Enough of the hype and doom!

Are you as tired of fanatics and doomsayers as I am?

“Agile is dead.“ … “No, we go extreme agile now!“
”AGI is already here!” … “Nonsense, it still takes decades.“
”Algorithms will liberate humanity.” … “No, the machines will terminate us all!“

I offer sharp insights, contrarian centrism, and a balanced take on Agile, AI and the future of work. Stay ahead with radical nuance—because neither blind faith nor dumb fear will help anyone. If you do the reading, I’ll do the fighting.

I sold 150,000 books and spoke at 1,000 events all over the world.

All articles of this publication are completely free!

About the name: I told my digital assistant that I love creating mental models, taking readers on a journey, and arguing with both sides in any debate. She suggested The Contrarian Cartographer, but it’s too many syllables. So, we settled on The Maverick Mapmaker.

Each week, I will write one or two thoughtful posts for you about things that people disagree on. Join 17,000+ subscribers by clicking on this Subscribe button:

Check out these fine examples:

The Maverick Mapmaker (Agile, AI, Future of Work)
AI Wrecks the Corporate Career Ladder. Give Juniors the Steering Wheel!
AI helps you work faster and better with fewer people, say the evangelists. AI is pushing junior-level employees out of their jobs, according to the scaremongers. Let’s navigate the middle road…
Read more
The Maverick Mapmaker (Agile, AI, Future of Work)
Ten Times the Impact with One-Tenth the People
Is the speed of learning and innovation more important than ever…
Read more

Jurgen Appelo is a radical synthesist, resolute unfixer, and unabashed rule-breaker. He not only brings together diverse perspectives in organization design and development—he tears them apart and rebuilds them for the Age of AI, without permission.

His books tackle everything from the role of agile managers (Management 3.0) to change and transformation (How to Change the World), and from employee engagement (Managing for Happiness) to innovation and intrapreneurship (Startup, Scaleup, Screwup). Even his novel Glitches of Gods explores the chaos of human-machine interactions. His latest work, Human Robot Agent, plunges into the AI-powered future of leadership and algorithmic management.

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Subscribe to The Maverick Mapmaker (Agile, AI, Future of Work)

Scouting new ways of working beyond hype and doom. Mapping the future with clarity and contrarianism. Twice per week—sort of.

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Navigating AI Between Hype and Doom - author, speaker, entrepreneur, radical synthesist, resolute unfixer, and unabashed rule-breaker.