Ridley Research archive
Research & Writing
Selected notes on politics, policy, technology, money, and the systems behind public life. This archive supports the practice; it is not a publishing schedule.
Politics & Public Life
Mar 2026
Trump Doesn’t Bomb on Mondays
Five major strikes, both terms, 100% landed Thursday or Friday. The pattern isn’t coincidence.
2026
Who Owns the Texas Power Grid?
Interactive map: the companies controlling Texas power infrastructure are the same ones shaping its regulation.
Technology & Operations
Mar 2026
Your AI Agent Doesn’t Have a Model Problem
Everybody is asking which model to use. That is not the main question. The harness is the product.
Mar 2026
The $300K/Month Agent: Why Felix Matters
An AI agent generated $300K in a month. What actually happened and what it means for normal business owners.
Mar 2026
How Local Businesses Get Recommended by AI
The practical GEO playbook for local businesses that want to be recommended by AI, not just found by Google.
2026
Your Firm’s ChatGPT Problem
Most RIA staff are already using ChatGPT for client tasks. That’s a live compliance exposure.
2026
The BYOA Problem
Top performers are building personal AI agents — and when they quit, all that institutional knowledge leaves with them.
Feb 2026
Two Weeks, No Sleep, and What I Actually Built
Two weeks of all-nighters, one AI agent, and an operation that didn’t exist a month ago.
Field Notes
Apr 2026
The Operational Brain — One AI That Knows Your Business
Why the “get an agent” framing is wrong, how memory compounds, and what three years looks like.
Apr 2026
Why I Tell Most Clients to Wait Before Automating Anything
Automating the wrong thing first is worse than doing nothing. Three questions I ask before recommending anything.
Apr 2026
The Incidents That Made Me Build Guardrails I Should Have Built First
78 CMA PDFs with blank addresses. An AI contacting 20 leads nobody asked it to contact. What happened.
Apr 2026
What It Actually Takes to Run AI for a Dozen Businesses
Version drift, silent failures, and why the economics only hold with a fleet model.
2026
How Agent Memory Actually Compounds
Session memory dies. Structured memory compounds. What changes at 90 days vs. day one, and the discipline required.
2026
The Platform I Had to Rebuild Mid-Flight
I built an agent platform, watched it become a liability, and migrated a dozen live clients without taking anyone offline.
Technical Archive
Feb 2026
I Run 4 AI Agents From One Telegram Chat
Role specialization, routing discipline, and real operational throughput.
Feb 2026
What I Learned Rebuilding an Agent Stack from Scratch
Model degradation, why local LLMs failed in production, and the reset that fixed it.
Feb 2026
Memory Architecture for Agents
A 3-tier memory model that reduces drift and keeps context useful across sessions.
Feb 2026
The Clean-Room Pattern: Cloud AI Without Leaking Data
Cloud AI performance without exposing sensitive information to third-party servers.
Feb 2026
Why a $20 Model Beats a $200 Model (If You Do This)
The variable that drives agent performance isn’t the model tier.
Mar 2026
Making Agents Run While You Sleep
How asynchronous dispatch, checkpoints, and completion loops create overnight execution.
Feb 2026
Fixing Agent Drift and Reliability
How to recover from silent regressions and restore execution trust.
Feb 2026
Agent Operating System Setup
Roles, guardrails, and proof-first execution standards.
Feb 2026
Skills: The Loadout System for AI Agents
Why skills are the loadout layer that turns general models into dependable operators.
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