# Sebastian

#entity #person

## Summary

Founder and owner of [[virtido]], a ~11-year software outsourcing/engineering company with enterprise clients. The interview subject in [[2026-07-06-sebastian-interview-ai-and-software-engineering]]. His vantage point is a services business with a client/compliance/sales lens, and he supplies the vault's most contrarian sales claim and its clearest enterprise-reality reporting.

## Current Understanding

Sebastian's signature positions:

- **"Bring-your-own-harness won't survive enterprise; connections win business."** Compliance and liability make per-developer AI setups impossible at scale → he frames compliant, company-managed harnesses as "the interesting market." See [[future-of-engineering-work]].
- **Online outreach is "Big zero"** — every real long-term Virtido customer came through personal, in-person network; sales agencies, cold calling, email, LinkedIn campaigns, content, and SEO produced nothing. This is the pole against the outbound taxonomy in [[client-acquisition-channels]]. See [[relationships-as-moat]].
- **Seniors up, juniors out; the senior's product is risk reduction.** See [[seniority-and-ai]].
- **Ownership and problem-framing are the durable skills** — "no one ever needed a programmer; people have problems you solve." See [[product-ownership]].
- **Decouple identity from profession.**

He runs 10–15 engineer teams on big programs and reports enterprise lockdown first-hand (managed VMs, no self-installed tools; a Roche SAP program of ~1,200 engineers; banks moving from banning AI to adopting it).

## Evidence

- Role, tenure, stances, and all quotes — [[2026-07-06-sebastian-interview-ai-and-software-engineering]]
- "From a compliance perspective… bring-your-own-harness will not be the way forward… it has to be a company-managed resource."
- "We tried sales agencies, cold calling, email marketing, LinkedIn campaigns, content, SEO. Zero. Big zero."

## Related Pages

- [[virtido]] — his company
- [[eugene]] — his interlocutor, who holds the opposite view on harnesses and channels
- [[relationships-as-moat]] · [[seniority-and-ai]] · [[product-ownership]] · [[future-of-engineering-work]] · [[client-acquisition-channels]]

## Contradictions / Uncertainty

- His "online = Big zero" is **one founder's experience in enterprise services** and directly contradicts [[2026-06-15-17-ways-first-client]] and [[2026-06-15-more-clients-dev-agency]], which treat online channels as live. Likely audience-dependent (enterprise vs SMB/startup), but unresolved — see [[client-acquisition-channels]].
- Surname/company spelling ("Virtido", `verti.com`) comes from a cleaned auto-transcript; treat as approximate.

## Next Questions

- Does the in-person-only rule hold outside large-enterprise buying, or is it specific to Virtido's ICP?
- What would a "compliant enterprise harness" product actually look like — is Sebastian building one, or only naming the gap?
