Six years ago, I accepted a seat in a grand symphony orchestra—a leading Nordic technology company. My goal was clear: to understand how a large enterprise truly works from the inside. I wanted to learn the music of a major corporation; the complex processes, the internal dynamics, and the sheer scale of its operations.

And I learned more than I could have ever imagined. I met incredibly talented and dedicated people, navigated reorganizations, mergers, and shifting strategies. But over time, a tension grew within me. The orchestra was designed to perform a known piece of music flawlessly. But the world outside was changing its tune at an accelerating pace.

A New Instrument Changes Everything

Then, in November 2022, I watched the live launch of ChatGPT, and my professional world exploded. It was like a classical pianist trying a synthesizer for the first time. Suddenly, the musical possibilities felt infinite.

Like musicians in the 80s discovering the synthesizer, I dove headfirst into the new instrument. Evenings and weekends became intense jam sessions. I used language models to improvise code for product ideas, debate complex strategies, build automated data analyses, and integrate AI into workflows. It was a steep, but euphoric, learning curve.

Since 2022, the "synthesizer" hasn't just gotten better; an entire ecosystem has emerged around it. The tools are now available to build a complete digital production studio.

The Jazz Musician's Dilemma

Even before 2022, I had increasingly felt like a jazz musician in a symphony orchestra. Where I wanted to improvise, the strategy was to play the notes exactly as they appeared on the sheet music. That is how an orchestra succeeds. But with this new, powerful instrument in my hands, the dissonance became too loud to ignore. Was it time to go solo? To write and produce my own music?

This personal dilemma mirrors a universal business challenge. To understand it, I began mapping out the different "sounds" a company can have. This evolved into The X-Up Framework™—a diagnostic model that helps leaders identify which "mode" they are in, from the improvisational "Start-Up" Jazz Trio to the stable "Keep-Up" Symphony Orchestra. It's a map for applying the right strategy at the right time.

A Time for Idea People

The timing for this shift feels perfect. As OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman wrote in his article A Gentle Singularity, this is a golden age for "the idea people."

“For a long time, technical people in the startup industry have made fun of “the idea guys”; people who had an idea and were looking for a team to build it. It now looks to me like they are about to have their day in the sun.”

I have always been that "idea guy." Now, I am stepping into the sun to try my hand as a one-man-band, in the process of building my own digital production studio to create my own music.

Through SoundOf.Business, I will share these ideas, frameworks, and experiments. The X-Up Framework™ is my first contribution—a tool to help you understand the sound of your own business, so you can decide what music you want to create.

My full journey and the philosophy that led to SoundOf.Business can be found on my About page.

This was the first note. I hope it resonates.