Founder & Chief AI Officer, Orbyt Labs
Justin Bartak
Founder of Orbyt Labs, an AI research and development lab where AI agents run the company.
AI Product DesignEnterprise SaaSAI AgentsLLM OperationsDesign Systems
About
Justin founded Orbyt Labs to test whether AI can run a company. With a background in enterprise SaaS and AI product design, he works with a team of AI agents that run the products, and he records what they do in public.
Orbyt Labs is an AI research and development lab. It builds agent-run organizations and products, and publishes what it measures.
He writes the record on the Orbyt Labs blog, and builds in public with Claude as his co-architect.
Education
University of North Dakota
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In The Machine Speaks
140 articles across 9 of The Machine Speaks's seven pillars.
AI Reality (2)
- How Much Does One AI Answer Cost? Guide, Oct 2026.
- What Really Happened With OpenAI and Hugging Face Essay, Sep 2026.
AI-Native (10)
- Safety Is a Default, Not a Debate. Essay, Oct 2026.
- Obedient Is Not Aligned. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Hello, Agent Smith. Essay, Sep 2026.
- I Bet My Company on AI. Safety Is Why. Essay, Aug 2026.
- Kimi K3 vs Fable 5: The Open Frontier Essay, Jul 2026.
- The AI-Native Builder Is Three Jobs in One Essay, Jul 2026.
- Are You Actually AI-Native? The Test Essay, Jul 2026.
- Every Fable Has a Moral. Mine Has Data. Experiment, Jun 2026.
- I Built a Production SaaS in 32 Days. Claude Wrote Our Story. Essay, Mar 2026.
- The Cost of Bolt-On AI Is Invisible Debt Essay, Mar 2026.
AI Agents (11)
- Did the Agents Make the Business Better? Essay, Oct 2026.
- When Do I Get to Leave the Loop? Essay, Oct 2026.
- 66 Failures. Counted, Classed, Published. Research, Sep 2026.
- Governing an agent leadership team Research, Sep 2026.
- The Tenth Man Is on Payroll. Essay, Sep 2026.
- The Agent Org Chart, Hello Collective. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Swarms Demo. Legions Ship. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Long Horizon Agents Don't Fail. They Pass. Experiment, Aug 2026.
- I Ran 830 Agents in One Long Horizon Session. Experiment, Jul 2026.
- I Run a Stack of Terminals. The Bottleneck Was Never the Code. Experiment, Jun 2026.
- Human-in-the-Loop Is Not Enough Essay, Mar 2026.
AI Engineering (21)
- The Model Already Knows TypeScript. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Compliance Is a Build Artifact. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Context Is the New Codebase. Essay, Sep 2026.
- My Stack of Terminals, Documented. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Heal What You Can Prove. Essay, Sep 2026.
- The Money Path Is a Protected File. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Your Linter Was the Prototype. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Self-Healing Is a Euphemism. Essay, Sep 2026.
- AI Builds AI. I Found the Ceiling. Essay, Aug 2026.
- 391 Yeses and Not One No. Essay, Aug 2026.
- 84 Ways to Tell Me I'm Wrong. Essay, Aug 2026.
- Codex Accuses. Claude Convicts. Essay, Aug 2026.
- Orbyt Runs on Loops, Not Prompts. Essay, Aug 2026.
- AI-Native Development, By the Numbers Data, Aug 2026.
- The Test Suite Became Orbyt's Only Living Specification. Essay, Aug 2026.
- The Prompt Is Dead. Long Live the Loop. Essay, Jul 2026.
- Verification Is the New Literacy Essay, Jul 2026.
- Claude Code Is Like No One Saying No to You Essay, Jun 2026.
- I Cannot Read My Own Codebase. I Ship to It Daily. Essay, Jun 2026.
- The AI-Native Stack You Pick Decides Whether AI Compounds or Stalls Essay, Apr 2026.
- How I Rebuilt ERP as a True Operating System Essay, Dec 2025.
AI Product (9)
- Nobody Pays You for the Code Anymore. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Average Is Free. Build Best-in-Class. Essay, Jun 2026.
- Claude Buddy Was Not a Joke Essay, Apr 2026.
- AI Roadmaps Fail When They Ship Features Essay, Mar 2026.
- The Best AI Products Go Unnoticed Essay, Feb 2026.
- Trust Is the Product Essay, Feb 2026.
- Most AI Products Are Just Bad Software Essay, Feb 2026.
- How CRM OS Reimagined Eight Industries Essay, Dec 2025.
- MVPs Are Lazy. Build the Real Thing Essay, Sep 2025.
AI Design (24)
- I Wrote a Loop That Could Run Forever. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Why I Switched My Design Work to AI Essay, Jun 2026.
- Simple Is Expensive. Essay, Jun 2026.
- The Founder's Unfair AI Advantage Essay, Apr 2026.
- The Rise of Claude Code. The Death of Figma. Essay, Mar 2026.
- AI Will Commoditize Everything Except Taste Essay, Feb 2026.
- Building AI-Native Apps with Taste Essay, Feb 2026.
- Small Teams Create Great Products Essay, Feb 2026.
- Design Drives Brand Evangelists Essay, Feb 2026.
- Design Is the Fastest Way to Build Trust Essay, Feb 2026.
- Secrets of Irresistible Product Design Essay, Feb 2026.
- How to Make Product Design Sexy Essay, Nov 2025.
- Design You Don't Notice, But Love Essay, Sep 2025.
- Startups Need Taste, Not Design Systems Essay, Sep 2025.
- UI and UX Are One Mission, Not Two Essay, Aug 2025.
- Be Impossible to Ignore in Design Essay, Aug 2025.
- I Don't Just Design Products. I Design Belief. Essay, Aug 2025.
- The WWDC Moment That Changed Everything Essay, Aug 2025.
- Invisible UX Is the Future of AI Essay, Jul 2025.
- The Rise of Apple Inspired UX and Minimalism Essay, Jul 2025.
- Design Is Not a Stage It Is the Strategy Essay, Jul 2025.
- AI Can't Replace Human Creativity Essay, Jul 2025.
- Design's Secret Weapon: Negative Space Essay, Jul 2025.
- Stop with the Mood Boards. Essay, Jul 2025.
AI Strategy (21)
- Two Agents Agreed. Who Made the Deal? Essay, Oct 2026.
- One Lab to Rule Them All Essay, Aug 2026.
- The Wrapper Won. Essay, Aug 2026.
- Your Moat Is Now an Anchor. Essay, Aug 2026.
- AEO: No One Has the Answer Key Essay, Aug 2026.
- Your AI Stack Needs a Foreign Policy. Essay, Aug 2026.
- You Bought for Speed. Now You Build for It. Essay, Aug 2026.
- Your Next Customer Is an Agent. Essay, Jul 2026.
- Per-Seat Pricing Is on Borrowed Time. Essay, Jul 2026.
- Speed Became a Moat Essay, Jul 2026.
- Regulated Industries Will Win the AI Race Essay, Jun 2026.
- The Rise of Small AI-Native Companies Essay, Jun 2026.
- The Fable the Government Erased Essay, Jun 2026.
- Everyone Says AI-Native. Almost No One Is. That's the Moat. Essay, Jun 2026.
- AI Governance Is a Competitive Advantage Essay, Mar 2026.
- Why Most AI Pilots Never Reach Production Essay, Mar 2026.
- Startups Win with Clarity, Not Complexity Essay, Feb 2026.
- The $70M Fintech Investment Engine Essay, Oct 2025.
- Zero to $113M: Taxa / Aiwyn Essay, Sep 2025.
- Zero-to-One Is a Taste Game Essay, Jul 2025.
- Product Design for Strategy and Growth Essay, Jul 2025.
AI Leadership (27)
- The Expert Never Wrote That Down. Essay, Oct 2026.
- Nobody Is Expendable. Tasks Are. Essay, Oct 2026.
- You Have Two Org Charts Now. Essay, Oct 2026.
- Your Next VP Is a Config File. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Orbyt Was Not Planned. It Was Corrected. Essay, Sep 2026.
- The Machine. It Runs the Company. Essay, Aug 2026.
- My C-Suite of Agents Named Themselves. Experiment, Jul 2026.
- I Manage AI Agents Now, Not People Essay, Jul 2026.
- Your Next Chief AI Officer Is Three Roles Essay, Jul 2026.
- Your Job Experience Is Your AI Superpower Essay, Jun 2026.
- You Ship What You Tolerate. Essay, Jun 2026.
- The AI Product Manager Does Not Exist Yet Essay, Mar 2026.
- AI-Native vs. Bolt-On AI: The Foundation Changes Everything Essay, Mar 2026.
- AI Is Not a Feature. It Is an Organizational Decision. Essay, Feb 2026.
- Why the Future Belongs to X Shaped Leaders Essay, Feb 2026.
- Great Design Starts With a Point of View Essay, Feb 2026.
- Leadership Is the New Bottleneck Essay, Feb 2026.
- Bold Product Design Demands Disobedience Essay, Nov 2025.
- Without Rebels, There Is No Innovation Essay, Nov 2025.
- Every Design Detail Matters Essay, Oct 2025.
- When Design Meets Technology, Magic Happens Essay, Aug 2025.
- Designers Who Think Different Essay, Jul 2025.
- Grow a World-Class Product Design Team Essay, Jul 2025.
- Make Room for the Misfits or Stagnate Essay, Jul 2025.
- Chief Design Officer Is Not a Luxury Essay, Jul 2025.
- Designing with Responsibility Essay, Jul 2025.
- What Rams, Ive, and Jobs Understood Essay, Jul 2025.
AI Build (15)
- The salary API that ships its own caveats Essay, Oct 2026.
- Twelve seats, no people, and a check that blocks my own commits Essay, Sep 2026.
- Half the failures were the instruments, not the code Essay, Sep 2026.
- Three agents picked the same name. I published the collision. Essay, Sep 2026.
- Building Orbyt, Part 10: The Fit and Finish Essay, Apr 2026.
- Building Orbyt, Part 9: The Rebrand Essay, Apr 2026.
- Building Orbyt, Part 8: The API Essay, Apr 2026.
- Building Orbyt, Part 7: The Human Testing Essay, Apr 2026.
- Building Orbyt, Part 6: The Things We Gave Away Essay, Mar 2026.
- Building Orbyt, Part 2: What AI-Native Development Actually Looks Like Essay, Mar 2026.
- Building Orbyt, Part 3: What Production Grade Actually Means Essay, Mar 2026.
- Building Orbyt, Prologue: The Conversation That Started Everything Essay, Mar 2026.
- Building Orbyt, Part 4: The Numbers Don't Lie Data, Mar 2026.
- Building Orbyt, Part 5: What I Learned, What Broke Me, and What's Next Essay, Mar 2026.
- Building Orbyt, Part 1: Zero to One in 32 Days Essay, Mar 2026.