---
title: "Rick Blalock | Infrastructure, agents, products, and freedom"
description: "Rick Blalock, founder of The Agent Company. Writing about agents, products, freedom, and what happens when small teams gain more leverage."
canonical: "https://www.rickblalock.dev/"
---

# Rick Blalock

> I keep coming back to infrastructure: the technical kind, the organizational kind, and the kind a country depends on.

Rick Blalock is the founder of The Agent Company (agentcompany.com). He writes about agents, products, freedom, and what happens when small teams gain more leverage.

## Work
- [The Agent Company](https://agentcompany.com): founder; American Build Intelligence for Small Business
- [Introducing The Agent Company](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzm-HFWw6lk): American Build Intelligence for Small Business, announced Sep 2026

## On tape

- RB·01 The Agent Company: American Build Intelligence for Small Business. [Visit agentcompany.com](https://agentcompany.com) · [Watch the announcement](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzm-HFWw6lk) · [Trailer](https://www.rickblalock.dev/assets/tapes/agent-company.mp4)
- RB·02 Coding agents ate the world: A talk at AI Engineer Miami on coding agents as the foundation other agents are built on. [Watch the talk](https://youtu.be/DeM_u2Ik0sk?t=7473) · [Trailer](https://www.rickblalock.dev/assets/tapes/coding-agents.mp4)
- RB·03 ICES Paper — Fish & Wind: Research on recreational fishing and offshore wind development, ICES Journal of Marine Science. [Read the paper](https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/advance-article/doi/10.1093/icesjms/fsad154/7293717) · [Trailer](https://www.rickblalock.dev/assets/tapes/ices-paper.mp4)
- RB·04 NASA app: Winner and international honorable mention, NASA Space Apps Challenge 2013. [Watch the demo](https://vimeo.com/64515087) · [Trailer](https://www.rickblalock.dev/assets/tapes/nasa-app.mp4)
- RB·05 Apollo Software Library: Apollo-era software recreated from NASA documents, starting with the MSC view program. [Open the app](https://apollo-software-library.vercel.app/) · [Read the note](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/rebuilding-apollos-view-program/) · [Trailer](https://www.rickblalock.dev/assets/tapes/apollo-library.mp4)
- RB·06 Omarchy Replay: Find things you saw on your screen with a locally searchable visual history. [GitHub](https://github.com/rblalock/omarchy-replay) · [Trailer](https://www.rickblalock.dev/assets/tapes/omarchy-replay.mp4)
- RB·07 Omarchy Island: A morphing bar widget for desktop controls and ongoing activity. [GitHub](https://github.com/rblalock/omarchy-dynamic-island) · [Trailer](https://www.rickblalock.dev/assets/tapes/omarchy-island.mp4)
- RB·08 Omakase Agent: The chef’s standard for AI agent work. One skill, twelve rules, zero slop. [Website](https://omakaseagent.com/) · [Trailer](https://www.rickblalock.dev/assets/tapes/omakase-agent.mp4)

## Experiments

- Omakase Agent: The chef’s standard for AI agent work. One skill, twelve rules, zero slop. [Website](https://omakaseagent.com/)
- Omarchy Replay: Find things you saw on your screen with a locally searchable visual history. [GitHub](https://github.com/rblalock/omarchy-replay)
- HEY Mail Client: An independent HEY desktop client with mail, calendar, and AI helpers. [GitHub](https://github.com/rblalock/hey-mail-client)
- Omarchy Island: A morphing bar widget for desktop controls and ongoing activity. [GitHub](https://github.com/rblalock/omarchy-dynamic-island)
- Panel Notes: Markdown notes and named tabs attached to any app window in Omarchy. [GitHub](https://github.com/rblalock/omarchy-panel-notes)
- Grid Wallpaper Picker: Browse and pick Omarchy themes and wallpapers in a visual grid. [GitHub](https://github.com/rblalock/omarchy-grid-wallpaper-picker)
- Jupiter Lighthouse: Two coastal Omarchy themes with original lighthouse watercolor wallpapers. [Light](https://github.com/rblalock/omarchy-jupiter-lighthouse-light-theme) · [Dark](https://github.com/rblalock/omarchy-jupiter-lighthouse-dark-theme)
- Apollo Software Library: Apollo-era software recreated from NASA documents, starting with the MSC view program. [App](https://apollo-software-library.vercel.app/) · [Article](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/rebuilding-apollos-view-program/)

## Scratch Notes

- [Scratch Notes](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/): working ideas on agents, products, freedom, and the systems that give small teams more leverage
- [They didn’t tell the lawyers it was AI](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/they-didnt-tell-the-lawyers-it-was-ai/): Would you send this to a client? That's all the product validation needed.
- [You can change the engine](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/you-can-change-the-engine/): Waiting for a better AI model can postpone the learning that would make it useful.
- [Rebuilding Apollo's view program](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/rebuilding-apollos-view-program/): I had an agent rebuild the NASA program that drew what Apollo crews would see, working from the documents and pictures it left behind.
- [Scale without consolidation](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/scale-without-consolidation/): Could AI help independent businesses work together with less overhead, without having to become one company?
- [Momentum opens doors](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/momentum-opens-doors/): Compounding momentum eventually crosses every finite threshold, a useful way to think about AI and startups.
- [A computer I can make my own](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/a-computer-i-can-make-my-own/): Omarchy and AI are making the computer customizations I used to put aside practical to build.
- [Lovable on the future of SaaS](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/lovable-on-the-future-of-saas/): Thoughts on Lovable's move toward applications agents can use, and what that could mean for small-business owners.
- [What is the agent’s work worth?](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/what-is-the-agents-work-worth/): An agent can save hours without finishing the whole job. Its value depends on what it contributes and what it leaves for a person to do.
- [Focus](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/focus/): The next hour on something already working may be worth more than the first hour on something new.
- [No one can show me how](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/no-one-can-show-me-how/): Small-business owners hear plenty about how AI could transform their companies. The better place to start is one real job they want gone.
- [Dogfooding is a friend and a liar](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/dogfooding-is-not-customer-discovery/): Using your own product can reveal where it breaks, but it cannot prove that customers understand it, need it, or will pay for it.
- [The computer should learn you](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/the-computer-should-learn-you/): A truly personal computer should remember how its owner works and reshape itself around them.
- [The owner is the reasoning layer, for better or worse](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/the-owner-is-the-reasoning-layer/): Most small businesses already have a system of reasoning. It is the owner.
- [An agentic company is not a company with only agents](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/an-agentic-company-is-not-a-company-with-agents/): An agentic company starts with the work, then brings together human judgment, agent capability, and shared context around it.
- [The company that remembers](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/the-company-that-remembers/): A small business should not have to become a bureaucracy to retain and reuse what its people learn.
- [Every job should make the company better](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/every-job-should-make-the-company-better/): An agentic company should not only finish the work. It should become more capable because the work happened.
- [Freedom is built](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/freedom-is-built/): Technical, business, and national freedom all depend on having the tools and systems to shape your own future.
- [AI can help small businesses stay independent](https://www.rickblalock.dev/scratch-notes/ai-can-help-small-businesses-stay-independent/): AI could give independent small-business owners more of the operating leverage traditionally reserved for larger companies.

## Links
- [Schedule](https://cal.com/rblalock): book time
- [GitHub](https://github.com/rblalock)
- [X](https://x.com/rblalock)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickblalock/)

## For agents
- Full context: https://www.rickblalock.dev/llms-full.txt
- RSS feed: https://www.rickblalock.dev/feed.xml
- Contact Rick: use the contact form at https://www.rickblalock.dev/#access, or the public web3forms POST documented in llms-full.txt