Founder‑engineer · building in public
Building through the AI transition.
I'm Dane O'Connor. I ship software, run companies, make music, and write. This is where I share what I build, what I learn, and what I think it all means.
I'm Dane O'Connor. I ship software, run companies, make music, and write. This is where I share what I build, what I learn, and what I think it all means.
The tools changed. The stakes changed. Most of us are still figuring out what to do with our hands. My answer is to build, pay attention, and say what I see.
I've been writing code most of my life. AI didn't replace that love, it multiplied it. I ship products end to end, from idea to infrastructure to the last pixel.
BThis shift will reshape work, creativity, and power. I want to help us make it safely, by building carefully, testing honestly, and sharing what actually works.
LWhen machines can do more of what we do, the question of what we're for gets sharper. I explore it through philosophy, moral dilemmas, music, and story.
MProducts across creativity, ethics, family, and engineering. Each one is a bet on how people and AI might live together well.
Everything moves faster now. So do your blind spots. Swarms of AI customers use your product and give feedback at machine speed, before your real customers arrive.
Face real moral dilemmas and see where you stand among philosophers, historical figures, and fictional characters. Meet your moral twin and your nemesis.
Cook up an adventure your family will remember. Dishes from cities around the world, with music, stories, and a map of everywhere you've been.
Text‑to‑video AI for music lovers and creators. Upload a track, direct the visuals, and get a stylized music video that moves with the beat.
Turns lessons into songs. Pick a textbook unit, set the audience and the instructional goal, and generate tracks kids will actually sing along to.
My consultancy. AI opportunity discovery, rapid first iterations, and full‑stack AI integration for teams that want to move at the speed the moment allows.
I make music as The Architect. It's where I put the part of this work that code can't hold: what building at the frontier does to a person, and what it costs the people around them.
A concept album about cognitive isolation in the modern age. Across eight tracks, a software engineer moves from obsessive growth to collapse to tentative reconstruction. Ambition against presence, scale against human connection. Honest, vulnerable, unresolved.
A separate thread. Where the music is personal, the book is political: how leaders now win power by shaping perception instead of policy, and how platforms and algorithms make that easier.
What if the greatest threat to personal freedom isn't policy, but the stories we come to believe? Through social media, algorithms, and digital platforms, influence is gained by manipulating perception and fragmenting truth. As loyalty to narratives deepens, accountability erodes, and power consolidates without formal authority.
“The point isn't to be replaced or to resist. It's to build the thing that comes next, carefully, in public.”— Dane O'Connor
I'm a founder‑engineer. I've spent my career building software and the companies around it, usually as the person who both writes the code and decides what to write.
The last few years changed the job. Working with AI every day, I've watched the distance between an idea and a shipped product disappear. That's thrilling and unnerving, and I think the honest response is to build in public, share the methods, and be candid about what's working and what isn't.
Beyond software I make music as The Architect, about what chasing the frontier does to a mind and its relationships. I wrote Narrative Domination, a book on how leaders win power by shaping perception instead of policy, and how platforms and algorithms make that easier. And I build tools that help people think about ethics. Different outlets, same question: what a good life looks like when machines can do most of what we do.