I have strong opinions….Probably an understatement, to say the least!
I’m a big 6’8″ dude from New York and New Jersey who went to school in Miami and has always lived east of I-95 his entire life. I’ve been building websites and working in WordPress for close to 20 years. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’ve cleaned up more messes than I can count.
Some people love it. Some people hate it. But you always know where I stand. Turns out I’m a lot like my parents….
I was listening to Jeetu Patel on Lenny’s podcast recently. The guy runs 30,000 people as Cisco’s President and CPO. A few things he said hit me in a way I couldn’t shake.
He goes all-in on bets instead of hedging. When Cisco decides to pursue something, they commit fully. Not halfway since he joined. Not “let’s test the waters and see what happens.” They bet the company on it. That’s rare in big organizations. Most companies spread their bets so wide that nothing gets the resources it needs to actually win.
I operate the same way. When I commit to a project, I’m all in. Not just billing hours and moving on to the next thing. I’m invested. I’m thinking about it when I’m not working on it. I’m solving problems before they become problems. That’s the only way to deliver work that actually matters.
Second thing: Patel flips the “praise in public, criticize in private” rule. He values directness and specificity over social niceties. If something’s not working, say it. Don’t wait for the right moment. Don’t soften it. Don’t dance around it, and for God’s sakes, don’t try to make a shit sandwich! Say what needs to be said so everyone can move forward.
That resonated because I’ve watched too many projects fail because nobody wanted to be the bad guy. Nobody wanted to say “this approach isn’t working” or “we’re heading in the wrong direction.” And by the time someone finally speaks up, you’re six months deep and the cost of changing direction is massive.
Third: his “right to win” framework. Before Cisco pursues a market, they assess whether they actually have the positioning to compete, not just the capability. Do we have the relationships? The credibility? The differentiation? Or are we just hoping we can figure it out along the way?
Most businesses skip this step. They see an opportunity and go after it without asking if they have the right to win. And then they’re shocked when better-positioned competitors run them over.
That’s how I operate. Not because I read it in a book. Because I’ve lived it.
Strong opinions, loosely held: I know what works because I’ve seen what doesn’t. But the second I hear a better alternative or a direction that makes more sense, I’ll drop what I was holding and move. That’s not weakness. That’s how you stay relevant for 20 years in a space that reinvents itself every 18 months.
Here’s the thing about strong opinions in this industry: they come from scar tissue.
Every single week I’m cleaning up messes. Sloppy development work. CSS that looks like someone threw spaghetti at a wall. Systems that were never put in place. Team members who didn’t do their work. Small details that got overlooked until they became big problems.
Let me give you examples.
A site launches with no caching strategy. It works fine for the first month. Then traffic spikes and the whole thing collapses because nobody thought about scale. That’s not a technical problem. That’s a planning problem. That’s what happens when nobody had a strong opinion about how the infrastructure should work.
Or custom post types built with no consideration for how editors will actually use them. Forms that submit to nowhere. Plugins stacked on top of plugins because each developer solved their immediate problem without thinking about the system as a whole. I’ve inherited sites with 60+ plugins active. Sixty. Most of them doing overlapping things because nobody was coordinating.
Or CSS. My god, the CSS. Inline styles mixed with theme styles mixed with plugin styles mixed with random overrides someone added three years ago and nobody knows why. You try to change one thing and five other things break because everything is held together with duct tape , hope, and !important’s…..
At some point, every website gets messy. That’s not the issue. The issue is when nobody had a strong enough opinion to prevent the mess in the first place. When nobody said “this is how we’re doing it, and here’s why.” When everyone was too polite or too unsure to draw a line.
I draw lines. I say “no, we’re not stacking five page builders on top of each other.” I say “no, we’re not launching without a staging environment.” I say “no, we’re not building custom functionality when a well-supported plugin exists.” I say so much; people regret asking me….Or giving me space to talk….although sometimes I just talk without permission!
That’s what 20 years of seeing through the forest gives you. The ability to see the mess before it happens. The willingness to be the person who draws the line and speak the fuck up.
Strong opinions come from scar tissue. From cleaning up the same messes over and over. From seeing what happens when nobody draws a line. That’s what 20 years gives you: the ability to see through the forest before you’re lost in it…and frankly, I’m tired of saving everyone from the mess that’s left over and we all know damn well I’m the only one who is going to show up to clean it up.
Not calling out names again, but there are people who have left me high and dry on deadlines and emergencies in prior roles and teams! If you’re not sure who I’m talking about, you might be the person….🤷
Some people think I’m too rough around the edges. That’s probably true. Some people think I charge too much. That’s fair. I’m running a business and I value my work. But I deliver on my promises and I execute and I communicate. That will never change because I’m committed to my values and always try to do the right thing.
What I won’t do is lie to you. I won’t sugarcoat. I’ll tell you exactly what I’ve seen, what to be prepared for, and how to navigate toward the end goal.
Because the path is never clear. It has never once gone the way you think it’s going to go from the plan to the final product. I don’t even know why anybody kids themselves and thinks it does.
The client changes their mind. The requirements shift. The timeline compresses. The budget gets cut. A key stakeholder leaves. The tool you were counting on doesn’t do what you thought it did. A third-party API changes. Something breaks in production that worked fine in staging.
That’s not project failure. That’s just projects. And the people who can’t handle that constant state of flux, they don’t last.
Being adaptable. Being resilient. Having the stamina to withstand everything the digital space throws at you. That’s what separates the people who last from the people who don’t.
The path from plan to final product never goes the way you think. Being adaptable, resilient, and having the stamina to withstand everything the digital space throws at you — that’s what separates the people who last from the people who don’t.
But here’s where people get me wrong.
Strong opinions doesn’t mean closed-minded. I ask a lot of questions. I never think I’m the smartest person in the room. In fact, I hate being considered the smartest person in the room. I’d rather surround myself with good, hardworking, smart, collaborative people and build something together.
I hold my opinions loosely. The second I hear a better alternative, I move.
Someone shows me a better approach to handling state in a React app? I’ll use it. Someone points out that my strong opinion about a particular tool is based on an outdated version? I’ll reevaluate. Someone demonstrates that the thing I said wouldn’t work actually does work in this specific context? I’ll adapt.
That’s how you stay relevant in a space that reinvents itself every 18 months. You can’t be so attached to your opinions that you can’t update them when new information arrives.
No AI can see through the forest the way I can. Not yet. And I say that as someone who builds with AI every single day.
The tools are incredible. I use them constantly. They help me write code faster. They help me spot patterns I might have missed. They help me explore solutions I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.
But here’s what they can’t do: they can’t tell you which patterns matter and which don’t. They can’t tell you when a client is about to change direction before they say it. They can’t tell you that the approach that looks fine on paper is going to fall apart in six months when the team changes or the requirements evolve.
That’s judgment. That’s pattern recognition. That’s knowing what’s about to go sideways before it does.
AI can generate code. It can’t tell you whether that code is going to cause problems three months from now when someone who doesn’t understand the context tries to modify it. AI can suggest solutions. It can’t tell you which solution will hold up under the specific pressures this specific project will face.
I’ve been in this space long enough to recognize the patterns. The project that’s going to have scope creep. The client who’s going to disappear for three weeks right when you need decisions. The technical approach that looks elegant but is going to be a maintenance nightmare. The team structure that looks fine on the org chart but is going to create bottlenecks.
Those patterns come from time in the arena. There’s no shortcut for scar tissue.
AI can’t replace 20 years in the arena: The tools are incredible. I build with them every day. But judgment, pattern recognition, knowing what’s about to go sideways before it does — that comes from time in the arena. There’s no shortcut for scar tissue.
The clients I love working with love working with me. The ones who don’t, don’t. It’s that simple.
Leadership, real leadership, isn’t about being the loudest voice or having all the answers. It’s about being firm, being transparent, and always letting people know where you stand. It’s about knowing when to make a choice and not being afraid to make it. It’s about building with people, not above them.
Top-down leadership can go to hell. I’ve seen it too many times. One person at the top making all the decisions. Everyone else executing without input. No room for the people actually doing the work to say “this isn’t going to work” or “there’s a better way.”
That model creates two problems. First, the person at the top becomes the bottleneck. Every decision flows through them. Everything slows down. Second, you lose all the expertise and perspective from the people who are actually in the details. The developers who know the codebase. The designers who know the users. The project managers who know the client.
A collective works better. A group of smart, opinionated people who trust each other enough to disagree. Who can say “I think this is the right approach and here’s why” and then listen when someone else says “I see a problem with that approach and here’s why.”
That’s how you build something that lasts. Not one genius with a vision. A group of people with different perspectives all pulling toward the same goal.
Building WITH people means you create space for them to have opinions. You ask “what do you think?” and actually listen to the answer. You let the person who’s going to build it have input on how it gets built. You trust that the designer knows more about design than you do and the developer knows more about development than you do.
It means you admit when you’re wrong. You say “I thought this would work but it’s not working, what should we do instead?” You don’t double down on a bad approach just because it was your idea.
That’s not weakness. That’s how strong teams work. Strong opinions, loosely held, everyone contributing, nobody above the work.
Real leadership isn’t about being the loudest or having all the answers. It’s about being firm, transparent, and always letting people know where you stand. It’s about building with people, not above them. Top-down can go to hell.
Strong opinions. Loosely held. Always open. Never afraid.
That’s who I am and how I build!
