Decisions
35+ recent decisions
Reverse the No on one non-Amazon-only Linux candidate and open Roxana backfill req immediately
Jul 7, 2026 · people · medium84% confidence
After learning Roxana (a Linux contractor under Nathan) is leaving - the second Linux departure after Gomez - Peter reversed his 7/6 stance of declining both Amazon-background candidates. He will remove his No on the one candidate with breadth beyond Amazon, get him in now, and open a replacement req for Roxana immediately, while still holding the general ideally-not-Amazon preference.
People: Peter Nelson, Nathan Blackham, Greg Kurtzer
Gate Rakuten 8.6 / RT-kernel support work on a signed 1.6 to 1.8M expansion that funds dedicated headcount
Jul 6, 2026 · strategy · medium80% confidence
Decided that the risky, currently unsupportable Rakuten 8.6 / RT-kernel support work will either not be done at all or only be delivered tied to a signed contract expansion in the 1.6 to 1.8M range that funds dedicated Rakuten headcount on CIQ side. The bar is enough to cover roughly two dedicated engineers, not an arbitrary large number. Peter forwarded the engineering teams infrastructure objections to Bjorn to arm the customer conversation.
People: Nathan Blackham, Bjorn Hovland, Jonathan Maple
Mandate Snyk vulnerability-remediation SLA compliance across all engineering teams
Jun 30, 2026 · operational · medium52% confidence
In his 1:1 with Steve Wallace, Peter committed to mandate Snyk vulnerability-remediation SLA compliance across all engineering teams, not just Steves. Snyk SLAs are being breached, putting the fall ISO 27001 audit (broader scope than SOC 2) at risk, and the breaches span other teams repos including the PIC team and Ryans customer-service app. Steve will draft a high-level doc of the required compliance behavior, and Peter will push it out across engineering with CTO authority behind it. The mandate is decided; issuance is pending Steves doc.
People: Steve Wallace
Engineering owns defining the ask, success criteria, and documentation; CS responds to specific asks
Jun 30, 2026 · operational · medium63% confidence
In a DM with Nathan about friction with Ryan, Peter drew the Engineering-CS interface boundary: core engineering owns defining the ask and the success criteria and owns ensuring documentation exists; it is not Customer Support job to dig out engineering details. CS cannot follow everything and is expected to respond to specific, well-defined asks. AI can do much of the doing, but engineering still owns defining the ask and what success looks like.
People: Nathan Blackham, Ryan Smith
Champion Kubernetes-by-CIQ as an H2 engineering deliverable (build on the standard)
Jun 30, 2026 · strategy · medium55% confidence
Peter is actively pushing for a CIQ-branded Kubernetes offering, built on the standard rather than reinvented, to be an H2 engineering deliverable that eliminates a recurring objection in sales conversations. He green-lit Chris Wolford putting Kubernetes by CIQ on his H2 doc. It fits the broader turnkey/easy-button vision (single installable image combining Rocky Hardened plus Fuzzball substrate). Peter acknowledges final product prioritization authority sits with Bjorn/Product; his action here is advocacy and engineering-roadmap steering, not a prioritization decree.
People: Max Spevack, Chris Wolford, Bjorn Hovland
TPM charter + one-owner-per-release accountability mandate (problem/solution/owner grid)
Jun 30, 2026 · operational · high66% confidence
In the TPM sync with Chris Baek, Peter locked an accountability framework: TPMs solve problems and coordinate but do not own engineering processes (engineering owns its own processes and its coordination with Product); every new process must be defined on a 3-column grid of Problem, Solution, and a single named Owner; and every release gets one clear accountable owner (one throat to choke) empowered to make the go/no-go call. The incomplete NGD board is the named blocker, with engineering managers (Nathan, Justin) accountable for completing it so it feeds dates and confidence into the Value Drivers Board bottom swim lane.
People: Chris Baek, Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes
Sensitive Decision
Repair the mis-framed Engineering All-Hands - hold a PIC/Fuzzball follow-up and proactively notify the slighted PIC team
Jun 18, 2026 · operational · low67% confidence
After Jonathan Anderson and others read the recent State of Linux session as the Engineering All-Hands - leaving the PIC team feeling ignored - Peter diagnosed it as a framing/naming failure (Linux-only, Wolford not on it, no Fuzzball content) and directed the fix: a PIC/Fuzzball-focused follow-up session in the next few weeks, Baek to own the Fuzzball angle, and the PIC team to be told now that it is coming because yesterday was bad for them - they felt completely ignored.
People: Chris Wolford, Chris Baek, Sarah Almaraz, Jonathan Anderson
Hiring direction to Nathan - prioritize background diversity, broaden beyond Amazon blood
Jun 18, 2026 · people · low58% confidence
In Nathans 1:1, as Nathan described two engineers entering his pipeline (both Amazon backgrounds), Peter directed him to prioritize diversity of background - people who have been at multiple companies, not more Amazon hires, because CIQ has more Amazon blood than Peter wants for its size. He framed it as part of deciding who we want to be as we grow to this next stage. Not a veto on Amazon backgrounds (I do not mind Amazon, but make sure they have been other places too).
People: Nathan Blackham
EU Cyber Resilience Act - scope hinges on legal definitions; Bjorn to engage lawyers; aim to publish our own definitions
Jun 18, 2026 · strategy · medium74% confidence
On the CRA thread (raised by Leigh Hennig re a Sept 11 deadline for RESF/Rocky/CIQ), Peter directed that the entire scope hinges on two definitions - vulnerability and actively exploited - and delegated Bjorn to engage lawyers to weigh in. Strategic aim: ideally CIQ/RESF publishes its own definitions, reframing CRA compliance as living up to our stated market promises rather than being exposed to outside interpretation. Until legal responds, nothing to do.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer, Leigh Hennig, Brady Dibble
Hold the margin line - willing to walk from bad-economics deals (currently applied to Rakuten)
Jun 18, 2026 · strategy · medium72% confidence
In his 1:1 with Baek, Peter articulated a generalized stance and named its current target: stop playing the tell-the-customer-yes-to-anything game, and hold a hard line even if it means losing the deal. He will not spend 2M to capture 400K. He confirmed this is a generalized principle that at this moment absolutely applies to Rakuten as those negotiations finalize.
People: Chris Baek, Ramesh, Bjorn Hovland
Reject centralized AI governance and access-guardrails on internal AI tools - optimize adoption and transparency, accept eventual leakage
Jun 18, 2026 · strategy · high77% confidence
In the Brian/Brady sync Peter took a firm stance and described a past deliberation he had already resolved: he considered building protections so Mini-Me could not leak personnel and decision info, and decided NOT to. More broadly he rejected Brian Dawsons pull toward centralized applied enterprise AI coordination - teams should deploy their AI-built tools without approval (told Brady to just ship Cairn and expose the agent-to-agent endpoint without routing through Okta), and he would rather pay the eventual cost of a leak than slow adoption. He asked Brian to write down what he is afraid of so the fears can be weighed against each other.
People: Brian Dawson, Brady Dibble, Stephen Moody
Veeam CVE-escalation response: tell the honest intentional-tradeoff story, diagnose via Dickerson first
Jun 18, 2026 · strategy · high86% confidence
Ahead of a 5 AM Monday call with Veeam on a roughly 1M deal Bjorn flagged as at-risk, Peter set the response strategy. Tell Veeam the honest story: CIQ made an intentional trade-off (criticals 9-plus, known-exploit CVEs, and high-8s are handled; behind on some low-7s) because it is investing in CVE automation to handle the coming flood, and this is NOT a reaction to being caught. Step one is to reach out to Dickerson first to learn Veeams actual expectations and what specifically unblocks their signature. Nathan owns the technical scanner-nuance explanation (stack-protection downgrades, scanners scoring off non-Red-Hat CVEs).
People: Nathan Blackham, Max Spevack, Dave Dickerson, Bjorn Hovland
Set kernel-independence north star; justify RESF-CIQ pipeline convergence investment as the path to it
Jun 17, 2026 · strategy · medium74% confidence
In the C-Suite Sync, after conceding to Bjorn that CIQ must keep racing Red Hat on critical CVEs today (customer parity is a non-negotiable sales requirement for Citadel, Rakuten, Veeam), Peter named an explicit north star: a future where CIQ is far less tightly bound to the Red Hat kernel via an opinionated, upstream-first posture. He validated with Greg and Bjorn that this is a real future option, then framed the present-day decision as investing now in the RESF and CIQ pipeline and tooling convergence as the infrastructure that makes the north star reachable later. He was explicit that this changes nothing for customers today.
People: Peter Nelson, Gregory Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland
Mandate 24-hour Sev-1 outage auto-escalation to estaff and AE
Jun 17, 2026 · operational · medium76% confidence
After the Fyr Fuzzball outage ran roughly 5 days without surfacing to leadership and the customer had to ping Horn directly to force escalation, Peter directed that any Sev-1 or customer outage open past 24 hours must automatically notify estaff and the account AE, built into tooling so it does not depend on a human judgment call. Ryan operationalized it as Zendesk automation plus CCing named-account AEs at ticket creation.
People: Peter Nelson, Ryan Smith, Bjorn Hovland, Chris Wolford, Jonathon Anderson
Fix performance-review confirm-receipt acknowledgment — hand-deliver packets now, push HR for global wording change
Jun 16, 2026 · operational · medium60% confidence
When Andrew Jorgensen objected that Ripplings mid-year review flow forces employees to click confirm receipt before they actually have the packet, Peter sided with him. In his lane he directed an interim fix: managers download and hand-deliver packets directly so employees physically have them before acknowledging (told Nathan to send Andrew his packet; floated telling all his managers to email packets to everyone this round). As advocacy in HRs lane, he asked Mariah to change the button globally to access your packet and remove the receipt-confirmation sentence. Final wording decision deferred to the 6/16 C-Suite.
People: Peter Nelson, Andrew Jorgensen, Mariah Rippee, Nathan Blackham
Sensitive Decision
Sensitive Decision
Sensitive Decision
Re-institute and enforce monthly performance conversations across engineering managers
Jun 12, 2026 · operational · medium78% confidence
Peter decided to re-institute and enforce lightweight monthly 1:1 performance conversations (a few minutes each, using the shared spreadsheet) as the real accountability mechanism for managers and their directs — and to restart doing them himself with his own directs, having admitted he had fallen off. The point is catching misalignment on goals and deficiencies early rather than letting it fester for months.
People: Justin Haynes, Nathan Blackham
Gate NVIDIA/Spark announcement on engineering supportability — eng-only until then, then hand to GTM
Jun 12, 2026 · strategy · medium76% confidence
With NVIDIA engagement happening at very high levels over the next week, Peter decided to say nothing publicly and not pre-announce anything until CIQ has something it can support — something it would actually ship and point a customer at the support org for. Until then the Spark/Rocky-on-Spark work stays purely engineering (get it on Nathan, Wolford, Westley, and Peter own Sparks; validate it works), explicitly not a Bjorn/GTM item. Once it is supportable, GTM is unleashed.
People: Max Spevack, Bjorn Hovland, Nathan Blackham, Chris Wolford
Intent to move Ascender to Zorina with dedicated headcount; stays under Justin for now
Jun 12, 2026 · strategy · medium80% confidence
Peter decided the direction for Ascender (and Ascender Pro; Ledger Pro pending a Bjorn confirmation): move it under Zorina as a clean, dedicated product home, with headcount Peter has secured for Zorina to hire a team (Bay-Area-first, lightly). For now Ascender remains under Justin — NOT Nathan — and the move to Zorina is directional intent, not yet executed. Larry and Jimmy (original engineers) move to sales-support under Bjorn. Intent is to productize Ascender like any other shippable product rather than leave it an orphan.
People: Zorina Simeonova, Justin Haynes, Bjorn Hovland, Brianne Clasen
Prioritize RLC 10.2 to the top, drop AI+H work — and validate the JPD deprioritization as correct
Jun 12, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence
After a Citadel-driven escalation (10.2 needed for a ~$200k contract + expansion), Peter pulled Nathan, Justin and Max into a 5-minute call, made 10.2 priority-one for Linux eng above RLC AI and H work (only 3 critical CVEs rank higher), and was willing to drop other work if needed. He then posted an actionable timeline range to #department-heads (inner bound Fri 6/19, outside June 30, gated by CVEs). Crucially, he endorsed that the team had correctly deprioritized 10.2 per the JPD board and framed the whole episode as a communication failure (Bjorn got a single June-30 date without the range/assumptions), NOT an execution failure.
People: Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Max Spevack, Bjorn Hovland, Brady Dibble, Brian Dawson, Melissa Kivisto
Establish 3 as the performance-review norm — close alignment with Bjorn and Greg
Jun 8, 2026 · people · medium70% confidence
Peter established that a 3 on the 5-point scale is the expected/solid norm in performance reviews (not a 5), and closed alignment on this calibration standard with Bjorn and Greg, resolving a leadership split that had become visible to the org during the active review cycle.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer, Ryan Smith
Kill follow-on Icicle patents — finalize the single Icicle filing only
Jun 8, 2026 · strategy · medium66% confidence
Peter decided not to pursue the secondary/follow-on patent filings around Icicle (Know Your Workload / Kernel Control Authority family) and to have Ani Fox finalize only the one Icicle patent already in flight, before the issuance/filing window closes. Closes a months-long open question on whether to use the remaining window to add follow-on patents.
People: Ani Fox Bochenkov, Nathan Blackham
Greenlight Chris Wolford on continuous recruiting — always be fishing, no open req required
Jun 5, 2026 · people · medium82% confidence
Peter granted Chris Wolford standing latitude to recruit continuously: fill his two current open reqs, but also keep feeding recruiter Bree candidate profiles and interviewing strong people even with no open req. Extends Chris a trust-gated operating model to build a faster-paced bench rather than hiring only against approved headcount.
People: Peter Nelson, Chris Wolford, Bree
Sensitive Decision
Mandate CIQ build/test pipeline converge with the RESFs — one unified project, Nathan accountable, coordination over speed
Jun 5, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence
Peter laid down a mandate that CIQs Linux build/test pipeline will become functionally identical to the RESFs over time — a single consolidated project rather than parallel tooling. Nathan drives and is held accountable for closing the CIQ-to-RESF gaps (hardware parity, cut over to Koji, mirrored build infrastructure, a full validation framework that runs PR-specific tests). Justins build world must sign on and use it everywhere. Ryans gauntlet/outfitter tooling and Leighs RESF-side work are welcome only if they plug into the one project rather than forking. Peter explicitly chose coordination over speed even though it slows Ryans faster build-it-now instinct.
People: Peter Nelson, Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Ryan Smith, Greg Kurtzer, Leigh Hennig
Performance-engineer rec stays under Greg/research for now; likely transitions to engineering later
Jun 4, 2026 · people · medium65% confidence
In the HR Weekly (6/02), Greg offered Peter the performance-engineer rec, saying performance does not belong in research under the new charter and that the rec should go to Peter. Peter chose to leave the rec under Greg/research for now (roughly the first four months), with shared agreement that it likely transitions to Peter/engineering long-term once there is something concrete to manage toward. Peter framed it as a stance to leave the meeting with unless someone had an epiphany that evening; the stance held.
People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland
Value Drivers Board becomes source of truth for engineering dates and confidence; JPD dates become computed
Jun 4, 2026 · operational · high88% confidence
In the 6/03 working session that Peter recorded (Peter + Nathan + Justin + Chris Baek, during the in-person engineering F2F), Peter locked the architecture that distinguishes the JPD from the Value Drivers Board. JPD stays purely for product strategy and prioritization (not work tracking). The Value Drivers Board is the Engineering-to-GTM coordination instrument that captures context (the why) and dependencies. The concrete decision: engineering target dates and confidence numbers live on the Value Drivers Board engineering lane as the source of truth, kept current on a tight cadence (always right on a Friday), and JPD dates and confidence become computed properties pulled from the Value Drivers Board rather than manually entered.
People: Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Chris Baek
Take on Value Drivers Board restructure as the next coordination lever after JPD doctrine
Jun 1, 2026 · operational · medium69% confidence
In the 6/01 Leadership Roundtable, Peter committed to bring a formal proposal to restructure the Value Drivers Board, explicitly sequenced as the next move now that the product-priorities board (the JPD-doctrine work, closed 5/29) is aligned where he wanted it. Took the Fathom action item to draft the proposal and share with Chris Baek and the group within a couple of days. Triggered by Lindsay surfacing marketing/product misalignment (premature RLC+AMD announcement before AMD validation; Fuzzball multicloud date churn May 28 to June 4).
People: Peter Nelson, Lindsay Aamodt, Bjorn Hovland, Chris Baek, Nathan Blackham, Greg Kurtzer
Rippling Jira Asset Mgmt add-on approved — 12mo commit + cancellation push
May 29, 2026 · operational · medium62% confidence
In a 5/29 Slack DM with Steve Wallace, Peter approved the Rippling Jira Asset Management add-on under negotiated terms. Rippling proposed a 19-month commit co-termed with the main Rippling agreement (~$21.9k total: $6,420 upfront after 2 free months due 8/21, then annual billing at $12/user/month for 107 users, includes monitoring/maintenance). Peter pushed back on lock-in, accepted one year, asked about cancellation terms. Steve replied he would offer 12-month commit with cancellation for convenience at month 11+ with 30 days notice. Peter said works for me. Decision is contingent on Steve actually securing the cancellation clause.
People: Steve Wallace
Icicle wind-down — stop tracking; preserve patent + Fuzzball-side optionality
May 29, 2026 · technical · medium65% confidence
In the 5/28 Nathan 1:1, Peter formally took Icicle off his active tracking list. Nathan concluded that Icicle is not going to make money for CIQ; Peter agreed and said I am checking it off my list. I am done watching it. The wind-down is not a kill — patent prosecution continues (CIQ filed a day before Dell/Google filed similar patents), and Icicle survives as a possible Fuzzball-side opportunistic checkbox feature for hobbyist or small-deployment workloads. What was cut is Peter attention as a recurring tracked item.
People: Nathan Blackham
Sensitive Decision
Product owns prioritization of everything in the JPD
May 29, 2026 · strategy · high82% confidence
In the Friday 5/29 Brian/Brady weekly sync, Peter closed the loop on a multi-week doctrine arc by making explicit that the JPD board is not just for net-new product work — it owns prioritization of EVERYTHING engineering does, including what feels like sustaining/KTLO/Bridge bug-fixing. If product wants something to receive engineering effort, it has to take a numbered slot on the JPD board. Anything not on the board should be assumed to receive zero engineering attention, and product owns that tradeoff in real time. Peter explicitly named a posture shift from Socratic teaching to directive (do-it-this-way) because the prior rounds of teaching had not landed.
People: Brady Dibble, Brian Dawson