Signals Subtractions &
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Because those who mean business with AI don't need more noise, we need better signals. And the clarity to stop doing what no longer serves.
Episodes
Volume II of Signals & Subtractions is the live show. One signal worth watching, one subtraction worth making, every week. All episodes.
Latest episode · Episode 9 · 2026-08-28
Dig the Second Hole
Cohost Lee Rodrigues nearly paid $4,000 to replace a water line that turned out to be brand new, and nearly spent weeks forcing an LMS to do a knowledge base's job. The same move ended both: run a test, run it twice, and don't let the tool define the problem. From trenches to AI agents, why the question you ask matters more than the tool you pick, why agent guardrails are architecture rather than instructions, and the week Sam discovered that agents with wallets had found his product before the human buyers did.
Episode 8 — 2026-08-21
Influence Over Reach · Sam Rogers + JD Dillon + Josh Felix
Episode 7 — 2026-08-14
Measuring Anything, Before the LLMs + Douglas Hubbard
Episode 6 — 2026-08-07
AI Regulations and the Chatbot Laws Already in Force + Michael Simon
Episode 5 — 2026-07-31
AI Detection and the Presumption of Guilt + Limited Edition Jonathan
Episode 4 — 2026-07-24
Safety & Trust in the Age of AI + Sabino Marquez
Episode 3 — 2026-07-17
Job Search in the Age of AI · Sam Rogers + Lee Rodrigues + Christine Rodrigues
New episode Fridays, newsletter Sundays. Free on Substack, no account needed.
Volume I: the newsletter it was built on
Before the show there were 57 issues of the newsletter, built on the same editorial spine. It carries straight through.
What ships each week
Wednesday, the livestream. Watch the conversation happen and ask questions live. The recording is shared until the episode is released; the episode is the record.
Friday, the episode. The show, edited, on YouTube, Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Pocket Casts.
Sunday, the newsletter. One signal, one subtraction, one analogy. Readable in five minutes, no video required, on the canonical site, Substack, and LinkedIn. It points to the episode but stands on its own.
The format
Every voice brings one signal worth watching and one subtraction worth making. Host Sam Rogers and a rotating cohost each bring their own; guests join as episodes book and bring a third. The host closes by connecting the argument across the conversation.
Editorial. Precise about what matters. Ruthless about what does not. Guests are practitioners who have shipped something into production and seen it break.
The method
A signal is something you are tracking right now: specific, recent, first-person. A subtraction is something you have decided to stop, kill, or refuse to engage with. Naming both, every week, is the whole discipline.
Find your own with the same method cohosts and guests use, or read the top 20 pairs from a year of practice.
For
Founders, operators, implementors, integrators, and AI buyers navigating a market that moves faster than they can read about it.
Host and cohosts
Sam Rogers hosts. Sam also founded PAICE.work and Snap Synapse.
Rotating cohosts: Lee Rodrigues (R&P Associates); JD Dillon (LearnGeek), who joined the rotation in August 2026; and Markus Bernhardt (Endeavor Intelligence), confirmed with no first episode booked yet. Additional cohosts are announced as the roster locks. Meet the cohosts.
Sponsor a segment
No paid sponsor has signed yet. Some episodes use a short unpaid placeholder segment; others omit it. How sponsoring works, or write to sponsors@sigsub.show.