Let’s Stop Tyranny and Build Harmony
I hand you blueprints for fighting bureaucracy, bullshit, and bossy bots—and ideas for building ethical, agentic organizations that are decentralized, autonomous, and beautifully beyond bureaucracy.
Enough with the AI hype and Agile doom.
Fanatics screaming about robot overlords. Gurus selling you snake oil frameworks. Doomsayers milking your fear for clicks. I’m over it—and you probably are too.
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).
If you’re sick of black-and-white nonsense, you’re in the right place. Here, we scout new ways of working where humans and intelligent agents collaborate for freedom and order—without petty tyrants, bloated middle managers, or algorithmic autocrats choking the life out of your work.
I’m skeptical of hype, allergic to doom, and radically hopeful about real change.
Twice a week—give or take—I’ll drop sharp insights and battle-tested ideas to keep you ahead of the cultists on both ends.
“Agile is dead.” → “No! We must go extreme Agile!”
“AGI is here!” → “Nonsense—humans still run the show.”
“Algorithms will liberate us all.” → “Or they’ll audit us into oblivion.”
Somewhere between panic and blind faith sits radical nuance. That’s where I work—and where you’ll learn how to outsmart mindless machines and meddling moguls, not worship or fear them.
I’ve sold 150,000 books, spoken at 1,000 events worldwide, and annoyed every camp from Silicon Valley techno-optimists to crusty Agile cultists. It’s what I do best.
Everything here is free.
About the Name
I told my digital sidekick I love mapping ideas, leading people into new territory, and sparring with zealots from both extremes. She suggested The Contrarian Cartographer. It was Too many syllables—so we settled on The Maverick Mapmaker.
If you’re ready to ditch the hype and the doom, subscribe now.
Join 17,000+ rebels who’d rather do the reading than get steamrolled by the future.
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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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