For Solo Chiefs Who Are Done With the AI Circus

You’re a creative, solopreneur, single founder, or lone manager—carrying sole accountability for your organization’s success. You orchestrate tools, systems, humans, and now AI agents to accomplish what others attempt with an entire team of managers.

You’re a Solo Chief: multidisciplinary, adaptable, and impossible to put in a single box. This publication is your corner of the internet.

This is not another AI circus act.

• Fanatics are screaming about robot overlords.

• Gurus are flogging cookie-cutter frameworks.

• Doomsayers are milking your fear for clicks.

I’m over it — and you probably are too.

Here, we talk identity and action. How do you build a career when your superpower is being multidisciplinary? How do you lead when your “team” now includes AI agents as much as humans? How do you orchestrate work without getting steamrolled by algorithms or middle-managers?

What You Get

Twice a week—give or take—I drop sharp, iconoclastic essays that cut through hype and doom with radical nuance.

Free subscribers get a copy of my book How to Change the World (PDF).
Paying subscribers get a full-color copy of Human Robot Agent (PDF).

Where I Stand

• “Agile is dead.” → “No! Stop building cults — start building hybrids.”

• “AGI is here!” → “Not quite — but you’d better learn to work with agents now.”

• “Algorithms will liberate us all.” → “Or they’ll audit us into oblivion.”

Somewhere between panic and blind faith sits the orchestrator’s mindset. That’s where I work — and where you’ll learn to outsmart machines and moguls, not worship or fear them.

What Readers Say

“Jurgen consistently offers valuable views and insights on complex problems that challenge conventional thinking.”

“Jurgen’s insatiable curiosity together with deep expertise across many fields result in a fresh and original perspective on Agile, AI, and the future of work. He’s THE thought leader to follow if you want to stay ahead of the curve.”

“His writing is smart, provocative, and packed with tools you can actually use.”

I’m not making this up.

Why Listen to Me?

I’ve sold 150,000+ books, spoken at 1,000 events worldwide, and pissed off everyone from Silicon Valley techno-optimists to crusty Agile cultists. I don’t sell you frameworks. I hand you maps to navigate the mess.

About the Name

I told my digital sidekick I love mapping ideas, leading people into new territory, and sparring with zealots on both extremes. She suggested The Contrarian Cartographer. Too many syllables. We settled on The Maverick Mapmaker.

If you’re ready to ditch the hype and the doom, subscribe now. Join 17,000+ Solo Chiefs who would rather navigate the future than get steamrolled by it.

Your move, Chief.

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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