Tom Pierce
President, Integrated Information Systems Incorporated · 1 appearance on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
16statements → 2claims → 1claims resolved → 3.75/5average certainty → 2.25/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated →
1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
2 assertions · 4 opinions · 9 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Tom argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Tom Pierce: US Army Modeled Middle East Desert War Logistics in 1980s
“And the people behind the cyber lock, no window door right across the hallway from me, we're working on this ridiculous scenario of how are we, how could the U S army provide ammunition to troops in a desert war? Desert War, 1980, what are you talking about? W…”
How they sound: not measured why? →
We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Tom Pierce on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
Everything Tom Pierce said on We Live to Build that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Tom Pierce: Defense Department Service Is as Noble as Pastoral Ministry
“So, in many ways, I felt like that my service to the United States Department of Defense Was just as much a noble calling as my effort to minister to church members and communities through pastoral care and scripture.”
Tom Pierce: "Just Doing My Job" Is an Invalid Excuse in Tech
“You know, the excuse of I was just doing my job really doesn't fly in any of those roles. You're always making decisions of whether or not to continue to support whatever endeavor you're a part of. And it always takes courage to walk away and say, I'm not goin…”
Tom Pierce: Healthcare and Defense Software Prioritize Compliance Over User Experience
“And I think the healthcare industry is kind of parallel to the defense industry and how unbelievably bureaucratic, regulated, and, you know, how the compliance dictates the behavior of the software to such a degree that you end up Being punitive, being an obst…”
Pierce: Increased human data filtering multiplies opportunities for deception
“The more human involvement that is necessary to filter and analyze data to make sure it's fit for consumption, the more you've opened the opportunity for human deception, because all of us humans have parts of us that are less than a hundred percent pure.”
Pierce: 1980s military simulation concepts bore fruit in First Gulf War
“Many of the concepts that I was part of, I was involved in those discussions certainly seemed to have borne fruit in, in the way the conduct of the First Gulf War went. The logistics were really quite amazing, the way they played out.”
Pierce: High trust in command structure relieves contributors from needing full context
“If, to the degree that, You have trust and confidence in your entire command structure. You don't have to understand the whole picture of what your contribution is contributing to the war effort if you trust that the cause is good and being well, well conducte…”
Tom Pierce: Arrogant Software Engineers Act Like Top-Down Preachers
“Too many preachers and too many software engineers take the role of you sit and listen, I'll tell you what to do. I'm the smart guy in the room. I'm going to write the code. You know, you need to modify your business practices to conform with my computer model…”
Tom Pierce: I have walked away from military and defense contracting projects
“There is a point at which when you feel like that whatever the person you're trying to help wants to do is something you really can't support, then you back away. And I've done that even in uniform, and I've certainly done that as a defense contractor.”
Tom Pierce: Software Companies Fail By Emphasizing Rigid Planning Over Adaptive Preparation
“And you better have multiple contingency plans, and you end up emphasizing preparation more than planning, because you have to be prepared for the thing you don't see coming. And that's so applicable in the software industry, and I see so many software compani…”
Tom Pierce: Information Loses Fidelity and Trust Across Intermediate Transformation Layers
“No transformation of information is a hundred percent efficient either. Something is always lost in translation, and the more onion layers it goes through, From source to destination, the less trustworthy it becomes and the more painful it is to extract.”
Tom Pierce: 1980s Military Logistics Team Built the First Wireless Modem
“Early in the days of doing the ammunition programming, we were actually involved, we had a teammate That was developing a state of the art technology to encrypt and decrypt signals receiving transmitted over FM radio. And then we added in the wireless modem, t…”
Tom Pierce: Data Lakes Shift Data Filtering Burdens to Downstream Consumers
“The task of filtering the water to make it drinkable has been shifted away from the data collector, because he just put it in the data lake, drink at your own risk, and when you come, you know, dip your bucket into the well of the data lake, you need to make s…”
Tom Pierce: System Automation Incentivizes Workers to Ignore Broader Context
“It's like fragmenting responsibility and you, you're incentivizing people to not know. You're giving people incentive to stay in their lane and stay focused only on their task and the computer or the system or the organization is supposed to take care of every…”
Pierce: People want to do good work unless perverse incentives intervene
“If you don't misalign your incentives, I think pretty much everybody goes to work hoping to do a good job.
I think everybody wants to be good at what they do at some level, and they want to do something that is helpful to people until you impose all the perver…”
Tom Pierce: Software IP Boundaries Blur With Internet Code Borrowing
“And I think in some ways it's getting even slipper, slipperier as far as what are the boundary lines around what I wrote versus what I, what ideas I borrowed from things I've seen elsewhere or got off the internet.”
Tom Pierce: US Army Modeled Middle East Desert War Logistics in 1980s
“And the people behind the cyber lock, no window door right across the hallway from me, we're working on this ridiculous scenario of how are we, how could the U S army provide ammunition to troops in a desert war? Desert War, 1980, what are you talking about? W…”
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Everyone Else Gave Him Data. Tom Gave Them Something Different. | Aug 22, 2023 | 32m |