Poster illustration of robots versus zombies

Robots versus Zombies

I once ended up at a SIGGRAPH dinner with Ken Perlin, who, in good humor, ranted about the death of parametricism at the hands of machine learning zealots. Let’s frame the fight. Parametric associative modeling, exemplified by constraint graphs, rule engines, and systems like Grasshopper and GenerativeComponents, is the Swiss watchmaking of digital design tooling. It’s symbolically encoded and mostly human debuggable until complexity spirals beyond control. That’s the Robots team. ...

July 26, 2025
ETF Mining Equipment's battery-electric haul train

Verticalization in construction tech

Spoke recently with a VC backing a battery-electric construction equipment startup that’s quietly acquiring firms in “boring” operational niches like site prep to control deployment and usage. It eliminates the friction of getting novel equipment into the field while capturing margin. Rather than waiting for contractors to spec unfamiliar hardware, they’re buying the contractors. This is a familiar play. Joby Aviation is building electric aircraft for their own airline. Waymo built a tightly controlled fleet operation to deliver mobility-as-a-service. Deploying autonomous, electric equipment isn’t just about selling, its about guaranteeing outcomes which often requires owning the stack initially. ...

July 1, 2025
Stadium of people at AU 2012 in Las Vegas

Notes on Autodesk Strategy

In the spirit of vibe product management, here’s some writing from my corporate strategy course in Spring 2025 for which we were asked to choose a company with problems, analyze it internally and externally, then make suggestions for rejuvenation. Autodesk strategy report Autodesk faces an inflection point. While its financial performance and market penetration remain strong, its dependence on structural lock-in, legacy platforms, and extractive pricing is eroding its brand equity and exposing vulnerabilities to a wave of modular, cloud native, and open-source alternatives. The company must reframe its value proposition to foster trust, true openness, and renewed innovation. ...

June 15, 2025
3d models of digiplasty project from 2001

Welcome to digiplasty

Hello there! digiplasty is a collection some of my professional and academic projects and a place for research posts. It’s primarily about architecture, digital fabrication, computer graphics, AI, and software product management. The word “digiplasty” originated from a digital sculpture collaboration, documented here. It captured a sense of digital materiality that, along with this domain name, has endured. I also hope digiplasty becomes a catalyst for future collaborations. If you would like to get in touch, find me on LinkedIn, or email me: contact [at] digiplasty [dot] com. ...

June 1, 2025