Matthew Skelton

📢 I'm now available for keynote talks worldwide * How to use ‘Economies of Empowerment’ to get the benefits of both speed and scale * the AI-savvy operating model * Platform Engineering done well: innovation, efficiency, market advantage Request a keynote: https://matthewskelton.com/keynotes

Gut punch of a story about an Amazon engineer who trusted ChatGPT-4o to manage and reduce her seizure med dosages. You'd hope someone who made it into a top engineering position would have known the limits of AI circa May 2024 www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/w...

Sounds like a Shakespearean insult and a threat 😁 "Thou verbless fragment..."

The massive conspicuous absence from Gas Town is responsibility. Responsibility for: dollar cost, environmental cost, inbuilt LLM bias, potential and likely harm, and pretty much every other kind of responsibility aside from "look at my power". I see no evidence of care.

Today's #bicontrast image(s): tidal barrier in Hull, UK 🎨🔳

The Andromeda Galaxy, low in the sky over New South Wales, Australia.

More wide angle mushrooms.

Newhaven (c/o BBC and Reuters).

Regulation doesn’t always have to slow delivery. A good “golden path” can make the compliant choice the easiest one. See how Team Topologies helped → https://teamtopologies.com/news-blogs-newsletters/turning-financial-regulation-into-velocity-with-team-topologies-the-golden-path-advantage

It's not just maize, it's every genome. Currently, my favourite organism, Heliconius butterflies, is one of the champions of mess -- Fang, B., & Edwards, S.V. 2025. Pangenomes: new tools for ecological and evolutionary genomics. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 41:230–244. doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

playing with a figure for a pangenome paper. left, a random 500kb of the maize genome, with insertions above and deletions below the reference. insertions square-root scaled. right, a random 50kb segment with insertions shown at scale. the maize genome is a mess, folks!

Giving people AI tools is the easy part. Building confidence across the workforce takes more. The AI Workforce Readiness Accelerator helps capability spread beyond a few experts. Take a closer look → https://teamtopologies.com/workforce

ok i think i’m calling it a day on this murmuration. #art

60 years ago today 144 people died in the Welsh village of Aberfan when a colliery spoil tip collapsed onto them. 109 of those were children attending the village school. A tragedy that broke hearts, which remain broken now. The strength and courage shown by that community is an example to us all.

Growth can turn simple coordination into permission-seeking. My Economies of Empowerment keynote looks at how organizations can grow without losing that sense of freedom. Explore it here → https://matthewskelton.com/keynote-talks/keynote-economies-of-empowerment

NEW: Hegseth's chaotic secret evacuation of a US base in Bahrain left military families in harm's way. “They’re not telling the truth. They’re not telling the full story. They’re not telling how much damage there really was." www.ms.now/news/militar...

details leaked. this vulnerability is a full unauthenticated unconditional remote code execution exploit against any service running on a PHP version from 5.4 until latest yeah if anything deserves CVSS 11, this is it. this is CATACLYSMICALLY bad.

Zelenskyy asked in Oslo if he's losing the war: "We're not losing this war, but we're losing people and time, and it's a pity because our children don't have a real life, a childhood, and all the (other) people, to be honest. That's why we need to end this war."

AI learning gets messy when every team takes a different route. The real win is helping useful skills spread across the organization. Explore the roundtable → https://confluxhq.com/shop/p/leadership-roundtable-skills-pathways-for-fast-flow

You don't have to do this, @cbcradiocanada.bsky.social. It's a choice. They want to defund you. They think you're a propaganda arm of an evil government. You will never win them over by showing them grace when they show absolutely none towards you.

Blog post: Product superpowers in the AI era - discussions at Product Heroes conference "...product discipline has a vital role in identifying value flows, shaping execution boundaries, and driving coherence..." matthewskelton.com/blog/product...

Consulting family without consent is never appropriate for trans healthcare. As much as 43% of trans people have faced abuse from their own family. Read our full report: cwiar.org/en/2026/10/1...

FLiiP treats organizational knowledge like shared memory, helping people and AI build on what’s already known. They separate the day-to-day context from the actual reliable sources of truth. Read the full case study → https://adapttogether.info/all-case-studies/continuous-context-at-fliip

Looking forward to speaking about the core principles and practices needed for success with AI-accelerated value delivery - at the Enterprise AI Summit on 02 November at Bletchley Park, UK. 🎫 Tickets: some invite-only tickets are still available. Apply via matthewskelton.com/all-events/e... #AI

3 of the best videos I’ve found about that stupid non flying car 2 are informative & 1 is funny

Not every team needs the same autonomy. A better question: what should this team be free to decide? Explore the Team Topologies view → https://teamtopologies.com/news-blogs-newsletters/navigating-the-autonomy-spectrum-tailoring-product-ownership-with-team-topologies

“Defibrillator” in ten languages: 1. Defibrillator (German) 2. Defibrillator (Dutch) 3. Defibrillator (Hindi) 4. Defibrillator (Igbo) 5. Defibrillator (Indonesian) 6. Defibrillator (Samoan) 7. Defibrillator (Swahili) 8. Defibrillator (Yoruba) 9. Defibrillator (Afrikaans) 10. Hjertestarter (Danish)

When we've hunted down all the trans people (with dignity and sensitivity), who are we going after next (with dignity and sensitivity)? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

400 engineers losing one hour a day to blockers can cost $7.8m a year. Waiting rarely looks expensive, but it adds up fast. See the cost here → https://confluxhq.com/insight/the-hidden-millions-what-are-blocking-dependencies-really-costing-your-organization

New Adapt Together case study: Driving Value Flow and Product Differentiation Through Continuous Context at FLiiP adapttogether.info/all-case-stu...

AI-native organizations need more than good tools. Clear ownership and good context matter too. That’s a big part of why I created ETANO. Read more here → https://matthewskelton.com/blog/why-ai-native-requires-re-engineered-organizations-and-how-execs-can-get-ready

Totally agree: there were so many smart takes on how AI will reshape software development (rather than making it redundant overnight). Kudos to the organisers for putting together such a strong line up of speakers

"AI researchers are taking up smoking because they expect AI to cure cancer, says Palantir CTO"

Instead of weeks of analysis, our Unlock Value Flow workshop gets leaders working on the problems already slowing things down. Leave with practical changes and next steps. Explore it → https://confluxhq.com/shop/p/unlock-value-flow-2-day-problem-solving-workshop

Did you have "Ruin all the pizzas" in your threat model? www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

Looking forward to Fast Flow Conf tomorrow (Tuesday 13 Oct) in London. Come and say "hi" - I'll be in the pink sweater! 🩷 (I'm not speaking this year, so my full attention on the great talks and conversations)

A platform can be reusable and still be too generic. The closer you get to a business domain, the more context matters. Team Topologies shares more → https://teamtopologies.com/news-blogs-newsletters/designing-platform-centric-organizations-with-domain-thinking-and-team-topologies

Geese are insane: Example #2,987,304

We value publishers because of the people who work for them, how well they can represent your book in the market and the value of a trusted brand. If your business model is aimed at undercutting or eliminating all of these things, you will become fuck all use to people who want to get published.

New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854

Love this phrase from Collective Confidence by André Martin: "Collective confidence is curated-built through intentional design, thoughtful action, and consistent reinforcement" And the value of collective confidence is huge: significantly increased performance and results.

A platform shouldn’t become another queue teams have to join. Good Platform Engineering makes useful capabilities easier to access and gives teams more room to move. Explore the Team Topologies Platform Engineering Accelerator → https://teamtopologies.com/pe

Once again, I am left wondering why Brussels-Midi has a different name in French and Flemish. Not just different words, but semantically different - it's "middle" in French and "south" in Flemish. 🤪 I guess maybe that reflects its position relative to the French and Flemish regions of Belgium?

Carl warned us

Remote work makes awkward team interactions easier to see. That's why we developed the Team Topologies Remote and Hybrid Team Interactions Course See here → https://teamtopologies.com/news-blogs-newsletters/introducing-the-team-topologies-remote-and-hybrid-team-interactions-immersion-course

“Team Topologies is ... a blueprint for a more responsive, efficient, and compassionate public sector.” — Ben Davison and Polly Price, Axiologik teamtopologies.com/industry-exa...