Happy 1st week of March, let’s talk about death - jk (no, but really).

Want to know something kind of wild? If I disappeared tomorrow, you’d still get my emails… at least for a little while. The automations I’ve set up would still trigger and issue #26 would land in your inbox just as scheduled. And from the outside, it’s very likely that everything would seem somewhat normal.

And that’s the part that’s been sitting weird with me recently. We’re in an era where creators proudly announce that their social media is “fully automated.” Their blog “runs itself.” Their revenue comes in “while they sleep”.

But here’s a question I don’t see asked enough: What happens to all of these systems when the admin disappears? Not on a vacation or digital detox. But, completely gone.

I want to play with that idea a bit this week. So this issue is kind of a lengthy one, enjoy! ☠🪦

🎉 BTW last month PlotStack turned 1! 👶
If you missed the birthday issue you can check that out now.
And as always, thanks for being here.

Thumbnail art by LittleAna

What Happens To Your Automations When You Die?

There’s always that one person at an organization who understands the intricacies of an entire pipeline. Maybe it’s the one who built the system from scratch. The one who knows why the API fails on a random Saturday or why a transformation was written a certain way three years ago. And everyone silently hopes they never leave.

There’s a name for this: Key-Person Risk or Bus Factor. Whatever we call it, the underlying issue is the same: too much of the system lives inside one person’s head.

Those of us working in tech and analytics, we already recognize this risk. Ironically, when it comes to personal automation stacks, we celebrate that exact structure.

A fully automated newsletter. An AI-driven content engine. A solopreneur brand that “runs itself.”

Don’t get me wrong, building a flow from scratch and watching it execute flawlessly is exciting and it feels autonomous, but is it really autonomous though?

Automation doesn’t remove the human from the system. But rather, it concentrates the human inside it. What used to require multiple people to manage content creation, distribution, analytics, monitoring, etc., can now be done by one operator. That feels efficient, right? It feels modern. It feels like what everyone on the internet gets tickled over about.

But structurally, it’s the same dynamic we warn against at work.

One login, one set of credentials, one person who understands how everything connects.

Every “fully automated” system still depends on someone who wrote the prompts, connected the APIs, understands the edge cases, monitors billing, and updates context when the world changes.

If that person disappears, the system doesn’t suddenly become independent. It just becomes unattended. And unattended systems don’t adapt. They just keep executing yesterday’s logic until something breaks.

Automation is quite awesome and powerful. But that power without stewardship is really just deferred responsibility.

If you’re building systems that run without you, it’s worth asking:
If I wasn’t here next week, would this system still behave the way I’d want it to?

This week’s topic was: helpful / not helpful

Which company first popularized the term “Data Warehouse”?

A. IBM
B. Microsoft
C. Oracle
D. Teradata

Answer at the bottom of this issue

Meta Patented AI That Takes Over Your Account When You Die, Keeps Posting Forever by Victor Tangermann
Granted in 2023, Meta had early plans to develop an AI that posts on your behalf in your absence or in death. It’s since been abandoned, but it just comes to show what tech companies are willing to explore to push LLMs. Read more

The Making of Digital Ghosts: Designing Ethical AI Afterlives by Giovanni Spitale & Federico Germani
The paper defines digital ghosts, AI simulacra of deceased people, then uses a nine‑dimension taxonomy to prescribe design rules so developers and regulators can enable ethical practices without deception or harm. It’s conceptual, but grounded in research. Read more

Would you be okay with AI continuing your social media presence after you die? Suspicious-Desk6206 on Reddit
A Reddit thread where a simple question was asked: would you let AI keep posting on your behalf after you die? Most responses were jokes and memes about haunting followers or scheduling posts from the afterlife. But underneath the humor was something telling: people instinctively feel that a voice without a person behind it crosses a line. Read more

Timedot #productivity #visualization
I pretty neat Notion extension that visualizes time using a series of dots. There are currently three formats ranging from time to an annual calendar. It's completely free and easy to embed in any Notion workspace.

ClipBolt #productivity
ClipBolt is a smart clipboard manager that saves everything you copy. The first 5,000 on the waitlist get a free lifetime account.

▶️ Build an AI agent with me! by Relay
This is an entire YouTube playlist with a plethora of knowledge on building AI agents to help with tasks ranging from scanning Reddit communities to an AI sales coach and everything in between. This app has helped me tremendously with relieving some of my smaller tedious tasks managing a newsletter and tech blog!

Which company first popularized the term “Data Warehouse”?

A. IBM ✅
B. Microsoft
C. Oracle
D. Teradata

IBM was the first company to popularize data warehouses back in the late 1980’s.

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