A working method
Human behavior for framing, governing production, preserving independent signal, exposing review-relevant state, inspecting evidence, deciding reliance, directing the next interval, and retaining useful judgment.
The installation
One partner’s team. One complete capability.
re:compound installs the full Produce → Expose → Review → Rely → Compound discipline in one senior partner and the people whose work they sign, a pair at minimum and often a whole deal or matter team, on live work, inside the firm’s approved AI environment.
Ten weeks later, the team runs it without re:compound hand-holding.
10 weeks one complete transfer
1 team a partner and the people whose work they sign, a pair at minimum
Fixed fee scoped after fit; if the ten weeks slip, the fee doesn’t
01 · The unit and the promise
A narrow cell with a whole operating loop.
The installation begins where the work is real: one accountable senior reviewer, one producer who brings consequential work forward, and the two AI workspaces they already use.
ProducerHuman governorProduction workspace + AI
Artifact · State · evidence · human gate
Senior reviewerReliance ownerReview workspace + AI
At many firms, an associate and a partner. The roles are functional; one person can hold both.
Installed means independent use.
The team can invoke and run the full machinery under real work conditions without Bud or Elissa prompting, translating, or stewarding it.
- Producer-side and reviewer-side model assets are both standard.
- The installation runs on live deadlines and profession-native work.
- The configured assets remain with the organization.
- The team continues to improve through practice.
What this first installation does not claim
It does not, by itself, create a firm-wide faculty for onboarding new reviewers or an institutional memory layer across pairs. One pair is a complete operating unit and a valid starting cell for later extension. Extension is additional work, not an automatic consequence of the first installation. In practice, the second installation at a firm has most often been the same partner’s other direct reports, and then other partners.
02 · What gets installed
Behavior, model machinery, and the shared surface between them.
No one layer is the capability. The method becomes reliable when trained humans, role-local model assets, and practiced professional surfaces support one another under pressure.
Model-side operating assets
Versioned, plain-language, text-based executables, model instructions rather than software, fitted to producer-side work, reviewer-side work, the firm’s language, professional standards, approved tools, and review gates.
Shared surfaces and habit
The trained use of the State of the Work, native evidence handles, the reviewer-side Partner Attention Brief, the reliance decision and direction, and pair-level carry-forward.
The assets remain. The capability lives in the pair’s practiced ability to use them.
03 · Fit around live work
Keep the professional system. Change how it runs.
The installation does not ask the firm to adopt a new work product, abandon profession-native gates, or move sensitive work into a re:compound application.
- Client, deal, case, or advisory work
- Profession-native artifacts
- Existing review gates and cadence
- Human accountability
- Approved AI environment
- Specialist systems and evidence sources
- Framing and inquiry steering
- Evidence standards and branch treatment
- When an artifact is committed
- The State that crosses with the work
- Where senior attention lands
- Reliance, direction, and carry-forward
Technology fit
Inside the AI environment the firm already approves.
There is no re:compound application, API, database, or new data path through re:compound. The operating assets are plain text configured inside the organization’s existing approved environment. Ordinary firm security, retention, legal-hold, and conduct controls continue to apply.
04 · The ten-week arc
Founder support falls. Team ownership rises.
The intervention is an operating transfer, not a curriculum completed beside the work.
Observe the real system
Map the work, gates, tools, language, failure modes, current reviewer and producer habits, and the actual pressures that make a paper process fail.
Configure and co-run
Fit both model workspaces, train the human moves, and run the complete loop on live work while the founders coach inside the moments that matter.
Transfer and withdraw
The team carries progressively more of the operating load. Founder intervention falls until the team can invoke and run the machinery independently.
Founder supportTeam ownership
05 · Real work and rhythm
The installation happens inside the work.
A live deadline, imperfect evidence, real reviewer priors, and a consequential decision are not complications. They are the conditions under which the capability must survive.
Expect roughly one to two hours of structured instruction each week. Most of the installation occurs in ordinary production and review: the exact places where reconstruction, hidden rework, and premature closure currently consume time.
“A junior is signed off only when they can run it without supervision. Week ten is not a new standard to me.”
Elissa Stewart
06 · Success and the record
Success is a team that can run the machinery alone.
The acceptance test is not attendance, the existence of a State of the Work, or continued dependence on re:compound. It is independent, phase-appropriate operation under real conditions.
11organizations started
9installations completed
9 of 9led to the next installation
2currently in flight
As of September 2026. Every completed installation has led to the next: first to the rest of the partner’s own team, then to other partners at the same firm.
The team continues to get better after the ten weeks, as the operating conditions and review relationship are reinforced through use.
- Production preserves review-relevant state rather than reconstructing it after the artifact is finished.
- The producer reads, corrects, and certifies the State that crosses.
- The reviewer preserves an independent first signal before the AI-prepared synthesis.
- Review opens native evidence where the reliance decision requires it.
- The producer can explain, reconstruct, distinguish, and update the load-bearing work live.
- Reliance, conditions, direction, and the next gate are explicit.
- A useful distinction changes the team’s next interval.
- The team continues without the founders.
07 · Practical answers
The questions that remain after the offer is clear.
Is this extra process?+
No. The State of the Work isn’t written after the work. It’s a second cut of the same work, made at the same moment as the memo, by the AI that was present for the making, then corrected and certified by the producer. The partner’s attention goes to the marks instead of to hunting a polished document for a snag. It’s where the hour goes, not an extra hour.
We already use Harvey, or another AI tool. Does this replace it?+
No. Keep it. The tools make the work faster; re:compound governs how the work made with them is produced, reviewed, and relied on. The operating assets are plain text configured inside the AI environment you already approve.
What happens when a producer marks a claim “not yet verified”?+
That’s the system working. A marked uncertainty is professional state, not a confession, and it isn’t treated as evidence about the producer’s performance. If it were, producers would rationally sanitize the State and review would become theater. The partner decides whether to verify, question, teach, or rely conditionally.
What does it cost?+
A fixed fee a single team can fund, scoped after the fit conversation around the team, the live work, the approved environment, and the professional setting. If the ten weeks slip, the fee doesn’t. No subscription, no recurring software charge.
Is this software?+
No. re:compound installs human behavior, text-based model operating assets, and shared professional surfaces inside the firm’s existing approved AI environment.
Does IT or security need to review anything?+
There is no new re:compound application, API, database, or data path. The firm decides what internal review its policies require for the plain-text assets and their use inside existing systems.
Does re:compound see confidential client or deal work?+
The founders work with the team during the installation and may encounter live work to the extent the client authorizes. The exact handling model is agreed before the installation. The operating system itself remains inside the client’s environment.
Can a producer game the State of the Work?+
The State is producer-corrected but not self-authenticating. Claim-level ownership is tested live, material claims link to native evidence, and the reviewer-side inquiry can inspect outside the producer-curated map when warranted.
Is this a fraud, compliance, safety, or monitoring system?+
No. The method governs honest fallibility in consequential knowledge work. Fraud, misconduct, audit rights, information security, employment policy, and ordinary supervision remain ordinary institutional responsibilities.
Can we speak to a client?+
References are handled selectively and with permission, once there is a credible fit and a concrete team under consideration.
Who delivers the work?+
Bud Bhattacharyya and Elissa Stewart personally deliver every installation.
What happens to the assets afterward?+
The configured operating assets remain available to the organization under the agreed license. The team is expected to continue without re:compound stewardship.
A practical first step
Thirty minutes about the next piece of work you’ll have to sign.
Who’s bringing it, when, and whether that’s the team to start with. No deck, no demo, nothing to prepare.