Risk" vs. "Risk" vs. "Risk": Why AI Arguments Fail Before They Even Start www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/07...
Jeffrey Snover
@jsnover.com
PowerShell inventor, Reader, Science & Geopolitics geek, Philosopher-Errant, Retired
When 2 people vote "yes" on the same AI governance rule, leave the room, and fight for 2 years over implementation, it's because nobody agreed on the physics of what they were building. Stop fighting over labels. Debate the choices www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/07...
“Risk” vs. “Risk” vs. “Risk”: Why AI Arguments Fail Before They Even Start
Inigo Montoya once said, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Ask members of the AI Triad if they want to reduce “risk.” They will al…
jsnover.com
LLM models are engines of bullshit. Your system does not have to be. That's a choice, and it's yours. Skip the engineering and you're shipping a bullshit system. Do the engineering and you're not. www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/07...
LLM Models Are Bullshit Engines
Your LLM System Doesn’t Have to Be Harry Frankfurt wrote a wonderful essay called On Bullshit. His central move is a distinction most people miss: the difference between a liar and a bullshit…
jsnover.com
Super excited to share my work tomorrow with my fellow fellows & circle of friends at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society @ Harvard University. This project has totally consumed me. It feels less like doing a project & more like the project is a force of nature using me to be birthed.
35 tickets left at €1,750 for #PSConfEU 2026. From 11 May, the same tickets go up to €1,950. No new releases—once sold out, that’s it. Join us in Wiesbaden, 1–4 June 🔗 psconf.eu #PowerShell #Automation #DevOps #Conference
My talk at the PowerShell conference makes the point that developers do not care about Admins. That is why they produce ... things like this. That is why I designed PowerShell so you can clean up their ... work. (even though you shouldn't have to).
It is metaphysically impossible to build a safe general-purpose chatbot. Not difficult. Not expensive. Impossible. A system with an infinite goal space cannot be made safe. That is a structural contradiction. New post: www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...
AI safety is a category error. AI is not a system. AI is a component of a system. Systems can be safe or unsafe. Components cannot. New post: www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...
AI Safety Is a Category Error
This week I attended the STAMP Safety Design Workshop at MIT. I went in hoping to get some answers about AI safety. I didn’t get answers. I got better questions. That turns out to be the more…
jsnover.com
#Microsoft and #Windows hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold. My blog: www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...
I spent 8 years at hashtag#DEC watching the deal get worse. At first I thought it was just the economy. Then I reverse-engineered what was actually happening. It was a deliberate strategy. And I think you're going to see it again. New post: www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...
They Don’t Need to Fire You
In a recent post I mentioned that the deal engineers get is going to get worse over time, and I used my time at DEC as an example. I think it’s worth going deeper on that. What happened at DE…
jsnover.com
Let's have the hard conversation about Engineering total compensation: A few years ago, we got an AWESOME deal. Now we have a GREAT deal. Soon we'll have a GOOD deal. Then... we'll have deal.
I've always had a stone in my shoe about being a college dropout. So naturally, I just became a Fellow at Harvard Law School. www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...
Fellowship at Harvard Law School
I’ve always had a stone in my shoe about being a college dropout. As such, I never imagined I’d be walking into Harvard Law School as anything other than someone who needed directions t…
jsnover.com
In my conversation with @jsnover.com on @coffeeandopensource.com, I asked him "If you were to build an LLM prompt to create PowerShell, what would it be?" The answer will surprise you. #powershell #tech #technology www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8XAN7ny/
In my conversation with Jeffrey Snover on Coffee and Open Source, I asked him "If you were to build an LLM prompt to create PowerShell, what would it be?" The answer will surprise you. Full episode be...
TikTok video by Isaac Levin
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If you are not occasionally overwhelmed by what is going on with AI, you are either: 1) Not paying attention. 2) Not understanding what you are seeing. 3) Made of much sturdier stuff than I.
Scary Microsoft Lawyers Incident or Don’t be on the Wrong Side of Antitrust A major CEO aggressively demanded that Microsoft cancel the PowerShell and use their proprietary language. When I refused, he filed an antitrust complaint. Enter scary Microsoft Lawyers. www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...
Another Scary Microsoft Lawyers Incident or Don’t be on the Wrong Side of Antitrust
I’ll never forget the day the world stopped. I picked up the phone and heard: “Hello. This is LCA. I’m calling to inform you that you are the subject of a formal investigation into anti-trust viola…
jsnover.com
Sat down with @jsnover.com the inventor of PowerShell. We talked about being demoted for believing in an idea, architecting systems that last, and why AI should empower people and not replace them. Technology isn’t about tools. It’s about impact. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dzu...
"I Was Demoted for Inventing PowerShell" – Jeffrey Snover
YouTube video by Hassan Habib
youtube.com
That time I thought Perry Clarke was going to fire me.... www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...
The Physics of Misunderstanding: When “Gaze” Almost Cost Me My Career
Technology is easy but people are hard. In particular, communications are hard. They’re the physics of human interaction—the $F=ma$ of how we get things done—and when the forces don’t align, …
jsnover.com
In the trenches of shipping actual products, clarity is a gift—even when it's delivered as a threat of criminal prosecution. www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...
Scary Microsoft Lawyers – Part 1
I had a few encounters with Microsoft lawyers that were, in a word, scary. But in a good way. Every time I worked with them, they were hardcore on following the law, and I greatly appreciated and r…
jsnover.com
The celebration lasted exactly sixty seconds. Then the scary Microsoft lawyer walked in and promised to help the feds prosecute us if we leaked the deal. That generated clarity. #Respect www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...
Scary Microsoft Lawyers – Part 1
I had a few encounters with Microsoft lawyers that were, in a word, scary. But in a good way. Every time I worked with them, they were hardcore on following the law, and I greatly appreciated and r…
jsnover.com
A story from early #PowerShell days when my sense of diplomacy was strictly "pre-operational." I asked my new boss—a 20-year Windows veteran with a Physics PhD—if he was an idiot because neither of us could debug a thrashing system using GUI tools. www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...
The Time I Asked My Boss: Are You An Idiot?
A Microsoft engineer recently told me he used Copilot to script a way out of a laggy system. He was delighted. The story triggered a memory from the early days of PowerShell when my diplomacy was c…
jsnover.com
Success in software isn't just about shipping—it’s about knowing when the market is actually pulling your product. That pull is measurable. A new look at the equations that drive sustainable growth: www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...
Product Market Fit is Math
I have a lot of conversations where teams toss around the concept of Product Market Fit (PMF) like it’s a vibe. We all pretend to get the gestalt of it, but usually, we’re just guessing. Here are e…
jsnover.com
Less than 70 days until the #PowerShell Global Summit. Don't put off getting tickets. Then let everyone know you are attending. www.powershellsummit.org/tickets/
Tickets | PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit
Register for the PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit. Choose from General Admission or the On-Ramp program for beginners.
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"In this room, we deliver success, we don’t whine. Look, I’m not confused, I know you walk through fields of shit every day. Your job is to find the rose petals." www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...
Welcome to the Room
A lesson in leadership by Satya Nadella When I was Promoted to Technical Fellow, I was “invited to the room”, joining Microsoft’s other Senior Executives. It was really something. Achieving the Se…
jsnover.com
"Congratulations …. your days of whining are over." www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...
Welcome to the Room
A lesson in leadership by Satya Nadella When I was Promoted to Technical Fellow, I was “invited to the room”, joining Microsoft’s other Senior Executives. It was really something. Achieving the Se…
jsnover.com
WELCOME TO THE ROOM: Satya Nadella's Lesson in Executive Accountability www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...
Welcome to the Room
A lesson in leadership by Satya Nadella When I was Promoted to Technical Fellow, I was “invited to the room”, joining Microsoft’s other Senior Executives. It was really something. Achieving the Se…
jsnover.com
Think Windows Vista was bad? You should know the story behind the story. How a brilliant business strategy turned into a technical Boof-a-Rama!
MEM Summit 2027@endpointsummit.com · 7mo agoWrapping up our series with @jsnover.com Watch the latest episode. Thanks for following along - stories continue in Paris. #MEMSummit www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
Are we building an AI Finance Golem? #AI. #AGI www.jsnover.com/blog/2025/12...
The AI Finance Golem
Bad things happen when you are grounded in the real world. Ergo, in systems architecture, we constantly look for feedback loops. Negative feedback loops provide stability (like a thermostat).…
jsnover.com