C-TPO
CTPO

Every newspaper has one

The sports page

AI score 3.1/5 me. Idea 2/2 · Direction 0.6/1 · Words 0.5/2. My moments, my takes. Claude drafted the cards and drew the helmet

Moments from sports, and what they mean at work and in life. Some I watched, some I lived. What I saw stays separate from what I think it means, so you can disagree with the second part.

His'n and your'n

Football · Seen

On the field

There's a lot of talk about X's and O's versus Jimmys and Joes (I like that one too). But my favorite is the old Southern coaching line, best said in the accent: he can take his'n and beat your'n, or take your'n and beat his'n. The earliest version on record is Clemson's Frank Howard on Missouri's Don Faurot in 1950; it's been said since about Bear Bryant and Don Shula, among others.

Off the field

Partly it's confidence. But the confidence comes from adapting: to your own team, to the opponent and to the moment. That's not cockiness; it's skill that travels. The best leaders and builders aren't great only with their own people and their own playbook. Hand them a different team and a different problem and they still find a way.

The small-payroll World Series

Baseball · Seen, October 20, 2026

On the field

The Rays and the Brewers are in the World Series, my hometown team against Milwaukee. Two teams known for lower payrolls, not big-market spending. They win on analytics, on data, and on finding small edges that scale. And both invest in pitching.

Off the field

You don't need the biggest budget. You need an edge in a place that's small enough to own and scales once you find it, and the discipline to keep investing in the thing that wins (for them, pitching). The big spenders buy the index. The small ones have to find alpha.

Freaks, floors and ceilings

Football · Seen, October 19, 2026

On the field

Watching Monday Night Football, it's obvious: some players are freaks. A 45-inch vertical, 4.3 speed. They're football's 10xers. Some people can run 100 miles; most of us will never have that ceiling. But most of us aren't anywhere near our own ceiling either.

Off the field

Everyone has a range: talent sets the ceiling, and training, experience and grit decide how close you get. AI raises the floor and amplifies the ceiling, if you use it as the grease on every part of the job that has leverage, not just the output. Smart people use it to fill their own gaps, and every process has plenty of gaps. The 10xers who work that way may be 100xers now.

Stretching for alpha

Football · Seen, October 18, 2026

On the field

Watching the Bucs, I noticed Bucky Irving stretching at every possible break. Every timeout, every pause. In the NFL, everyone is elite. That's the starting line, not the edge.

Off the field

In finance, alpha is the return you earn above the index. When everyone is elite, the index is elite, and the edge is the extra 1% you do that the others don't, done every single break. At work, AI is fast becoming everyone's index. Your alpha is the habit you stack on top of it.

Trust your stuff

Baseball · Played

On the field

I was a starting pitcher: about a hundred pitches a start, roughly once a week, all season. You can't agonize over one pitch or one batter. You keep throwing. If you trust your stuff, and trust your process to keep getting better, it works out over the inning, the game and the season.

Off the field

One meeting, one deal or one post doesn't decide much. Bring your best stuff every time, and judge it over the season, not the at-bat. Sometimes, though, it is one pitch: two outs, game 7, tied World Series. (Not that I ever pitched anywhere near the World Series. Or the majors.) That's when trusting your stuff matters most. You don't invent a new pitch on the biggest stage; you throw the one you've thrown a thousand times.

Play your position

Any team sport · Played

On the field

The fastest way to lose is everyone chasing the ball. Play your spot, and trust that the others are playing theirs.

Off the field

Control what you can control. In a big organization, that's doing your layer well and keeping your promise to the layers around you. It's the patching argument in one line.

More as I see them. The rest of the fun stuff is in Arts and crafts.

For people short on time

TL;DR

Matt thinks out loud here about technology, mostly how teams decide what to build, fix and protect.

The first series argues that security gets better fastest when the teams that each hold part of the answer share it earlier. Part 2 says most critical findings aren't: seven questions tell you which, and the answers live with other teams. Clay first, chisel later is about roughing out the whole thing before polishing the parts.

Every piece says how much AI helped, and the site is built in the open: a roadmap with a big picture (only Now is a promise), a changelog with a monthly review, and the product work itself, like Operatie Klompje, a postcard-sized product for one customer: his mom.

There's also an Arts and crafts wall, because not everything has to be serious. The discussion happens on LinkedIn.

Start with Part 1 →
AI score 2.7/5 me. Idea 1.8/2 · Direction 0.4/1 · Words 0.5/2. AI drafted these from the site

Updated October 18, 2026. A TL;DR for the whole site, by reader, is an idea by Matt at ctpo.io. Copy it freely, just link back.

Streng geheimOperatie Klompje

Postcard front: Mama in a lace cap, apron and clogs, proud of little Machoo.
The customer: my mom. Small, even in clogs. Giant courage, and giant worry. Most of what she knows about my work comes from the news.