Strategy Decisions
38+ recent decisions
Post-RESF Consolidated Deliverable Reset
Mar 13, 2026 · strategy · high94% confidence
Decided to deliver a single consolidated update to Lindsay on revised March deliverables after RESF work stabilizes, rather than incremental delay announcements. Nathan will reset all project dates at once.
People: Nathan Blackham, Max Spevack, Lindsay Aamodt
Brian Clemens — Loop In After Front Door Closes
Mar 11, 2026 · strategy · high72% confidence
Decided Brian Clemens should be brought into RESF matters only after the front door is closed, acknowledging he'll be critical for reconstruction but the current phase requires operational security. Conditional on his behavior: 'If he hasn't gone off the reservation at that point.'
People: Brian Clemens, Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland
Endorsed Bjorn's Linux Prioritization Framework
Mar 11, 2026 · strategy · medium63% confidence
Endorsed Bjorn's four-principle framework for prioritizing Linux work (Parity, Value, Access/ubiquity, Integration) and directed him to provide concrete examples demonstrating the framework in action.
People: Bjorn Hovland
RLC AI — Ship Iteratively Despite Unclear Vision
Mar 10, 2026 · strategy · medium72% confidence
Directed that RLC AI should ship something iteratable now rather than waiting for a clear long-term vision. Product direction should be discovered through market interaction, not predetermined.
People: Max Spevack
RESF Operational Security — Compartmentalize Until Board Action
Mar 10, 2026 · strategy · critical94% confidence
Directed that Brian must not be told anything until after the RESF board notification. Emphasized extreme caution about leaks to Lewis. Approved Joseph being read into the initiative but warned about leak risk. Sequenced information flow: board action first, then notifications, then credential recovery.
People: Nathan Blackham, TJ Gohl, Steve Wallace, Max Spevack, Jonathan Dieter, Justin Haynes
Sensitive Decision
Prioritize GPU Optimization to Define Team Capability Needs
Mar 8, 2026 · strategy · high78% confidence
Directed that GPU utilization optimization be prioritized for Fuzzball/RLC AI, using the priority as a diagnostic to reveal what in-house capabilities the team needs.
People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland
Prioritize Google Exec Meeting — Adjust Reno Travel
Mar 6, 2026 · strategy · medium78% confidence
Agreed to meet a confidential new Google executive (distinguished engineer from Google Cloud, came through Tissa) for Monday dinner or Thursday lunch. Thursday option requires returning from Reno Wednesday night. Directed Greg to cover Toyota in person on Wednesday if needed.
People: Kelly Hall, Bjorn Hovland, Sarah Almaraz, Greg Kurtzer
RESF Option A — CIQ-Led Transition with Narrative Reframing
Mar 5, 2026 · strategy · critical81% confidence
Adopted Option A (CIQ-led transition) as the only viable path for RESF. Reframed narrative for Greg as 'skeleton' foundation for future vibrant community, not 'threadbare' end state. End-state vision: Rocky Linux displaces Alma and Ubuntu as de facto enterprise OS. Identified critical leadership gap requiring new empowered leader ('mystic unicorn') deputized by remaining board. Internal story: 1-year transition to 501(c)(6).
People: Max Spevack, Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer
Unified Google Proposal — Present Combined GDC/GCE to Rohan
Mar 4, 2026 · strategy · high92% confidence
Aligned Kelly and Bjorn on presenting a unified GDC/GCE proposal to Rohan (Google senior director) instead of negotiating separately. Reframing from pro-serve/ticket model to value-driven partnership with a large fixed annual fee ($8-9M).
People: Kelly Hall, Bjorn Hovland, Katie O'Malley, Rohan (Google), Tissa (Google)
Sensitive Decision
Aligned with Max on RESF Option A (Skeleton Independent) as the best path
Mar 3, 2026 · strategy · high82% confidence
After reading Max's RESF decision framework document ('The Future of the RESF: A Decision Framework for CIQ'), Peter agreed with Max that Option A — maintaining the RESF as an independent entity in the lightest possible form with one CIQ-employed full-time RESF leader — is the best path. This is Peter's position alignment with Max, not yet a company decision. Next step is presenting to Bjorn and Greg for buy-in.
People: Max Spevack, Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer
Aligned with Max on RESF Option A (Skeleton Independent) as the best path
Mar 3, 2026 · strategy · high82% confidence
After reading Max's RESF decision framework document ('The Future of the RESF: A Decision Framework for CIQ'), Peter agreed with Max that Option A — maintaining the RESF as an independent entity in the lightest possible form with one CIQ-employed full-time RESF leader — is the best path. This is Peter's position alignment with Max, not yet a company decision. Next step is presenting to Bjorn and Greg for buy-in.
People: Max Spevack, Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer
Decided to carefully surface Icicle results to Bjorn
Feb 27, 2026 · strategy · medium69% confidence
After validating Icicle test methodology with Ryan (BIOS change applied before both with/without comparisons — apples-to-apples), and learning Ani was told by Bjorn to stand down on Icicle, Peter decided to personally and carefully bring the validated results to Bjorn's attention.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Ryan Smith, Ani Fox Bochenkov, Greg Kurtzer
Expanded NVIDIA licensing ask to include Fabric Manager + NVISM
Feb 27, 2026 · strategy · medium85% confidence
Expanded the NVIDIA licensing negotiation scope beyond DOCA-OFED to include Fabric Manager, NVISM, and other critical InfiniBand components not currently in the CUDA bundle. Sent email to Scott Hara while Bjorn was drafting the DOCA-OFED amendment language.
People: Peter Nelson, Scott Hara, Bjorn Hovland
Committed to aggressive NVIDIA GPU Operator self-certification timeline for GTC
Feb 27, 2026 · strategy · high95% confidence
Led GPU Operator Self Certification meeting with NVIDIA. Committed CIQ to building pre-compiled GPU driver containers for Rocky Linux (mirroring Ubuntu model) and pursuing self-certification targeting preliminary completion by end of next week to support a GTC announcement.
People: Peter Nelson, Bjorn Hovland, Scott Hara, Edrick Wong, Francis Guillier, Christophe Harle, Nathan Blackham
Rocky project contingency war room - infrastructure security planning
Feb 26, 2026 · strategy · critical74% confidence
Committed to scheduling a war room meeting to create a detailed, step-by-step contingency plan for securing Rocky infrastructure (AWS, FreeIPA) against potential hostile action by former members. Plan assumes an outage will be necessary to revoke access. Technical cutover to be planned before legal letters are sent.
People: Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Max Spevack
Risk tolerance recalibration - push and be wrong for low-risk releases
Feb 26, 2026 · strategy · high80% confidence
Established new release philosophy: 'push and be wrong' for low-risk changes, prioritizing speed over perfection. Directed Nathan to ship two approved CVE fixes for unused packages immediately as a precedent-setting test case, bypassing the usual review process.
People: Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Max Spevack
Set NVIDIA positioning: benchmarks are AMD-only, offer to collaborate on tuning
Feb 25, 2026 · strategy · medium74% confidence
Defined strategic positioning for NVIDIA benchmark situation: frame existing benchmarks as AMD-only, and offer to work with NVIDIA to tune Rocky Linux for their platform. This turns a potential embarrassment into a partnership opportunity.
People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland, Scott Hara
Committed to Google contract restructure proposal within 1 week
Feb 25, 2026 · strategy · high59% confidence
Secured commitment from Google's senior management to consider a contract restructure addressing financial unsustainability. Peter committed to delivering a formal proposal for new contract terms within one week.
People: Google senior management, Brady Dibble, Bjorn Hovland
Challenged RLC-AI performance claims before NVidia/Humain use
Feb 24, 2026 · strategy · high72% confidence
Peter personally interrogated the RLC-AI 9-10% performance advantage claim by going directly to Damen Knight (engineer who ran benchmarks) and Max Spevack. Discovered gains largely disappear when benchmarking code is properly optimized (uses torch.compile, etc.). Then asked Damen to evaluate whether Brian's marketing write-up is accurate or misleading: 'makes it sound awesome instead of pointless for data center deployments.'
People: Max Spevack, Damen Knight, Bjorn Hovland, Brian
Pushed for March ARR review, rejected April as too late
Feb 20, 2026 · strategy · medium77% confidence
Directed Sarah and Greg to schedule an ARR targets review meeting in March, pushing back on an April date as too late. Wants to ensure the company is on track for revenue targets and can pivot anything needed. Offered personal availability and said format doesn't matter.
People: Greg Kurtzer, Sarah Almaraz
Directed RESF counter-narrative to Bjorn to prevent premature escalation
Feb 20, 2026 · strategy · high83% confidence
Directed Steve Wallace to email Bjorn (CC Peter) with evidence of positive RESF engagement through Mirror Manager project before Bjorn potentially takes aggressive action. Steve's team has made progress with Neil — environment access granted, Mirror Manager epic unblocked — while other teams report significant friction.
People: Steve Wallace, Bjorn Hovland, Neil (RESF)
Set AI adoption/spending policy: pace over cost, fund passion project tokens
Feb 20, 2026 · strategy · medium78% confidence
Codified org-wide AI tool policy: pace is priority over cost, high token spend signals productivity. CIQ will fund tokens for passion projects (learning) but not work-hour time for non-core work. Work-hour AI projects must align with core responsibilities.
People: Ryan Smith
Engaged external network for AI knowledge exchange through IAG Capital
Feb 17, 2026 · strategy · medium91% confidence
Peter accepted Joel Whitley's (IAG Capital) introduction to Charles Archer (Cornelis Networks CTO) for knowledge exchange about internal AI systems. Also booked a Paydock consultation and offered to demo what he's built to both Joel and Charles.
People: Joel Whitley, Charles Archer, Paydock team
Directed AMD inclusion in Project Odin approach document
Feb 17, 2026 · strategy · medium93% confidence
Peter reviewed Adam Jackson's first draft of the Project Odin approach document and approved it with one specific direction: slides 6/7 should include AMD. Otherwise approved as a great first draft.
People: Adam Jackson, Bjorn Hovland, Chris Baek, Max Spevack
Mandated accelerated cadence with coordination accountability
Feb 12, 2026 · strategy · high91% confidence
In Department Heads meeting, mandated announcements every 2-4 weeks as non-negotiable. Drew accountability line: engineering protected for speed mistakes but NOT for coordination failures (status updates, product priorities, public channel decisions). Framed as make-or-break period driven by $30B revenue goal and Middle East partnership success.
People: Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Bjorn Hovland, Max Spevack, Brady Dibble, Brian Dawson
Mobilized team for Saudi meeting prep and escalated NVIDIA DOCA blocker
Feb 11, 2026 · strategy · high84% confidence
Peter personally intervened to prepare team for critical Saudi Arabia partner meeting on RLC-AI. Posted in #product-rlc-ai asking about CUDA/DOCA availability, discovered NVIDIA written approval for DOCA OFED still pending. Emailed Scott Hara (NVIDIA) directly to advance the approval. Tagged Nathan, Justin, Jeff Uphoff, and Damen Knight demanding they answer Max's detailed technical questions within 24 hours. Set hard deadline: '24 hours from now.' Bjorn committed to calling Scott to reaffirm DOCA modification rights.
People: Max Spevack, Scott Hara, Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Jeff Uphoff, Damen Knight, Brian Dawson, Brady Dibble, Bjorn Hovland
Core42 Technical Assessment - Multi-Product Positioning in UAE
Feb 9, 2026 · strategy · high82% confidence
Attended Core42 meeting in Abu Dhabi with Greg, Bjorn, Max, and Adam Jackson. Provided real-time technical assessment to the team via Slack, identifying product-customer fit across four CIQ product lines: RLC-H for defense customers (CVE remediation pain), Rocky as guest OS on Signature Cloud, Fuzzball as potential replacement for their unhappy AI cloud orchestration partner, and Ascender Pro for their heavy Ansible usage. Followed up personally with Raghu (EVP Engineering, Core42 US) offering in-person meetings.
People: Peter Nelson, Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer, Max Spevack, Adam Jackson, Ivan Dvoenosov, Raghu Chakravarthi, Awny Alomari
Committed to creating CVE remediation value driver for GTM
Feb 6, 2026 · strategy · medium78% confidence
Committed to creating a value driver for CVE remediation work after learning that remediation volume jumped from 1 to 86 per week. Timeline is ~2 months to develop the story after validating the new process is sustainable.
People: Peter Nelson, Kelly Hall, Brian Christensen
Google Partnership Strategy - Build Rapport with Tissa
Feb 5, 2026 · strategy · high90% confidence
Decided to shift the Google contract renegotiation strategy from confrontational to collaborative. Peter will personally meet with Tissa (Google) to build rapport and empathy, framing CIQ's financial pain as a shared problem to solve together. Greg will be excluded from this meeting to ensure a non-antagonistic conversation.
People: Kelly Hall, Tissa, Greg Kurtzer
RESF Strategy: Remove Lewis with Legal Leverage, Engage Neil Collaboratively
Feb 4, 2026 · strategy · critical88% confidence
Approved plan to remove Luis (Lewis) from the RESF board using a Quinn Emanuel memo documenting a potential federal law violation and breach of fiduciary duty, then send a collaborative letter to Neil offering a path forward to avoid a public fight. Greg will present the memo to board members to secure their support. Shadow infrastructure (Koji, clones) is confirmed ready.
People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland, Katie O'Malley, Neil, Luis (Lewis), Diane (Quinn Emanuel)
Rocky Security Updates Urgency - Competitive Gap
Feb 3, 2026 · strategy · high82% confidence
Flagged to Max, Justin, and Nathan that Rocky security update tagging is a critical competitive gap needing urgent attention. Shared community post recommending Alma over Rocky because Alma correctly tags security updates and has timelier updates.
People: Max Spevack, Justin Haynes, Nathan Blackham
New Engineering Mandate - 2x Velocity in 6 Months
Feb 3, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence
Set new mandate for Justin and Nathan: top priority is building a team that can deliver twice as fast in six months. This is a shift from the previous coaching model to a performance-driven one - setting ambitious targets, holding people accountable, and replacing underperformers.
People: Justin Haynes, Nathan Blackham, Greg Kurtzer, Dave Dickerson
Launch RLC Plus/Pro re-architecture under new non-Rocky brand
Feb 2, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence
Decided to launch the RLC Plus/Pro product re-architecture under a completely new brand name, deliberately decoupling it from the Rocky name to avoid getting caught in the PR fallout from Lewis and Neil departure.
People: Bjorn Hovland
Time-based releases concept - trains leave on schedule
Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · medium85% confidence
Consider moving to time-based releases where engineering ships whats ready on a fixed cadence (e.g., monthly or bi-weekly). Product must scope features to fit the timeline rather than engineering stretching to fit scope. The train leaves whether youre ready or not.
People: Justin, Peter Nelson, Max Spevack, Nathan Blackham
Find the ceiling approach to velocity
Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · medium85% confidence
Rather than incrementally improving 5% at a time safely, push until something breaks, then figure out if the breakage is fixable or a real ceiling. Air cover provided for aggressive experiments. Nobody gets fired for trying to go fast and breaking things.
People: Max Spevack, Nathan Blackham, Justin, Peter Nelson
LTS roll-forward policy - small stable core, roll everything else
Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence
Define a small core set of packages (~5) that stay stable in LTS releases (kernel, glibc, gcc, and a few others). Everything else can be rolled forward aggressively. Customer-specific additions can be negotiated as needed.
People: Max Spevack, Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes