sealed retail box and no instructions. They thought the test was about them. It never was.