Product Insights for Emerging Technology

20 years in emerging tech — ex-Head of Product at Palantir, now founder of two ventures.

At Common Sense, we’re building modern agentic AI systems for local government — 100x increases in productivity across critical workflows that simplify civil service and delight citizens.

At First Principles, we help emerging tech companies generate massive value, ship faster, align teams, and unlock product-market fit or hypergrowth — through fractional product leadership and expert product coaching.

Whether it serves 10,000 users or 10 million residents, the system has to work — and keep working.

Sound like I can help you? Get in touch:

adam@firstprinciples.la or adam@commonsensetech.ai

Adam Judelson

A city once invited us in for an in-person working session.

We aligned the agenda, booked the flights, and landed.

Minutes before the meeting while we prepared in a nearby coffee shop, they cancelled due to an emergency.

Most teams would have stepped back and waited for a new date.

We didn’t.

We went to the building anyway, stood in the lobby, and said, “We’re here. We know the timing shifted. We’ll stay as long as you need.” Turns out, the opportunity to get ahead outweighed the crisis.

This should be the bare minimum when working with public institutions.

Show up. Make it easy. Remove friction. Respect their time.

The difference between us and the incumbents is simple. 

We want to have a conversation. 

We want to understand the work. 

We want to sit with the people responsible for keeping the city running.

And we believe that if the government is going to get faster and more effective, it starts with partners who are willing to be in the room, see the real constraints, and prove what they can do.

Building Common Sense (govtech) | Founder, First Principles | Product Insights for Emerging Tech | Ex-Palantir | 4x Venture-Backed Exec

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I just finished one of the most talked-about books in government right now, “Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future,” and it made me rethink something we see every day inside cities.

Wang’s core argument is that China became an engineering state, one that builds at speed and scale, while America became a lawyerly society that regulates, litigates, and creates veto points that block building.

The American “lawyerly” model has crucial advantages in protecting individual rights, constraining state overreach, and fostering a flexible, innovative society, even though it often slows physical building. He sees these legal and institutional strengths as exactly what China most needs to import, just as the U.S. should import some of China’s engineering spirit.

Local government sits right at the collision point of these two mindsets – cities need to build (housing, infrastructure, services) but operate inside a thicket of legal constraints and procedural requirements.

Most of the people I meet in government, across agencies, roles, and floors, genuinely care. They want things to work. They want residents to feel the difference.

Both types of thinking and action are crucial to progress, and the lack of understanding from these opposite optics causes the work to drag on, because every decision becomes defensive or about optics instead of outcomes.

Individuals start protecting themselves instead of the mission.

Wang’s point isn’t just about internal dysfunction – it’s about what happens when a society only optimizes for preventing bad outcomes rather than producing good ones. Local government has become very good at avoiding mistakes and needs work building things and taking bold, calculated risks. 

The question is whether we can recover some of that engineering ethos without losing the legal protections that matter to the world’s most important democratic republic.

Every city leader I meet wants faster service delivery with AI. And increasingly, the teams running those services want to deliver it.

But there’s a gap between enthusiasm and implementation.

The same AI doomerism questions come up in almost every conversation: “What if the AI makes a mistake?” “What if the AI misses something?” “What if the work or answer is incomplete?”

These are the right questions to ask. Public sector teams are accountable to their communities in ways that private companies aren’t, with a litigious public ready to pounce on mistakes. Every strong AI company must be able to explain how accuracy and quality are measured, for sure.

But it’s also worth asking: what’s the error rate in your current workflow? How much work is left entirely undone right now? How long are people waiting for answers or approvals under the status quo?

Because in most cases, the baseline isn’t perfection. It’s human staff working through hundreds of repetitive tasks under time pressure, applying convoluted legal frameworks, with inconsistent results.

The challenge isn’t that teams are being too careful. It’s that we’re measuring AI against an impossible standard while accepting a much higher error rate and set of delays from manual processes.

Government operations are excellent at managing long-tail risk.

But managing opportunity requires a different muscle to be flexed, one that involves controlled testing rather than comprehensive policy first.

AI won’t move in the public sector through white papers or policies alone. It will move through small, measured pilots that prove value in real-world conditions.

Karla Jo Helms ★

Chief Evangelist & Anti-PR Strategist… A Results-Ravenous Renegade: Master of Disruption!

As a business owner, I know every dollar must work hard for my company and I share the frustration of our clients that PR needs to be redefined.  The PR industry has lost touch with way too much ‘smoke and mirrors’ and not enough results.  

Coming from the Crisis Management side of the world, where time isn’t a luxury, I’ve made it my mission to change the standard and revolutionize how PR is perceived with a measurable ROI. 

We give every client the kind of results and exposure not waiting for one or two stories in six months OR some scandal to pull out all the stops to get you the press and continual coverage you need. 

Imagine: 

🔊 Amplifying your exposure for massive brand visibility that hits more of your core audience and penetrates whole new markets
🚀 Building awareness, credibility and continuous forward momentum for your organization, campaigns and new product and service launches
📈 Doubling your website traffic, leads and contacts while exceeding all of your performance sales expectations

Are you finally ready to achieve your goals and get the type of tremendous results that 10-100X your ROI?

Then it’s time to hire a team of “Anti-PR” experts that serve your needs, represent your company with the highest professional standards and match your fast-paced, no-nonsense business approach.

As your partner, we can effortlessly guide you through new initiatives, propel your organization into the national spotlight and make it easy for people to know, seek and find you.  

At JOTO PR, we know how to: 

✅ exponentially increase your media exposure so you’re quickly and regularly being requested for interviews, 
✅ garner priceless publicity from a steady stream of media stories in the most trusted outlets in your industry and 
✅ do it all in a fast, fun and hyper-focused way that keeps your team energized and engaged from beginning to end

🔑 The key to growth, routinely getting a positive return on your ROI and achieving your highest ever income in today’s faster-than-you-can-blink social media-driven world is TRUST.

If you’re tired of BIG PROMISES and SMALL RESULTS, then let my team create and implement a creative “anti“ public relations campaign that builds your brand, makes you the authority and pushes your organization past the finish line.

Replace your sales and marketing pains with a proven new approach with:

👍 Fast turnaround times
👍 Outstanding quality service
👍 So many additional opportunities you’ll lose count

Visit jotopr.com or message me today and let’s get started!

Karla Jo Helms | ☎ (888) 202-4614 | ✉ info@jotopr.com 


Founder & CEO 

Karla Jo Helms is the CEO and visionary behind JoTo PR.  She cut her teeth in PR via crisis management, working with litigation attorneys, private investigators and the media to help restore companies of goodwill back into the good graces of public opinion. Karla Jo learned firsthand how brutal business could be when there were millions of dollars to be had—and how to navigate those treacherous waters via control of public opinion. Since then, Karla Jo has patterned her agency on a combination of her hard-won public relations experience, uncompromising high standards and exacting nationwide market research across multiple industries. She’s a hands-on executive who hand-picks the PR professionals who work on her team, to ensure that client results always meet client expectations. Helms speaks globally on public relations and how corporations can harness it to drive markets.

Connect with Helms: kj@jotopr.com

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