Lesson 1.1
The Economics Era of AI
Why AI's bottleneck moved from capability to translation - and the role built to close the gap.
Course 1 FDE Foundations and Persona
The FDE identity, lifecycle, and evidence habits. Free track — every lesson page is open. 8 episodes · 5.6 hrs
Lesson 1.2
The FDE Trinity
One role, three accountabilities: how the FDE Trinity keeps enterprise AI alive past the demo.
Lesson 1.3
The Four-Stage Maturation Loop
The four-stage loop that makes an FDE team survive losing its best engineer.
Lesson 1.4
The Implementation Lifecycle
Diagnose, Prototype, Evaluate, Adopt: the lifecycle that treats a backtrack as signal, not failure.
Lesson 1.5
Founder-Like Ownership and the Bias to Ship
The Ownership Ladder: why the rung you stand on is the size of the box you draw around the outcome.
Lesson 1.6
The 'Narrow Path' Prototyping Principle
One channel, one intent, one backend: why the narrow path beats building every path halfway.
Lesson 1.7
Evidence, Not Claims: Building the FDE Companion OS
Seven slots, ninety seconds: the Companion OS that turns a portfolio into auditable evidence.
Lesson 1.8
Course 1 Mastery: Position Yourself as an FDE
One sentence, five dimensions, thirty seconds: the Mastery Gate that positions you as an FDE.
Course 2 Mindsets and Strategy
Discovery, MECE decomposition, the Pyramid Principle, systems thinking. 9 episodes · 6 hrs
Lesson 2.1
The Soft Stack
How the Adoption Choreography pattern turns The Soft Stack from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 2.2
The Discovery Call: 5-Whys at BlueRidge
How the 3-Slot Reframe pattern turns The Discovery Call from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 2.3
MECE Decomposition for Vague AI Strategies
How the Boundary-narration Test pattern turns MECE Decomposition for Vague AI Strategies from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 2.4
The Pyramid Principle: Answer-First Communication
How the Answer-First pattern turns The Pyramid Principle from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 2.5
Translating Business Language to Jira-Ready Specs
How the Given / When / Then pattern turns Translating Business Language to Jira from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 2.6
Systems Thinking & Systems of Record
How the Authoritative Store pattern turns Systems Thinking & Systems of Record from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 2.7
Cost of Inaction & Anti-Gold-Plating
How the Anti-Gold-Plating pattern turns Cost of Inaction & Anti from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 2.8
Agentic Thinking: Automate vs. Human Judgment
How the 21 CFR Part 11 pattern turns Agentic Thinking from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 2.9
Course 2 Mastery: Live Discovery Simulation
How the System of Record pattern turns Course 2 Mastery from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Course 3 Agentic Architecture
Production agent design — chains, tool use, MCP, memory. 15 episodes · 6.8 hrs
Lesson 3.1
Production-Ready Python: Modular Functions and Error Boundaries
How the Boundary pattern turns Production from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.2
API Design Mastery: REST vs. GraphQL
How the Apollo Demand Control pattern turns API Design Mastery from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.3
Backend with FastAPI
How the AsyncRepository pattern turns Backend with FastAPI from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.4
Front-End Touchpoints
How the Aria-busy pattern turns Front from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.5
Continuum of Autonomy: Chains, Single-Agent, Multi-Agent
How the Accountability Gap pattern turns Continuum of Autonomy from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.6
Agentic Frameworks Tour: LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, ADK
How the Auditability Primitive pattern turns Agentic Frameworks Tour from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.7
Build a Single-Agent System
How the 5-Pillar Architecture pattern turns Build a Single from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.8
Build a Multi-Agent Workflow with LangGraph
How the AMLState pattern turns Build a Multi from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.9
Bridging Probabilistic Intelligence with Deterministic Execution
How the Business Invariants pattern turns Bridging Probabilistic Intelligence with Deterministic Execution from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.10
Tool Use & Function Calling Design Patterns
How the Blast Radius pattern turns Tool Use & Function Calling Design Patterns from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.11
State, Memory, and Long-Term Context
How the 2x2 Memory Matrix pattern turns State, Memory, and Long from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.12
Semantic Layer Architecture & Metadata Lakehouse on Iceberg
How the Apache Iceberg pattern turns Semantic Layer Architecture & Metadata Lakehouse on Iceberg from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.13
Model Context Protocol (MCP): Beyond Traditional APIs
How the Arguments pattern turns Model Context Protocol (MCP) from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.14
Reasoning Patterns
How the Correlated Verifier pattern turns Reasoning Patterns from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 3.15
Course 3 Mastery
How the 5-Invariant Audit pattern turns Course 3 Mastery from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Course 4 Lifecycle and Deployment
Discovery-to-adoption, observability, evals, red-teaming, security rails. 12 episodes · 8.3 hrs
Lesson 4.1
Discovery: Mapping Workflows and Friction Points
How the 3-Class Friction Map turns Discovery from a feature wishlist into iterative risk reduction.
Lesson 4.2
The Three Whys of Systems of Record
How the Three Whys audit separates a System of Record from the Systems of Reference that silently kill agents on Day 30.
Lesson 4.3
Pilot Scoping & The Discovery Brief
How the Scope-Out Defense turns Pilot Scoping from a 40-slide deck into the single page that saves your project on Wednesday.
Lesson 4.4
Rapid Prototyping: Instrument Before Polishing
How the 5-Axis Prototype Architecture turns Rapid Prototyping from a Day-1 demo into a Day-2 diagnosable system.
Lesson 4.5
LLM Observability Foundations
How the Fourth Pillar (Evaluations) turns LLM Observability from green-dashboard theater into output-truth measurement.
Lesson 4.6
Building Evals with Phoenix / LangSmith / HoneyHive
How the 4-Part Evaluation Architecture turns silent model-upgrade drift into a CI-gated, defensible regression test.
Lesson 4.7
Hallucination Control & Grounded Generation
How the 3-Layer Grounding Stack pattern turns Hallucination Control & Grounded Generation from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 4.8
Red Teaming & Adversarial Testing
How the 4-Class Adversarial Taxonomy turns Red Teaming from a prompt-engineering exercise into a tool-catalog redesign.
Lesson 4.9
Security & Compliance Rails for Regulated Environments
How the Compliance Rails pattern turns Security & Compliance from a sandbox-default time bomb into a contract-surface kill switch.
Lesson 4.10
Change Management & Technical Enablement
How the Departure Test turns Change Management from a satisfaction-survey vibe into the one behavioral signal that survives your roll-off.
Lesson 4.11
The Partner Demo
How the 4-Beat Forensic Walkthrough turns the Partner Demo from a logo-wall pitch into proof of value already delivered.
Lesson 4.12
Course 4 Mastery
How the 4-Pillar Evidence Package turns 11 Course 4 frameworks into one defensible Diagnosis-to-Demo sprint.
Course 5 Vertical Specializations
Healthcare, finance, govtech, OT/IT, retail, legal, logistics. 8 episodes · 4.3 hrs
Lesson 5.1
Healthcare & Life Sciences Vertical: Clinical-Grade FDE Patterns
How the 21 CFR Part 11 pattern turns Healthcare & Life Sciences Vertical from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 5.2
Financial Services & Banking — Audit-Trail-First Agent Design
How the 3.8 Invariants pattern turns Financial Services & Banking from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 5.3
Public Sector & GovTech
How the Aria-live pattern turns Public Sector & GovTech from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 5.4
OT/IT Convergence and the Plant-Floor Boundary
How the 4-bit Quantization pattern turns OT/IT Convergence and the Plant from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 5.5
Retail, E-commerce & Hospitality — Consumer-Facing Agent Design · FDE Certification
How the 3-Control Envelope pattern turns Retail, E from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 5.6
Legal & Professional Services: Privilege, Ethics, and the ABA 512 Bar
How the ABA Formal Opinion 512 pattern turns Legal & Professional Services from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 5.7
Logistics, Supply Chain & Field Service: Edge, Offline, and the Last-Mile Constraint
How the 3.9 Prob-Det Boundary pattern turns Logistics, Supply Chain & Field Service from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 5.8
Course 5 Mastery — Vertical Translation Studio
How the 4-Beat Forensic Demo pattern turns Course 5 Mastery from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Course 6 Partnerships and Go-To-Market
Co-selling, co-building, partner qualification, joint pilots. 8 episodes · 5.9 hrs
Lesson 6.1
The Partnership Ecosystem — Co-Selling vs. Co-Building
How the 4-Axis Classifier pattern turns The Partnership Ecosystem from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 6.2
The SCOPE Framework for Partner Qualification · FDE Certification
How the Artifact pattern turns The SCOPE Framework for Partner Qualification from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 6.3
Joint Value Proposition (JVP) Design
How the 3-Deal-Mechanic Question pattern turns Joint Value Proposition (JVP) Design from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 6.4
The Partner Roadmap to 'Core' Status (Anthropic-Style)
How the Artifact Gate pattern turns The Partner Roadmap to 'Core' Status (Anthropic from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 6.5
GTM-SMSA Alignment: Strategy → Pre-Sales → Post-Sales · FDE Certification
How the 4-Stage SMSA Chain pattern turns GTM from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 6.6
The Discover-Design-Deliver-Develop Cycle
How the 4.10 Departure Test pattern turns The Discover from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 6.7
Lesson 6.7 · The Pod Model: Working Inside a Customer Environment · FDE Certification
How the 4.10 Departure Test pattern turns The Pod Model from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 6.8
Course 6 Mastery — A Joint Pilot Plan
How the 6.1 Mode Classifier pattern turns Course 6 Mastery from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Course 7 Senior FDE Practice Leadership
Coaching, hiring, operating cadence, eval hygiene, career architecture. 8 episodes · 6.4 hrs
Lesson 7.1
The Senior FDE Identity: From Doer to Multiplier
How the 5-Axis Multiplier Index pattern turns The Senior FDE Identity from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 7.2
Lesson 7.2 · Coaching Junior FDEs: The Founder-Like Ownership Ladder Revisited · FDE Certification
How the 4-Stage Coaching Ladder pattern turns Coaching Junior FDEs from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 7.3
Hiring & Interviewing FDEs
How the 4-loop Architecture pattern turns Hiring & Interviewing FDEs from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 7.4
Running a Pod of Pods: Manager-of-FDEs Operating Cadence
How the 5-Axis Practice-Health Tile pattern turns Running a Pod of Pods from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 7.5
Practice-Wide Eval Hygiene & Knowledge Compounding
How the 3-Layer Architecture pattern turns Practice from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 7.6
Lesson 7.6 · Difficult Conversations: Sponsor Pushback, Scope Creep, Kill-Decisions — FDE Certification
How the Advice Monster pattern turns Difficult Conversations from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 7.7
Lesson 7.7 · Career Architecture: The Senior IC vs. Manager Fork — FDE Certification
How the 90-Day Fork-Test pattern turns Career Architecture from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 7.8
Course 7 Mastery — FDE Practice Playbook
How the 4-Loop Interview pattern turns Course 7 Mastery from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Course 8 Founder Path and Practice Building
Pricing, selling, brand, unit economics, the 18-month founder plan. 8 episodes · 6.6 hrs
Lesson 8.1
The Founder Identity: From Senior FDE to Practice CEO
How the A1: Revenue-per-FDE pattern turns The Founder Identity from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 8.2
Pricing the FDE Engagement: Fixed-Fee vs. T&M vs. Outcome-Based
How the 3-Model Decision Tree pattern turns Pricing the FDE Engagement from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 8.3
Selling FDE Services
How the 2.9 Discovery Brief pattern turns Selling FDE Services from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 8.4
Founder Brand & Thought Leadership
How the Artifact pattern turns Founder Brand & Thought Leadership from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 8.5
Practice P&L Reading: The Unit-Economics Tile
How the 8.3 Funnel Investment pattern turns Practice P&L Reading from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 8.6
The Partner Agreement: Negotiating Co-Selling and Co-Building Contracts
How the Anti-pattern pattern turns The Partner Agreement from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 8.7
The Founder's Hiring Loop: Building Bench at 2x Pipeline Velocity
How the 3-Axis Hire-Pace Test pattern turns The Founder's Hiring Loop from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.
Lesson 8.8
Course 8 Mastery — Your 18-Month Practice Founder Plan
How the Narrow Path pattern turns Course 8 Mastery from a vibe into a deterministic, evidence-backed skill.