The Places We Choose to Build

Hello and good morning!

I’m writing this a little earlier than usual today.

Coffee in hand, the office still quiet, that soft pre-sunrise light where ideas tend to show up before the day gets noisy.

The past couple of weeks have been…

interesting.

Not chaotic, not rushed, more like a slow, steady shift happening underneath everything else.

One of those seasons where your internal questions get bigger and your sense of responsibility gets sharper, even if nothing looks different on the outside yet.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the last decade of our work, especially the work inside an industry that has challenged us, shaped us, and honestly taught us more than we expected when we first walked in.

Real estate has been such a constant in our Ampersand Consulting journey that at some point it stopped being “a vertical” and started feeling like a long-term relationship.

And while I wasn’t planning on sharing anything specific today, I have been sitting with a different kind of question lately:

What happens when you stop thinking in terms of projects and start thinking in terms of the next ten years?

It’s a subtle shift, but once it starts, it doesn’t really stop.

You begin moving from giving advice
→ to taking ownership.

From asking “What’s possible?”
→ to “What are we willing to build?”

From helping others shape their future
→ to recognizing you’re responsible for shaping a piece of it too.

That’s the headspace I’ve been in.

Nothing to announce, just yet.

Nothing public.

Just the quiet, honest realization that a new chapter may be beginning.

One that requires a slightly different posture than the one that got us here.

And somewhere in that reflection, I found myself sketching something in my notebook the other day.

Not a plan, not a roadmap, not even a decision…

just an overwhelming thought taking shape.

I’ll share that little scribble further down in this post.

Sometimes the rough sketches say more about where your mind is headed than the polished diagrams ever could.

👇

⚡ Quick Hits

• 🏠 RealtyHop’s November Affordability Index shows ownership still out of reach in many major U.S. cities
  Their latest data highlights how even with easing rates, typical households in many metros must devote an unsustainable share of income just to make ownership possible.
  → read more

• 📉 “Two Charts” from Pretium underline how today’s mortgage-rate threshold keeps the rent–own gap brutally wide
  A concise, data-heavy look at why current rates still fail to meaningfully narrow the cost divide between renting and owning for most families.
  → read more

• 🛒 Morgan Stanley forecasts AI shopping agents could add $115B to U.S. e-commerce by 2030
  Agentic “co-shoppers” are moving from experiment to expected feature, reshaping how consumers discover, compare, and buy online.
  → read more

• 🏢 IBM outlines how enterprise AI agents are moving beyond productivity hacks into true workflow orchestration
  From customer support to complex operations, AI agents are increasingly being designed as core infrastructure rather than bolt-on tools.
  → read more

🛠 Tool

Handwritten Notes (Yes → on actual paper)

There’s something about grabbing a pen and letting ideas spill onto a page that software still can’t match.

When everything feels noisy, handwriting forces your brain to slow down just enough to separate the signal from the swirl of background inputs.

It’s not nostalgia…

it’s cognitive clarity.

Whether it’s a rough sketch, a branching thought, or a sentence fragment that feels important for reasons you don’t yet understand…

paper often captures the truth of an idea.

📝

🪨 The Pebble

I want you to slow down for a moment this week, grab a blank page, and let your thoughts spill out without editing…

What’s one idea you could sketch or diagram, even roughly… that might help you see your next step more clearly?

📊 Poll

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Weekly reflections on the human side of technology. Fresh thinking at the edge of work, AI, and life.

[#30] 😅 Yes, this one was a little more personal. But hey, it’s December 1st 2025. If not now, when? Have an awesome week everyone! Thank you for reading my thoughts.