July 2026
Stretching into our imagination
Builders of development systems see a small slice of the person. We should expect systems that see more of us and help us move in the direction we intend.
We, as builders, see such a small slice of a person as we guide their growth. Every person is, of course, responsible for integrating the cobbled-together journey of their own development. But while you can become an expert on yourself, you can't be an expert on everything your development requires. We should expect systems that see more of us and help us move in the direction we intend. We should expect systems that help us stretch into our imagination.
I've spent my career building systems behind human development. At Workr, I researched how people connect their work to their purpose. At Minerva, I built the systems behind a new university designed from first principles. At BetterUp, I guided the infrastructure underneath executive coaching at scale. Seen from a wider perspective, these are all aspects of the same human development challenge. In every case, what we could build, fund, and imagine was smaller than the person we were building it for. It had to be.
But what would it look like if we tried to solve the problem naively, centered on humans? I'm thinking something closer to Kindergarten than Higher Ed. Honestly, I'm not sure what it looks like. I'm working on building systems for myself and helping others extend their own capabilities. Systems that travel with you, that learn and adapt over time.
I know a lot of us have felt stuck inside an organization with no choice but to move incrementally. And each new technological revolution has brought false hopes that we'd take a bigger step. AI could be the same story. Or maybe we can finally aspire to building the primer from The Diamond Age. If you're making this real somewhere or this gives you that jolt of "how are you reading my mind?", I would love to hear from you.