Matthew Newell
Engineer · Builder · Program Manager | AI for the Real World
In Mozart’s time, a single masterpiece required a composer, an orchestra, a concert hall, a patron, and years of rehearsal. AI collapses all of that into one person with an idea.
AI is the great democratizer — and the people who deserve it most are the ones actually making things.
I build Semi-Disposable Software: lean, purposeful tools designed to solve a real problem and get out of the way. Skeptical of enterprise theater.
Active Work
- MWOOC: Back-office AI for Midwest small business owner-operators in the trades. AI-assisted proposals, CRM, sales funnels, logistics, and accounting — built for tradespeople, not tech people. Origin story: a $500 water heater part, a “free” sales call, and an $11,000 quote.
- Burned Value: EVMS tells you the money story. Agile burndowns tell you the delivery story. Neither tells you both at once — so I built the lovechild. Replaces subjective “percent complete” estimates with actual completed story points, so scope creep shows up in the math before it shows up in the post-mortem.
- CMMI 1.3-AI: A theory under investigation: each CMMI process area is essentially a specialized agent — defined inputs, defined outputs, measurable goals. If that’s true, a fully orchestrated CMMI compliance suite might be buildable with Claude Code & Cowork. Still early. But it’s a great excuse to learn multi-agent orchestration by doing something real.
- Musical Mastery: The one place I’m not trying to go faster — but I’ll use AI to learn smarter. Atomic Habits builds the discipline, AI accelerates the learning.
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