People Who Plan | Inside the Minds of Modern Operators

Ep. 16 | Brian Quinn & Daniel Spurlock, AE's @ Atomic

Buying AI-native software isn't like buying traditional SaaS — and treating it like it is is why a lot of rollouts stall. Atomic AEs Brian Quinn and Daniel Spurlock join co-founder Michael Rossiter to unpack what really happens when a company moves off spreadsheets: why the old flexibility-vs-precision tradeoff is disappearing, how growth quietly manufactures its own complexity, and the point where adding one more planner (and one more spreadsheet) simply stops working. If you plan, forecast, or run ops for a growing business, this one's about the decision behind the decision. Guests: Brian Quinn & Daniel Spurlock, Account Executives @ AtomicHost: Michael Rossiter, Co-Founder @ Atomic People Who Plan goes inside the minds of modern operators. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.

Ep. 15 | Billy Blaustein, Co-Founder & COO @ Vammo

What if the next wave of electrification isn't four wheels in California — but two wheels in São Paulo? In this episode of People Who Plan, Jeremy Pomp and Michael Rossiter reconnect with their former Tesla colleague Billy Blaustein, Co-Founder & COO of Vammo — now Latin America's largest electric-motorcycle and battery-swapping platform. From the Model 3 trenches to building on the ground in Brazil, Billy breaks down the operations story behind 5,000+ electric motorcycles, a million-plus battery swaps, and 700 swap stations doing 30,000 swaps in a single day. We get into why Brazil is the prime place to electrify a fleet (a 90% renewable grid, the cleanest of the G20), the CapEx-vs-OpEx math that makes electric cheaper for high-mileage riders, building a factory in the Amazon Free Trade Zone, and his thesis that the West is reading global electrification through the wrong lens.

Ep. 14 | Jesse Hartman, Sr. Data Scientist @ Atomic

Jesse Hartman took an unconventional road into data science — music theory, a stint running coffee shops in Austin, and a long-running coffee podcast before a boot camp landed him in supply chain. In this episode, Jeremy Pomp and Michael Rossiter dig into how that winding path shaped the way he thinks about operations, and what it actually means to be a "data scientist" in the age of AI.The conversation centers on how radically the work has changed. Jesse explains the difference between cognitive offloading (handing work to AI while staying firmly in the loop) and cognitive surrender (the trap of trusting it blindly), and why reviewing and approving code all day is its own kind of exhausting. He shares how tools like Claude Code have dissolved the old silos at Atomic — now he's shipping front-end fixes, and a customer feedback feature that once felt like weeks of work went live in about two hours.Along the way: managing the impossible economics of low-temp, non-homogenized milk at a coffee shop (you can't run out, but you can't overstock), why "the best fertilizer is the gardener's footsteps," and the throughline that ties it all together — AI hasn't changed the fundamentals of good operations, it's just exposed where planning is weak. As Jeremy puts it, the hard part was never doing more; it's making things simple.Plugs: Jesse's music on SoundCloud (EP in the works) https://hartman.coffee/music/ and thecoffeepodcast.com.

Ep. 13 | Sean Agatep, Co-Founder @ Vincero Collective

Ep. 13 | Sean Agatep, Co-Founder @ Vincero CollectiveChapters 00:00 — Welcome and origin story: Gonzaga, China, and five years in Guangzhou02:00 — Launching Vincero on Kickstarter with Italian marble watches04:00 — Twelve years in: building a brand around sentimentality06:00 — The gifting business: 40% of sales in Q4 and the cost of missing08:00 — The 2022 down year and the shift to disciplined operating10:00 — Engraving at scale and the discipline of doing less13:00 — Rebuilding the org chart by going senior offshore15:00 — Why hybrid only works with 30+ people in one city20:00 — High agency, AI, and outputs over presence22:00 — Three co-founders, lifelong friends, and built-in checks and balances25:00 — "Just fucking use it": Vincero's stance on AI adoption27:00 — Connecting tools to AI and adjusting prompts in real time

Ep. 12 | Andy Hicks, Chief Transformation Officer @ Driven Distribution Group

Andy Hicks is Chief Transformation Officer at Driven Distribution Group, and he has spent his career inside an industry where the customer expectation is one hour from order to part in hand — up there with blood logistics for pure speed pressure. The conversation moves through the three forces reshaping automotive parts distribution: SKU proliferation (Ford used to make two starter motors; now it's 1,800 SKUs), tariffs that flipped from a constant to a variable and forced sourcing pivots from China to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia, and the rise of AI-enabled platforms like Parts Tech and Nextpart that are reshaping how distributors price and stock. Andy also gets into Chinese New Year planning (the real shutdown is four weeks down plus a 50/75/100 ramp), his people-process-systems approach with IT pulled in early, and why scenario planning only works when finance is in the room before the PO button gets hit. Topics Covered:- The one-hour delivery expectation in automotive parts distribution- SKU proliferation: from 2 Ford starter motors to 1,800- Tariffs as a variable, not a constant — and the 40% "Made in Vietnam" rule- AI platforms reshaping cross-distributor pricing and stocking decisions- Chinese New Year: the real four-week shutdown plus 50/75/100 ramp- People-process-systems, with IT brought in early- Scenario planning that survives contact with the 13-week cash flow