advice candidate goes to: this-edition V villager
A startup should double down on understandability: less code, the same tools, and it can be checked and pass
The test is risk-based, not pure. A startup that says it generated most of its code fast, that the product is not mission-critical and here are the mitigations has passed; what fails is not knowing. So build the graph of your own repository, keep the threat model with the code, write a behaviour policy for every agent, trace bugs to changes, and answer the buyer's questions in the buyer's format before being asked. The startup can play the same game as the biggest buyer, with open source tools, and it has less code: understanding ten thousand lines is a week, ten million that nobody still at the company wrote is a programme. The incumbent's advantage was that nobody could check; the startup's is that it can be checked and pass.
Decided by. Nobody yet: a candidate for Dinis to read, comment on and decide (keep, rewrite, merge, cut, article first, later, not doing it).
Note. A threat model is the fastest read of a team's understanding: one that says 'we have a weakness here, exploiting it needs a nation-state, we will not defend against it' is a good one. The evidence that review is being skipped is dated in the article: AI accounts for 42% of committed code and only 48% always verify it (Sonar, January 2026); 80% of PRs have no human comment when an AI review tool is on (Qodo, 2025).
Where it comes from
- Send an agent, not a spreadsheet Risk-based, not pure; The consequence that has been missing: 'if I were a startup I would double down on understandability' (newsroom)
What it answers in the 2018 book
- Threat Modeling answered outline, Security
- Security creates better developers answered outline, Security
- Be a founder answered written, Life Patterns
Where it goes
Chapter Sell, part Start the company (drafting); topic Be a founder (or a one-person service).
Other ideas proposed for the same chapter: Send an agent, not a spreadsheet: due diligence derived from the code, not composed by the vendor, Selling a service: each step small enough to say yes to, and each ends with something they keep, The market is crowded at the top and thin on evidence: sell the record the client keeps, A service only scales with people: a curated marketplace of consultants, joined by proof of work, The reason to move is never sovereignty or cost: sell value that lands the day they switch, Answer the hard questions in full, publish what is live and what is design, and check your own site against the answers, Do not sell the need; answer a question somebody already has to answer, with a deadline.
Node idea:double-down-on-understandability in graph.json; see it in the graph. Source: admin/content/graph/ideas.json.