Adam Kinney

About

I've spent 25+ years in the middle of major technology shifts. Not the slide deck version — the part where you actually have to make it work.

Across roles at Microsoft and Stripe, I built platforms that are still running: Microsoft Learn, Stripe Docs. Developer experience, documentation, operating models — the kind that keep working after the team that built them has moved on. The pattern is always the same: big strategy meets messy reality, and someone has to close the gap.

That's always been the work.

Right now, that gap is AI. And — turns out — it's also worldbuilding, wearables, and tabletop campaigns. Same instinct, more surfaces.

What I'm building

Obaron — AI automation practice for SMBs and founders. The gap between "Claude exists" and "Claude is handling your intake and content work" is the whole job. That gap is what we close. Concierge service + scanner tools. First installs underway.

Cocoajam — the AI-native TTRPG platform. The DM and the Players stay the authors; Cocoajam runs the bookkeeping. Big Tech product-design rigor applied to tabletop. Encounter Manager in private beta.

A fantasy series — magic system grounded in pseudo-physics (components + speech + will), three villain archetypes, three protagonists orbiting at different social layers. Art books and a web series planned.

What else I make

Generative art that looks illustrated. Candid photographs of things most people walk past. Clothes designed from my own photos and illustrations. Short videos about absurd everyday observations.

The Flash and Silverlight kid never went away. AI gave that hybrid designer-engineer identity a second act.

Greatest Hits

The pattern: platform work. Not features — the layer that features run on. The platforms now just include worlds and wardrobes.

Let's Talk

If you're the one who has to make the AI strategy actually work — or you run a TTRPG group and want tools that take it as seriously as you do, or you want to trade workflows — reach out.