For new CTOs & inherited systems

"I'm the new CTO. What did I inherit?"

A defensible read of the system you just inherited — code, commits, tickets, roadmaps, ownership, data. It surfaces what's actually true about your stack before your first board meeting.

Get a Read → Two weeks · Fixed price · Read-only · No engineering meetings

One conversation. No pitch deck. We'll tell you if we can't help.

Why now

You have ninety days. You haven't met the engineers yet.

The 90-day window is real. The board expects a read. You inherited the diagrams and the team chart, but the system isn't in either of those. The questions that determine whether you keep, modernize or rebuild the stack don't have evidence behind them yet.

Each of these is a board-confidence problem if you can't answer it, and a credibility problem if you answer wrong. Independent codebase intelligence answers them on the 90-day clock.

What the read covers

Six dimensions of what you just inherited.

01

Decision Archaeology

The discipline behind the read. Code, commits, tickets, PRDs, roadmaps, ownership, tests and data — correlated together, over time. The output is the sequence of decisions that shaped the system — including the ones your predecessor never told you about.

02

Inherited Architecture & Domain Map

The system you actually have, mapped to your business domains and features — not the architecture diagram in the handover, and not the repo tree. The picture you can take to the board on day sixty.

03

Knowledge Concentration & Hero Problem

Who actually maintains the critical systems, by commit — not by org chart. Where the hero problem lives. The map of key person risk and what breaks the day they walk out. The signal your retention plan needs.

04

Tech Debt & Velocity Tax

Technical debt quantification by domain, in dollars and time. The velocity tax you're paying every quarter. Not "high" or "moderate" — a defensible number you can show the board and the CFO.

05

Roadmap Drift & Capability Alignment

What the board approved twelve months ago versus what was actually built. Where your team and the plan align — and where they don't. The capability gap you'll need to close, fund or hire against.

06

AI Footprint & Compliance Surface

Which models run where, on what data, making which decisions. EU AI Act exposure, SOC 2 and GDPR gaps surfaced from the code itself — not from a compliance questionnaire your predecessor filled out.

Timeline

Two weeks. Board-ready by week two.

Week 0 · Connect

Read-only access

Read-only access to your codebase, commits, tickets, roadmaps and ownership signals. One 30-minute call. Your team keeps shipping.

Week 1 · Read

Precision, correlation, business decomposition

Deterministic static analysis surfaces what's there. Multi-source temporal correlation ties it together. Every finding maps to your domains and features.

Week 2 · Deliver

Signed read + intelligence layer

The signed Five Stories for your board meeting. The continuous intelligence layer live in your stack, ready for the next question without another engagement.

What you receive

The Five Stories. Plus the intelligence layer.

Each story is a decision you can act on, and a question your board can ask. The intelligence layer is what stays live afterwards.

01 · Architecture Story

What you actually inherited vs. what was in the handover.

02 · Knowledge Story

Who knows what. Where the hero problem lives. What breaks if they leave.

03 · Risk Story

Technical debt quantified, ranked, mapped to your business domains.

04 · Velocity Story

Is engineering time going to the roadmap — or to maintenance nobody approved?

05 · Investment Story

Is the strategic plan being executed — or is investment drifting somewhere nobody decided?

Plus: executive briefing, risk map, key person risk map, architecture dependency view, AI footprint, strategic options. And the continuous intelligence layer that stays live across your stack — in your reporting, in your developers' IDEs, in your PM tools, via MCP to your LLM.

Who this is for

The CTO who walked in three weeks ago.

New CTO, first 90 days

You inherited a system, a team and a roadmap from someone else. The board is waiting for your read. You'd rather bring evidence than impressions.

CTO after a re-org

You took over a new domain after a reshuffle. The handover was an hour and a Notion doc. You need to know what's actually in there before the next product review.

CTO inheriting an acquisition

Your company acquired something. The CTO of the acquired company is gone or going. You need a read on what got merged in — before the integration plan calcifies on assumption.

What we lead with

We lead with the read. Independent. Defensible. Yours. We deliver the map. Whether we ride along comes next.

What you do with the read is your call. If you want a partner on modernization, capability planning or what to build next — that's a different conversation, and we can have it. The independence of the read stays intact regardless.

Walk into your first board meeting with a read.

Two weeks. Fixed price. Read-only. No meetings with your team. One conversation to start — we'll tell you if we can't help.

Get a Read

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