Nobody who could build it was looking at their industry.

A 31-person company shipping 7 products, and the founder was still the only one who could see how it all fit together. The stuff that actually runs the business — which bank will approve which kind of merchant, why the payment setup was wired a certain way — lived in three people's heads. Four engineers were stretched across five "critical" projects, and one of those "critical" products had nobody actually working on it. Everyone there had quietly accepted running the company off a handful of memories.

Small firms were paying $1,200 a seat for legal AI that still missed relevant law — and sending privileged client matters off to someone else's servers to do it. It found 100% of the relevant law on the bar exam, and beat the $1,200-a-seat incumbent on the exam itself.

A camera counts 10mm oyster seed in murky, moving water — seed a crew was counting by hand, full-time, against a ±20% variance the trade had accepted as normal. The only alternative anyone was selling the farm was a $150,000 imported grader.

After every demo, the sales team huddled to argue about whether the prospect "seemed into it." The call had been on Zoom — every word, every facial expression, on tape. Nobody was looking at the tape.