Without Me. One Founder. One AI. No Hands. A 3D mockup of the book on Anthropic cream.

Book 4 of the story

Future

Book four. The company I am building is designed to run without me. This is the book that finds out whether it does.

Where it sits in the story.

The absence. I built it to run without me, and now I find out if it does.

Drafting has not started yet. It arrives after Human Heartbeat, and it will land here when it is ready.

No release date is promised. It ships when it is done and every word has been reviewed by a human, not before.

The Story.

01

Cold Start. Reviewing.

The build. Thirty-two days, one founder, and an AI as the whole engineering organization.

02

Unfair Advantage. Reviewing.

The legion. When one AI becomes many, and the organization runs on agents.

03

Human Heartbeat. Writing.

The loop. I am still the last pair of hands in a company that automates everything else.

04

Without Me. Future.

The absence. I built it to run without me, and now I find out if it does.

05

Observer Effect. Future.

The colony. I am out of the seat, and what I grew goes on growing without me.

Start where it began.

Cold Start is finished. It goes on sale first.

See Cold Start.Back to the story.

Common questions.

No release date is promised. Without Me ships when it is done and every word has been reviewed by a human, not before. The series is written in order: Cold Start is finished, and Unfair Advantage is being written now. Announcements land on this page first.

Justin Bartak with Claude, the same founder and AI pair that wrote Cold Start. Justin writes and reviews every word, and Claude drafts and edits alongside him. The books are written in public, next to the company they describe, so the story and the build happen at the same time.