Adam Gonnerman

This video explores a provocative critique of Bitcoin, challenging common narratives about its independence and long term viability. It examines claims that Bitcoin’s price is deeply tied to government spending dynamics, questions whether its massive energy consumption poses an existential threat in a climate constrained world, and probes the sustainability of its speculative valuation structure. The discussion also raises concerns about regulation, financialization, and whether Bitcoin represents a true alternative to the traditional system or simply another chapter in the history of speculative bubbles.

Startups in their early days can be quite small. Just a handful of people wearing multiple hats, trying to reach a goal. That was the case in one startup I worked for very early in my career in business and technology. I had been hired to be customer service, but quickly found myself in the role of web producer. I was preparing and uploading content for the users, which was more complex that it sounds given the various formats that were delivered to me, and I was reporting bugs. Oddly enough, something we didn't have even post launch were "offline temporarily" and 404 pages, but no one on the team had time to create them. To be clear, as customer service, this shouldn't have been my responsibility.  The CEO noticed this gap, with the missing error pages, and pointed out that visitors hitting missing pages would encounter a confusing dead end. The urgency was clear, that these pages needed to be addressed immediately to maintain credibility and ensure a smooth experien...

My title right now, were I employed, could be "program manager," "project manager," "technical program manager," or technical project manager. Fundamentally, a project manager thinks about planning, organizing, and guiding work so that a specific goal is achieved on time, within scope, and within budget. Unlike operations work, projects have a beginning, middle, and an end. They come and go. Now, I have held other titles. Once, at Scholastic, I held the title of Senior Technical Product Manager. This was a role that blended the fields of project and product management. Despite this experience, there came a time that I wanted a clearer and more current understanding of how strong product managers operate day to day. For this, I arranged to shadow a product manager where I worked. At the time, this was more about curiosity and personal growth, rather than role transition. Now, though, I could see a time coming in which I would want to transition into product...

Early in my career, I was invited to sit in on a meeting with enterprise architects and senior engineers to discuss an integration between a legacy content management system and a new distribution platform. I was there as the (fairly junior) project manager, not the technical authority in the room. The conversation quickly became highly specialized: API contracts, data schemas, caching layers, and system latency thresholds. It was clear I wasn’t the deepest technical expert at the table, and for the first part of the discussion, I mostly listened and felt a little lost. What I began to notice, however, was that while the technical details were sound, the group was implicitly optimizing for architectural elegance rather than delivery timing. No one was explicitly mapping the proposed solution against the external deadline tied to a partner launch. I asked a clarifying question that went something like this (I may have actually rambled a bit): “If we implemented the simpler, interim int...

In a few blog posts here recently I've attempted to share what we can expect with the coming burst of the AI bubble . I think it's a matter of "when," not "if." The clip below explains the consequences of the end of the AI bubble in simple and direct terms. What bothers me about it, besides its inevitability, is that I can't think of what to do to protect myself from the aftermath.   

The most interesting concept I’ve learned about in the past month is “enshittification,” a term coined by Cory Doctorow . He uses it to describe the predictable decline of digital platforms: first they are great to users, then they shift to favor business customers and advertisers, and finally they extract maximum value for shareholders, often degrading the experience for everyone else in the process. The term is blunt, but the framework is sharp. It gave language to something I’ve observed repeatedly in media and technology organizations: product decisions that begin as user-centered gradually become revenue-optimized, and eventually erode trust, quality, and long-term viability. Related to that, I’ve been following Doctorow’s arguments about a potential AI bubble, his view that massive capital is flowing into AI in ways that may not be sustainable relative to real, durable value creation. That perspective helped me separate two things that are often conflated: genuine technological...

 About eleven years ago, I read a book on Positive Psychology that, at the time, had nothing to do with program management or technology delivery. One idea in particular stayed with me: the notion that some people are simply born more prone to depression, that they “did not win the cerebral cortex lottery.” The framing was direct and compassionate. It suggested that for many individuals, depression is not a failure of discipline, mindset, or effort, but a biological predisposition shaped by genetics and brain chemistry. That insight fundamentally changed how I viewed both mental health and human performance. Professionally, it shifted how I interpreted behavior on teams. Before that, I might have unconsciously attributed low energy, pessimism, or withdrawal to disengagement or attitude. Afterward, I became far more careful about separating observable outcomes from assumed intent. I learned to ask more questions, create psychological safety in one-on-ones, and normalize conversatio...