Andrew Templeton - Group CTO, AI operations for PE portfolio companies

Andrew Templeton

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Group CTO · P&L Engineering · Austin, TX

Every operating decision is a capital allocation decision.

Frameworks for finding operating value, tools for pricing it, and a discipline for constructing the portfolio. Built by a Group CTO who runs the P&L and writes the code.

10x
cost reduction on a high-volume ingestion pipeline
13
retail brands running these frameworks in production
~$1B
revenue across the PE portfolio

Built inside a PE-backed retail holding company, not in a consulting engagement or a research lab. Published as shared operating vocabulary so the thinking scales beyond one person.

01FIND

Your business is a directed graph →

Your P&L is a graph of nodes and edges - every cost center, revenue line, and causal link between them. Walk it and you find the mispriced edges where value is leaking. Three frameworks show you how.

Directed graph showing P&L nodes connected by causal edges with soft spots highlighted
02PRICE

Price the opportunity in dollars, not vibes →

Every operating opportunity has a return distribution, an error cost profile, and a Sharpe ratio - you just haven't calculated them yet. Five interactive tools do the math before you write the code.

Return distribution showing operating opportunity priced with hurdle rate, expected return, and Sharpe ratio
03ALLOCATE

Construct the portfolio →

Once you've priced the instruments, construct the portfolio - rank by risk-adjusted return, map your tolerances, handle correlations between bets. The same efficient frontier math your CFO uses for physical capital, applied to the CTO's roadmap.

Efficient frontier chart showing operating instruments plotted by risk and expected return
04EXECUTE

Systems that converge by construction →

The goal is convergence by construction - design the system so improvement is a mathematical property, not an aspiration. Ratcheted quality gates and graduated autonomy compress execution risk into something you can manage.

Quality ratchet climbing through Disabled, HITL, and Autonomous promotion bands
05COMPOUND

Build the appreciating asset →

Models depreciate through distribution shift and competitive erosion, but data, verifiers, and institutional rubrics appreciate. The Dual Curve tells you which side of that equation deserves your next dollar.

Knowledge Capital - dual curve showing depreciation and appreciation over time

“The most coherent operating philosophy I have encountered for applying AI to a business without losing rigor or control.”

James Garvey, CEO

Frameworks

Knowledge Capital
Knowledge Capital →
Designed Convergence
Designed Convergence →
Performance Frontier
Performance Frontier →
The Deity Problem
The Deity Problem →
Promotion Protocol
Promotion Protocol →
Quality Hillclimb
Quality Hillclimb →
The Demand Field
The Demand Field →

Explore

All Frameworks →Nine strategic models for finding, pricing, and allocating operating valueAI Operations Tools →Five interactive calculators for pricing operating instruments - diagnose, calibrate, invest, value, screenLexicon →21 defined terms - each one invented to name something that existed but had no wordPositions →Four overlapping circles - Allocator, Operator, Builder, Scientist - and the intersections where the value livesKnowledge Graph →Interactive map of how 93 frameworks, tools, terms, positions, and posts connectI Have This Problem →Problem-to-solution index - find the right framework, tool, or term for your AI deployment challengeAbout →8-dimension quality rubric, Venn diagram, and what to expectML Prerequisites Map →201 concepts organized by dependency order with interactive visualizations and learning cost metrics

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