Speaking & Media
I speak and write about what happens when AI stops being a demo and starts being a teammate — the leadership shifts, the security gaps, the metrics that actually matter, and what it takes to scale engineering teams through the transition.
My perspective comes from 15+ years of building. Right now I’m building Aqen.ai, an AI cofounder system that turns business intent into coordinated execution. Grazier Ventures is the holding company for the portfolio of companies I’ll build using Aqen. I also run TideHelm, the advisory practice founders, investors, and CTOs call before the hardest decisions. Before this, I served as Chief AI Officer at BuildOps (a $1B unicorn), scaled Weedmaps from 30 to 300+ engineers through IPO, and steered ShopKeep through a $550M acquisition to Lightspeed.
Podcasts
Inside AI Implementation at a $1B Company
Mala’s Podcast — April 2026
In this episode of Mala’s Podcast, Mala sits down with Duncan Grazier, a seasoned technology leader who has helped scale companies from early-stage teams to major exits, including ShopKeep’s $550M sale to Lightspeed Commerce and Weedmaps’ public-market journey. Duncan is now Chief AI Officer at BuildOps, a unicorn transforming the commercial contracting industry with software and AI.
This conversation goes deep into what it actually takes to scale engineering teams, build trust in AI, and bring automation into industries that still rely heavily on paper-based workflows. Duncan shares how BuildOps is helping electricians, HVAC technicians, contractors, hospitals, data centers, and large commercial operators move toward smarter, faster, AI-enabled operations.
Mala and Duncan also explore the future of the Chief AI Officer role, why every leader will eventually need to become AI-native, how AI can improve billable hours and reduce operational errors, and why small language models and edge AI may be the next major shift.
This is a practical, honest conversation for founders, operators, product leaders, CTOs, AI builders, and anyone thinking about how AI will reshape the physical world.
AI Is Reshaping Engineering Metrics — Here’s What to Measure Now
Allstacks Stacked Sessions — March 2026
A conversation about how AI’s impact on software development is reshaping the way we measure engineering value — shifting from output metrics like lines of code to business impact, from inflexible processes to adaptive guardrails, and from reactive to proactive leadership.
Team Building in the Brave New World
InfoQ Podcast — August 2025
A conversation with Shane Hastie about polymorphic engineering cultures — what happens when AI agents join your team, how the junior-senior skill gap is closing faster than anyone expected, and why communication is becoming the most valuable engineering skill.
Talks
Cannabis: A New Strain of E-Commerce Technology
SXSW — March 2023
How a heavily regulated industry leapfrogged traditional retail by building on mature e-commerce infrastructure — and what that tells us about technology adoption in constrained markets.
How Engineers Can Get the Most from Managers
Code Driven NYC — November 2015
The talk that launched a decade of writing about engineering leadership. How to flip the manager-engineer relationship from top-down direction to mutual coaching — and why the engineers who manage up are the ones who grow fastest.
Publications
The Trades Are Built on Instinct — Data is the Next Evolution
Citybiz — April 2025
How a $300B industry built on decades of gut instinct is being transformed by data — without losing the expertise that makes it work.
Recognition & Community
CNBC Technology Executive Council
Member — contributing to conversations shaping how technology leaders navigate AI, talent, and enterprise transformation.
Plato / Intro.co
Active mentor for engineering leaders scaling teams through hypergrowth, technical transitions, and the shift to AI-native organizations.
Speaking Topics
I tailor every talk to the audience, but these are the themes I keep coming back to:
Building Aqen.ai: An Operator’s Transition to Founder
What I learned about founding a company after 15+ years of scaling other people’s. The cognitive overhead that nobody warns you about, the non-product surface area that eats founders alive, and why AI is the first force multiplier powerful enough to make a holding company of ideas realistic for a single builder.
From 30 to 300: Scaling Engineering Through Hypergrowth and IPO
The systems, culture, and leadership layers that let an engineering organization grow 10x without breaking. Based on real decisions — the ones that worked, and the ones I’d make differently today.
The AI-Native Organization
What changes when AI becomes a team member, not just a tool. Polymorphic cultures, the closing junior-senior gap, and why your org chart is about to look very different. Draws from my work leading BuildOps’s AI transformation.
Minutes Added to Workforce: Measuring AI’s Real Value
The cost-reduction framing for AI is wrong. Capacity expansion is the real story — and it changes the math on team composition, product velocity, and what “productive” means. Based on the framework I developed at BuildOps.
AI Security Starts in Your Calendar Invite
Every AI notetaker, copilot, and assistant your team adopted this year just created an attack surface your security framework wasn’t designed for. A practical talk about shadow AI risk and what to do about it.
Book me for your event
I’m available for keynotes, panels, podcasts, and fireside chats. I’m especially interested in events focused on AI implementation, engineering leadership, founding in the AI era, and the future of technical organizations.
Reach out on LinkedIn — or mention the event and topic in your message and I’ll get back to you within 48 hours.