| Website | https://michaelluchen.com |
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/mluchen/ |
200+ scans after a move. I wasn’t comfortable having OCR’d finance/immigration/health docs processed off-device.
So I built Sorty: local-first sorting (Vision/OCR + Apple Intelligence local models) with review + Preview.
Then the lesson: my AI assistant baked my examples into a schema. Looked right. System was wrong.
What broke + how I fixed it: https://michaelluchen.com/2026/01/27/building-sorty-localfirst-document-sorting.html
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@chrishannah/115924675049683850
This is a pretty cool way to answer 'what do you read?'
Most honest takeaway from a GenAI summit yesterday: “The tech is the easy part.”
Themes that kept coming up: models are “good enough”; habits and incentives aren’t. Useful AI will vanish into tools we already use. If your data is a mess, your AI roadmap is a wish list.
If you’re in the middle of that shift, I’m curious what’s actually working (or failing) for you.
The "ChatGPT moment" for agentic development is here.
I just built this network-based atomic notes app concept in just over an hour using Gemini 3 Pro and Google Antigravity.
The speed is wild, but the reasoning is the real story. Gemini handled the architecture, and Antigravity automated the QA testing that usually eats up my whole afternoon.
The barrier between "idea" and "shipped" is dissolving fast.
I’ve kept a personal readme for a while now as a way to set expectations with new teams — how I work, what I value, and what collaboration looks like in practice.
I just refreshed it for my current chapter in Athens and my focus on AI-native product systems and distributed teams. If you’re curious (or thinking about writing your own), you can read it here: https://michaelluchen.com/readme/
I originally wrote this for new teammates and stakeholders. I share it publicly because clear expectations create higher-trust, higher-output teams. If we work together, this is how I tend to think and operate. Last updated: November 2025 Who I am I’m a product leader (Director of Product / Head of Product) focused on B2B SaaS, AI-native product systems, and distributed teams. Over 12+ years, I’ve led 50+ products across agencies, startups, and in-house roles — from early-stage experiments to enterprise-scale internal tools.
Fun to return as a guest on The Product Manager pod back in July. Reflected w/ Hannah Clark on the massive shifts in product since '22 (systems > dogma, practical AI, etc.) & lessons from the trenches.
Listen here: https://cpoclub.com/podcast/how-i-survived-the-past-3-years-in-product-leadership/
Big life update: We've moved to Athens. I'm taking a relocation sabbatical through March 2026 to focus on a strong conviction: AI is breaking all our old product playbooks.
I'll be getting my hands dirty prototyping new systems (can we kill the 6-week sprint?) and sharing what I find.
While I'm exploring, I'm actively looking for senior product leadership roles (Director+) and open to 1-2 advisory gigs.
Wrote about it here. Excited for this next chapter.
https://michaelluchen.com/2025/10/23/a-new-chapter-in-athens.html
The move is done. After a whirlwind summer, our family is officially settled in Athens, Greece. Now that we’re here and my kids have started school, I’m back online and re-establishing my working rhythm on US/EU hours. A few people have asked, “Why the move?” The short answer is “the village.” We wanted our kids to grow up surrounded by family and a different, more embedded rhythm of community. It’s also about finding a balance I value.
In today's fast-paced business world, the ability to pivot quickly is essential. So let's stop resisting the messiness and start embracing it. After all, it's often in the chaos that the greatest opportunities for growth and innovation arise.
Embrace the messy. đź§
