The Watchtower: After the Launch
Reflections from the Computer History Museum on AI, the Semiconductor Ecosystem, and the Next Chapter for AI Tech Sales
A few nights ago at the Computer History Museum, something quietly remarkable happened.
Not just an event.
Not just a company launch.
Not just a book launch.
Something deeper.
For John and me, the last few months have been a whirlwind. When we decided to launch AI Tech Sales, we knew we were stepping into a new chapter of our careers — but the pace of the journey surprised even us. Between building the company, working with our first clients, preparing the launch event, and finishing the manuscript for The Connector’s Playbook, the days blurred together. The focus became simple:
Get to February 25th.
The Computer History Museum felt like the right place. If you're going to launch a company dedicated to helping shape the future of semiconductor design and AI infrastructure, you might as well do it in a building that celebrates the entire arc of computing history. But once the doors opened, something unexpected happened. The night stopped being about us.
A Room Full of Stories
As people began to arrive, the room filled with colleagues, friends, customers, partners, and mentors from every stage of our careers. Some were people John and I had worked with twenty or thirty years ago. Some were people we had only recently met. Some were former mentees — engineers and entrepreneurs who are now leaders themselves. Watching them meet and connect with people we mentored decades earlier was one of the most surreal and joyful moments of the evening.
You suddenly realize the industry is not just a collection of companies.
It’s a continuum of people.
Ideas passed forward.
Lessons shared across generations.
Careers unfolding in unexpected ways.
Everywhere we turned, conversations were happening between people who had never met before — design engineers talking to software founders, EDA veterans exchanging ideas with AI infrastructure startups, and system architects debating the future of chiplets and packaging. Exactly the kind of conversations we had hoped to spark.
The Connector’s Playbook
One moment we’ll never forget was when people began asking us to sign copies of The Connector’s Playbook.
That was not something we had anticipated.
The book actually began as a series of conversations between John and me about something we had both felt throughout our careers but struggled to articulate. For decades, we found ourselves operating in the seams of organizations — between engineering teams, customers, executives, and product groups. We were often the people translating across silos, connecting ideas, and sensing problems before they surfaced downstream.
The trouble was that organizations rarely had a formal place for that role.
As one VP once told me after a promotion:
"My silverware drawer has spaces for spoons, knives, and forks… but you’re a Swiss Army knife. Where do I put you?"
For most of our careers, being that kind of “Swiss Army knife” meant living in the gaps. But something interesting is happening in the age of AI. The world is tilting toward people who can see across systems, connect ideas, and create alignment across increasingly complex organizations. That realization eventually became The Connector’s Playbook — not really a sales manual, but a way of thinking about how complex technology ecosystems actually move forward. The core idea is simple:
Specialists solve problems.
Connectors create coherence.
In environments where change is accelerating faster than structures can adapt, coherence becomes the rarest advantage of all. Seeing people flip through the book at the event — and then ask us to sign it — was deeply humbling. If you’re curious about the ideas behind it, the book is now quietly available on Amazon. We wrote it primarily for practitioners in technology markets who find themselves living in the seams between engineering, strategy, and customers.
Orchestrating the Ecosystem
Over the past year, one idea has increasingly shaped how we think about the future of semiconductor engineering.
The ecosystem itself is becoming the product.
Modern chips are no longer built by a single company. They emerge from a web of IP providers, EDA companies, system architects, packaging innovators, software developers, cloud platforms, and AI infrastructure providers. The boundaries between those layers are shifting rapidly. AI is accelerating this transformation. It isn’t just improving engineering productivity. It is restructuring the engineering stack itself — compressing lifecycles and forcing tighter alignment between architecture, design, validation, and yield.
Which means the real opportunity — and challenge — is orchestration.
Helping the right companies connect.
Helping emerging technologies find their place in the stack.
Helping customers navigate a landscape that is evolving faster than ever.
That idea — orchestrating the semiconductor design ecosystem — was something John and I had been discussing privately for months. At CHM, we started hearing the same idea echoed back to us from customers and partners.
That was one of the most encouraging signals of the night.
The concept is still evolving.
But it is clearly resonating.
A New Chapter Begins
With the event behind us, something has shifted. For the past few months, John and I were focused on building the stage — launching the company, introducing our clients, finishing the book, and creating a place where conversations could begin.
Now we get to do the work we love most.
Working with customers.
Helping our clients tell their stories.
Connecting the dots between emerging technologies and the engineers and organizations who need them. This is where AI Tech Sales truly begins.
And the truth is, writing The Connector’s Playbook helped crystallize this mission.
The book argues that alignment, once treated as a “soft skill,” is actually one of the hardest advantages to replicate in complex technology markets. That insight is now shaping how we approach our work with clients.
What Comes Next
The writing journey isn’t finished.
The Connector’s Playbook was the first piece of a larger project. Later this year, we plan to publish two more books:
Semiconductor 101
A practitioner-led history of the semiconductor industry and the layered abstractions that ultimately made the AI era possible.
And
Team-Based Selling in the Age of AI
John’s exploration of how modern complex sales environments require coordinated teams, signal detection, and strategic timing rather than traditional individual heroics.
Writing these books has been one of the most unexpectedly rewarding parts of starting AI Tech Sales.
They force us to slow down, reflect, and try to document what we’ve learned over decades in this industry.
Gratitude
More than anything, the evening at the Computer History Museum left us with a profound sense of gratitude.
Gratitude for friends and colleagues who showed up to celebrate with us.
Gratitude for the clients who trusted us early in our journey.
Gratitude for mentors and teammates who shaped our careers across three decades.
And gratitude for the chance — even at this stage of our careers — to start something new.
Launching AI Tech Sales has given John and me something we didn’t fully expect:
A new creative spring.
A chance to bring together everything we’ve learned — technology, relationships, storytelling, ecosystem thinking — and apply it in new ways.
And perhaps most importantly, a chance to keep contributing to an industry we both love.
What an Amazing Time to Be Alive
The semiconductor industry is entering one of the most extraordinary periods in its history.
AI is reshaping computing.
Chip architectures are evolving.
Packaging and chiplets are redefining system boundaries.
Entire new layers of the engineering stack are emerging.
It is a moment of enormous complexity — but also enormous possibility.
Standing in the Computer History Museum that night, surrounded by people who have helped build this industry across multiple generations, it was hard not to feel a sense of wonder.
We are all part of something much bigger than ourselves.
And the next chapters are only just beginning.
What an amazing time to be alive.
— Simon