Adam
Feb 9, 2026 - Sep 3, 2026
12
Decisions
0
Active Todos
14
Patterns
Categories
Decisions (12)
Refuse to green-light the HPE indemnity escalation - this is a Bjorn call, not an Engineering call
HPE was blocking the Core42 Stargate deal on the grounds that Rocky is not a certified OS on the GB300s, against a contract where HPE has guaranteed 99.999 percent uptime with penalties. On 9/1 Adam Jackson proposed that CIQ absorb HPEs support penalties for the first cluster and contract the risk out to an insurer, laid out a six-step plan starting with an immediate call to HPEs Russ Fromkin, and asked Peter and Bjorn for permission to make that call. Six minutes later Peter answered with one sentence: This is a Bjorn call, not an Engineering call. Adam stood down - I will not reach out to Russ unless I am given the green light - and Bjorn took ownership, slowing the solutioning until the actual contract terms were known. Dave Dickerson pressed the same way, asking repeatedly to see the contract. The exposure being discussed turned out to be roughly an 8 million dollar guarantee against roughly a 10 million dollar future deployment stream.
Call the Core42 SOW1 won mid-call and forbid reopening anything that does not need reopening
During the Aug 24 Core42 and CIQ call, the customer side kept probing why the SOW does not cover the broader logical control set, and the CIQ team started engaging on where work splits under partials. Peter intervened twice in four minutes in the internal channel running alongside the call. First he reframed the confusion: I think we have lost track of the fact that ultimately there will be 2 SOWs. Then, once Alex Trafton had asked whether they could sign, he closed it: this is won, we should be careful not to re-open ANYTHING that does not need to be reopened. When Adam Jackson asked whether he could stop screen-sharing the HLD, Peter answered yes please stop sharing. The team changed behaviour inside the same minute - Bjorn said I will wrap, Brian Dawson said he would refrain from additional comment and let Bjorn and Adam land it, and Adam stopped sharing. The SOW1 final package went out to Core42 by email that afternoon.
Show Core42 the responsibility matrix filled in, not blanked - a first cut we are flexible on beats arriving with an empty working sheet
In the Core42 implementation-review pre-call on 2026-08-18, Michael Shinn was uneasy about showing his RACI/responsibility diagram because it assumed a much larger scope than Core42 might want, and offered to blank the boxes so the conversation could fill them in. Adam Jackson agreed and asked for the letters removed so CIQ would go in with no expectation. Peter challenged that directly and argued for leaving the chart filled in, framed as a first cut with an explicit statement that CIQ is flexible and not married to any of it. Adam conceded. On the following morning call the control matrix was in fact presented as a draft rather than as a blank working sheet.
Fork the Core42 engagement into two SOWs and let nothing delay the first - land the GB300 paper now, put the expanded security architecture in a separate SOW
On the Aug 19 CIQ-C42 Gap Analysis Part 2 call, Alex Trafton (Core42 CISO, roughly 10 weeks into the role) opened a scope far wider than the existing SOW - PAM consolidation across 4-plus tools, continuous vulnerability management, AI-specific security, physical and OT telemetry correlation, and future AMD MI350X deployments. The room read it as a much larger opportunity. Peter, facilitating, held the immediate GB300 deployment SOW as a closeable unit on its own and pushed the expanded scope into a separate second SOW. In the debrief immediately after the call he put it to Adam Jackson directly: But you agree, Adam, that for the next couple of days, it is just about getting that first SOW across. Adam: Yeah, 100 percent, Peter, 100 percent. Peter: I just do not want to put anything in the way of that. The same instinct had been set the night before in the pre-call, where the agreed play was to propose a second SOW or a simple addendum rather than expand the current paper.
Redirect the entire Core42 solution-review effort away from the people on the call and toward whoever watches the recording afterward - and make every answer technical, never personal
Peter reframed the Core42 engagement in his Nathan 1:1 and again in the group prep. His read: the Core42 security team is married to a Red Hat solution and is using the calls to collect disqualifying gaps, so there is no answer that converts the room. He therefore instructed the team to assume the people on the call are antagonistic, to stop optimizing answers for them, and to tailor everything to the decision-makers who will review the recording. Concretely: stay calm, concise and confident; give less detail rather than more; say yes we can do that repeatedly; and convert every rebuttal from a personal challenge into a technical statement - the FreeIPA docs confirm session recording is possible, not why are you saying it cannot. He also killed Bjorn framing that the win depends on having the best prepared answers.
Values framework endorsed for Adam coaching — efficient and excellent covers team-player, no stacking bodies
Bjorn surfaced an Adam culture issue in #distinguished-leaders 5/18 morning (hothead, dismissive of colleagues, will address directly. No amount of potential deals is worth poisoning the culture) and asked which CIQ value it falls under. Peter provided the framework: efficient and excellent covers being-a-team-player. Used the Apple coaching mandate as historical reference (we want you to learn to accomplish the same level of stuff you're doing now — but to do it without stacking up all the dead bodies). Extended the framing: the values are not just about Adam. If he keeps others from being efficient and excellent, he hurts the company. The wise-man-told-you-to-stack-fewer-bodies callback closed the loop.
Defer ARM64 Pro Hardened build until Core42 commits — group decision Peter endorsed
In Apr 26 Sovereign AI response review meetings, the team — with Peter participating — decided the response language to Core42 will acknowledge that Pro Hardened on ARM64 (and FIPS-143 ARM certification) is contingent on a client commitment, not unilateral CIQ investment. ARM64 build estimated weeks not months once committed; FIPS-143 ARM is ~$200k / 4-6 months and gates on a deal commitment. Peter explicitly told the room: "We are going to need Nathan to say when. I am not going to be able to say on this call."
Core42: pivot from Fuzzball sale to full-stack compliance partnership
After the Core42 Tech Dive Part 2 surfaced Core42 wants a single OS vendor for their full UAE compliance stack (NIST 800-53, BIS, IDAM, physical security) across three EOY-2026 GPU clusters, Peter immediately convened an internal Impromptu Zoom to reposition the opportunity. CIQ will propose a comprehensive partnership framing CIQ as the only group that can provide all requirements, with RLC Pro Hardened + Fuzzball + Ascender as the core stack and partners filling the remaining ~20%. Consultative play: CIQ will advise Core42 on which requirements in Eric Grundstrom's doc would cause unacceptable performance degradation vs. which can be met. Nathan to draft the proposal doc by EOD Saturday so CIQ can deliver an answer by Monday.
Set Sales Scope Discipline on Nokia Opportunity
In MPDM with Adam Jackson, Bjorn, Greg, and Jonathon, set firm boundaries on product scope for the Nokia deal. CIQ should sell what it has and is good at, not build custom solutions to close individual deals. The bar for adding new capabilities is company-level strategic pivot territory — not deal-level customization. Stated 'enough money is a LOT' and 'its not going to be for another 500k, or just to close the deal.'
Saudi training — Confirmed Dieter for May 5-6 Linux training program
Confirmed Jonathan Dieter as the trainer for Saudi Arabia Linux training program (May 5-6). Discussed in Dieter 1:1 and relayed confirmation to Adam Jackson. Pending security review.
Directed AMD inclusion in Project Odin approach document
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.
Core42 Technical Assessment - Multi-Product Positioning in UAE
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.
Related Patterns (14)
Proactive Talent Pipeline Investment
Invest in building leadership bench and talent relationships before there is an urgent need. Use proven relationships from past experience to create optionality.
Accountability Follow-Through
When you issue a warning or mandate with stated consequences, you follow through. Warnings are not threats - they are commitments. The credibility of future accountability depends on following through now.
Executive Sponsorship for Strategic Partnerships
Strategic cross-company initiatives and major client partnerships require executive-level accountability to move at the right pace and ensure proper prioritization.
Small Circle for Sensitive Operations
When executing sensitive strategic operations, keep the circle of informed people as small as possible to prevent leaks that could accelerate hostile action or undermine the initiative.
Protect Engineering Capacity
When external demands threaten to overload engineering capacity, protect capacity by either requiring the demand to come with additional resources, or forcing hard prioritization choices upstream.
Lead by Example with New Tools
When championing new tools or processes, personally use them and share results rather than just advocating. Learning by doing and demonstrating value through example is more effective than mandates.
Protect Engineering Focus Through Process
When faced with requests that would disrupt engineering focus (from sales, governance, product, or other stakeholders), establish processes that protect engineering ability to innovate while still satisfying legitimate concerns. Prefer systematic solutions over ad-hoc responses.
Three-Lever Talent Management
When pursuing a velocity or performance mandate, simultaneously operate on all three talent levers — upgrade (hire better), retain (protect key people), and exit (remove blockers) — rather than sequentially. This creates compounding momentum: exits free capacity for upgrades, retention preserves institutional knowledge during transitions, and upgrades raise the performance bar that justifies further exits.
Reclassify to Route - Decide Who Owns It, Then Give a Criterion Not a Verdict
When a question arrives at Peter framed in one domain, he often does not answer it in that framing. He reclassifies it into the domain that actually governs the outcome, which relocates ownership to whoever owns that lane, and then hands down a decision criterion rather than a verdict. The reclassification IS the decision - it determines who decides. He does this rather than adjudicating on the merits himself, even when he was explicitly cc-ed and even when a direct report challenges him on the substance.
Purpose Is the Decision Procedure
When someone asks how a process, board, tool or artifact should handle their specific case, Peter refuses to answer on the askers terms. He re-derives the answer from what the artifact is for, states that purpose as the only decision procedure, and lets the answer fall out. Anything found to be serving a second purpose is deleted rather than debated. Tools and views are explicitly subordinate to definitions. He will accept that the askers real problem is simply not solved by this artifact rather than widen the artifact to cover it.
Demonstrate the Standard, Then Collect It
When a new leadership expectation has to land across multiple orgs, Peter does not write a spec. He runs a live exemplar in public with the strongest performer first, says openly that the ordering was deliberate, keeps the form of the deliverable open so the ask stays about the thinking rather than the artifact, lets the delta be self-evident to the people who will have to close it, and then collects the same from everyone else on a named rotation. He prefers showing imperfect work now over polished work later.
Route Non-Differentiating FTE Classes to Partners
When CIQ would otherwise need to staff a function whose work does not differentiate the company — compliance bureaucracy, audit/cert paperwork, ongoing regulatory attestation, etc. — Peter routes the load to a partner who already owns adjacent capability rather than adding the FTE class internally. Org-shape decision dressed as a partnership decision.
Decide on the Precedent, Not the Case
When a request arrives framed as a one-off, Peter does not evaluate the one-off. He evaluates the rule that granting it would write, and answers that instead. Peter generalized this himself on 2026-08-11: it is always about understanding precedent - whether it is a comp change or anything that structurally affects the company. It is therefore NOT a compensation pattern; the domain of the presenting request is incidental. The tell that this pattern is live is that the stated reason for the answer refers to future cases rather than to the merits of the present one.
Metrics Must Follow Strategy
When shifting team priorities or strategic direction, the communication alone will not drive behavior change. Engineers may acknowledge the new direction but continue existing behavior patterns without clear, explicit metrics holding them accountable.