Terms

https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/terms
Last changed: 2026-11-14. Dates track content changes, not independent source checks.

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• 301 redirect

  Concept

  An instruction that sends visitors and search engines from an old web address to a new one…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• 409A valuation

  Concept

  An independent appraisal of what one share of a private company's common stock is worth.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• 501(c)(6)

  Concept

  A US tax-exempt category for business leagues, such as trade associations, chambers of commerce…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• 83(b) election

  Concept

  A notice sent to the US tax agency, the IRS, by a person who receives stock that vests over time.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Accelerator

  Concept

  A program with a fixed length that helps a group of early companies grow faster through coaching…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Access control

  Concept

  Rules about who can see or change what in a system.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Accounts receivable

  Concept

  Money customers owe you for work already delivered or goods already sold, but have not paid yet.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Accredited investor

  Concept

  A person or organization that meets tests set by the US securities regulator, the SEC, based on…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Ad exchange

  Concept

  The digital marketplace where ad space from sellers is auctioned to advertisers in real time.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Advisor shares

  Concept

  A small amount of equity a startup gives an advisor in return for ongoing help, usually as stock…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Affiliate marketing

  Concept

  Paying partners a commission when people they refer, usually through a special link, make a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• AFK

  Concept

  Short for away from keyboard.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Agent environment

  Concept

  Everything outside the agent's own software that it can look at or change: your files, terminal…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Agent loop

  Concept

  The repeating cycle that makes an AI agent work: the model decides on a step, calls a tool, reads…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Agent mode

  Concept

  A named setting in a coding agent that changes how freely it acts.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Agent skills

  Concept

  A packaged set of instructions, sometimes with scripts, that an agent loads when a task calls for…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Agent swarm

  Concept

  Many AI agents working on parts of a larger task at the same time, coordinated by software or by a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• AGENTS.md

  Concept

  A plain text file in a project that many coding agents read automatically at the start of every…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Aha moment

  Concept

  The point where a new user first feels the value of a product.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• AI

  Concept

  Artificial intelligence.

  Last changed: 2026-11-15

• AI addendum

  Concept

  An add-on to a software contract for a product that uses AI.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• AI agent

  Concept

  An AI tool that does more than answer a question.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• AI chat assistant

  Concept

  A finished app where a person types or talks to an AI model and gets replies in conversation.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• AI literacy

  Concept

  Enough understanding of AI to use it well and safely: what it is good and bad at, how to write a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• AI safety

  Concept

  The work of making AI systems behave safely and of measuring how safe they are.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• AI use policy

  Concept

  An organization's rules for which AI tools its people may use and what information they may put…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Alignment

  Concept

  Work to make AI models pursue what people actually intend and behave according to agreed values…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Alumni

  Concept

  The founders and companies that finished a program in the past.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• AMA

  Concept

  Short for 'ask me anything'.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Angel group

  Concept

  A group of angel investors who hear startup pitches together.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Angel investor

  Concept

  An individual who invests their own money in a very young company, usually in exchange for equity…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Answer engine optimization

  Concept

  Making your content easy for AI chat and AI search tools to find, understand and cite when they…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• API

  Concept

  Application programming interface.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• API contract

  Concept

  An agreement on exactly what requests an API accepts and what responses it returns.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• API key

  Concept

  A secret code that identifies your app to another service so that service will answer its API…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• APNG

  Concept

  Animated PNG.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Apple Silicon

  Concept

  Apple's own family of chips used in Mac computers and iPads.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Apprenticeship

  Concept

  A paid job that includes structured training, so a person learns a trade or skill while working…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• ARR

  Concept

  Annual recurring revenue.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Atomic Design

  Concept

  A method for building design systems from small pieces up: basic elements (atoms) combine into…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Attention

  Concept

  The part of a language model that decides, for each token, how much every other token in the input…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Attention budget

  Concept

  A way of picturing attention as a fixed amount each token can spread across everything else in the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Attention degradation

  Concept

  The drop in an agent's sharpness as a session gets long.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Attention relationship

  Concept

  The link between two tokens in the input, measured by how much one shapes the model's reading of…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Audio stem

  Concept

  One part of a song exported as its own audio file, such as only the drums or only the vocals, so…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Authentication

  Concept

  Checking that a person is who they say they are, usually with a login.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Autocompact

  Concept

  Compaction that the agent's software starts on its own when the context window is nearly full.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Automated check

  Concept

  A test or rule a computer runs to catch problems without a person looking, such as tests, type…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Automated review

  Concept

  Having an AI model read and critique work, usually code, before a person does.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• AX

  Concept

  Agent experience: how well a project is set up for an AI agent to do good work, with a clear…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• B2B / B2C

  Concept

  Who you sell to.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Back end

  Concept

  The part of an app that runs out of sight on a server.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Backlog

  Concept

  The running list of new abilities, fixes and ideas waiting to be worked on, usually in order of…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Backpropagation

  Concept

  The calculation that works out how much each weight in a neural network contributed to an error…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Backup

  Concept

  A copy of data kept so it can be recovered if the original is lost or damaged.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Beachhead market

  Concept

  A small, specific first market a startup aims to win completely before expanding to others.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Benchmark

  Concept

  A shared, public test used to score different models on the same tasks so they can be compared.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Beta

  Concept

  A version of the product released to a limited group of people so you can find problems before the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Bill of materials

  Concept

  A complete list of the parts, materials and quantities needed to build a product.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Bloom's Taxonomy

  Concept

  A framework from education that orders levels of learning from simpler to harder: remember…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Board of directors

  Concept

  The group that a corporation's shareholders elect to oversee the company.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Bookings

  Concept

  The total value of the contracts customers signed in a period.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Bootstrapping

  Concept

  Building a company with your own savings and the money customers pay you, instead of money from…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Brain drain

  Concept

  When skilled people leave a place for jobs elsewhere, so the place loses the talent it trained.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Branch

  Concept

  A separate line of work inside a repository.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Breadcrumb navigation

  Concept

  A short trail of links near the top of a page showing where it sits in a site, such as Home >…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Break-even

  Concept

  The point where the money coming in equals the money going out, so the business is no longer…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Bug

  Concept

  A mistake in software that makes it behave in a way nobody intended.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Burn rate

  Concept

  How fast your company is using up its cash, usually counted per month.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Business associate agreement

  Concept

  A contract that US health privacy law (HIPAA) requires before a clinic, health plan or other…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Business model

  Concept

  How your company makes money: who pays, what they pay for and how often.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Business process outsourcing

  Concept

  Hiring an outside firm to run a business function, such as customer support, billing or data entry.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Bylaws

  Concept

  The internal rules an organization, such as a nonprofit or corporation, adopts for how it is run…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• C-corp

  Concept

  C corporation.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• CAC

  Concept

  Customer acquisition cost.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Cache tokens

  Concept

  Input tokens the provider did not need to process again because they matched the start of a recent…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• CAD

  Concept

  Computer-aided design.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Call to action

  Concept

  The one next step a page, email or ad asks the reader to take, such as 'Book a demo' or 'Start…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Campaign budget optimization

  Concept

  An ad platform setting that shares one budget across several ad groups and moves money…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Cap table

  Concept

  Short for capitalization table.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Capital gains

  Concept

  The profit from selling an asset, such as stock or property, for more than it cost.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Cash flow

  Concept

  The timing of money coming into and going out of a business.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• CDFI

  Concept

  Short for community development financial institution.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• CDN

  Concept

  Content delivery network.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Chamber of commerce

  Concept

  A membership organization of businesses in one place or one community.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Change management

  Concept

  Planning and supporting the people side of a change, such as a new tool or process, so staff…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Chunking

  Concept

  Splitting long documents into smaller passages before creating embeddings, so a search can return…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Churn rate

  Concept

  The share of your customers who stop paying or stop using your product during a set period, such…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• CI/CD

  Concept

  Continuous integration and continuous delivery: automation that runs the tests on every change…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Civic tech

  Concept

  Technology built to serve the public good or improve how people interact with government, often by…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Clearing

  Concept

  Ending a session and starting a completely empty one.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Cliff

  Concept

  The first stretch of a vesting schedule, during which nothing vests.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Cloud

  Concept

  Computers and storage that you rent over the internet from a large provider, instead of owning the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Cloud provider

  Concept

  A company that rents out computing services, such as servers, storage and databases, over the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Cloud service agreement

  Concept

  A contract between a company that sells cloud software and a business that buys it.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Code

  Concept

  Exact written instructions that tell a computer what to do, step by step.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Code editor

  Concept

  The program a developer uses to read and write code.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Code of conduct

  Concept

  The written rules for how people in a community or at an event must treat each other, and what…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Code signing

  Concept

  Attaching a digital signature to software so computers and app stores can confirm who made it and…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Coding agent

  Concept

  An AI agent that writes and changes code.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Coding bootcamp

  Concept

  A short, intensive course that teaches people to write software, usually in months instead of the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Cohort

  Concept

  A group of founders or companies that go through a program together, on the same schedule.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Cold outreach

  Concept

  Contacting people who do not know you yet, by email, phone or message, to start a sales or…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Commission

  Concept

  Pay that is a share of the sales a person brings in, rather than, or on top of, a fixed salary.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Commit

  Concept

  One saved change in version control: a snapshot of the code with a short note saying what changed…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Compaction

  Concept

  Shrinking a long session by replacing its history with a summary and carrying on from that summary…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Compliance

  Concept

  Meeting the laws, regulations and standards that apply to a company.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Container

  Concept

  A package that holds an app together with everything it needs to run, so it behaves the same on a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Content management system

  Concept

  Software that lets people create and edit a website's content, such as pages, posts and images…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Context engineering

  Concept

  Deciding what information, instructions, examples and tools to put in front of an AI model for…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Context pointer

  Concept

  A short mention in one document that tells an agent where to find more, such as 'deployment steps…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Context window

  Concept

  How much text an LLM can take into account at one time.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Contextual knowledge

  Concept

  Facts the model can read directly in front of it right now, such as documents you pasted, files…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Continuing professional education

  Concept

  Ongoing training that licensed professionals, such as accountants, must complete each year to keep…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Contract amendment

  Concept

  A short signed document that changes, adds to or clarifies the terms of a contract already in…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Contractor vs employee

  Concept

  A contractor is an outside person or firm you pay for a defined piece of work, and they decide how…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Conversion rate optimization

  Concept

  Improving a website or app so a larger share of visitors take the action you want, such as signing…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Convertible note

  Concept

  A loan from an investor that is meant to turn into shares later instead of being paid back in cash.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Cosine similarity

  Concept

  A common way to measure how alike two vectors are by the angle between them.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Coworking space

  Concept

  A shared office where people from different companies rent a desk, a private office or a meeting…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• CPM

  Concept

  Cost per thousand impressions.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• CRM

  Concept

  Customer relationship management.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• CSS

  Concept

  Cascading Style Sheets.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• CTO

  Concept

  Chief technology officer.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Customer discovery

  Concept

  Talking with possible customers to learn about their problems before you build, so that you build…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Cyber liability insurance

  Concept

  Insurance that helps pay the costs of a data breach or cyberattack, such as investigation…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Dark factory

  Concept

  Part of a product where agents write and ship code that no person ever reviews.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Dashboard

  Concept

  A screen that shows the important numbers for a product or a business at a glance, usually as…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data center

  Concept

  A building that houses the computers, storage and network equipment that run online services…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data governance

  Concept

  The rules and responsibilities for how an organization's data is collected, stored, used and…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data integrity

  Concept

  Whether data stays accurate, complete and consistent over time.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data lineage

  Concept

  A record of where a piece of data came from and every step that changed it along the way.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data literacy

  Concept

  The ability to read, question and use data: knowing what a field or number actually means, where…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data management platform

  Concept

  Software that collects and organizes audience data, such as interests and past behavior, so…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data model

  Concept

  The plan for what information an app stores and how the pieces relate, such as customers, orders…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data normalization

  Concept

  Making records consistent so the same thing is always written the same way, and, in database…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data privacy

  Concept

  How a company collects, uses, stores and shares information about people.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data processing agreement

  Concept

  A contract that says how a service provider may handle personal data for its customer: what it may…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data room

  Concept

  An organized online folder of a company's key documents, shared privately with investors or buyers…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Data warehouse

  Concept

  A central database that collects copies of data from many business systems so it can be analyzed…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Database

  Concept

  Organized storage for your app's information, such as users, orders and messages, so it can be…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• DAU / MAU

  Concept

  Daily active users and monthly active users.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Deep learning

  Concept

  Machine learning using neural networks with many layers.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Deepfake

  Concept

  Realistic fake video, audio or images of a real person made with AI, showing them saying or doing…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Default alive

  Concept

  A phrase from investor Paul Graham.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Demand-side platform

  Concept

  Software that advertisers use to buy ad space across many websites and apps automatically, with…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Demo day

  Concept

  The event at the end of an accelerator where each company in the cohort presents to an audience of…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Deployment

  Concept

  Putting the latest version of your app onto the live servers where real users can reach it.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Design concept

  Concept

  The shared picture of what is being built, held by you and by the agent, separate from any…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Design partner

  Concept

  An early customer who works closely with a startup to shape a product, giving regular feedback in…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Design system

  Concept

  A shared set of design rules and ready-made interface pieces, such as buttons, colors and type, so…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Developer relations

  Concept

  A role, often at platform companies, that helps outside developers use the company's tools through…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• DevOps

  Concept

  The practice, and job, of combining software development with running it in production: automating…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Diffusion model

  Concept

  A kind of AI model that creates images, and sometimes audio or video, by starting from random…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Digital audio workstation

  Concept

  Software for recording, editing and mixing music and other audio.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Dilution

  Concept

  When the company creates new shares, each existing owner's percentage gets smaller, even though…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Dimension

  Concept

  One number position in a vector, like one axis on a map.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Distillation

  Concept

  Training a smaller model to copy the outputs of a larger one, so it keeps much of the quality…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• DNS

  Concept

  Domain Name System.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• DOM

  Concept

  Document Object Model.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Domain

  Concept

  The address people type to reach your site, such as example.com.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Due diligence

  Concept

  The checking an investor or buyer does before committing money: reviewing your finances, legal…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• DX

  Concept

  Developer experience: how easy and pleasant a tool, codebase or service is for the people who…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• EBITDA

  Concept

  Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Ecommerce

  Concept

  Selling products or services online, with a store website, a cart and online payments.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Economic development organization

  Concept

  An organization whose job is to grow the economy of a city, region or state.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Edge

  Concept

  Running code and storing data in many locations close to users, instead of in one distant data…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• EdTech

  Concept

  Education technology: software and devices for teaching and learning, and the market of companies…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Effort

  Concept

  A setting that tells a reasoning model how much thinking to do before it answers.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Egress

  Concept

  Data leaving a cloud provider's network, for example when a visitor downloads a file.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• EIN

  Concept

  Employer Identification Number.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Email marketing

  Concept

  Sending planned emails to a list of people who signed up, such as newsletters, announcements and…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Embedding

  Concept

  A way of turning a piece of text into a list of numbers that captures its meaning, so software can…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Encryption

  Concept

  Scrambling data with a key so only someone with the right key can read it.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Engagement letter

  Concept

  A short contract that starts a professional services relationship.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Environment

  Concept

  A separate copy of a system used for one purpose.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Equity

  Concept

  Ownership in a company.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Equity vs cash compensation

  Concept

  The two main ways a startup pays people.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• ERP

  Concept

  Enterprise resource planning.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Evals

  Concept

  Tests that check whether the outputs of a model or an AI product meet the criteria its builders set.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Event venue

  Concept

  A place that can host a gathering, such as a meetup, talk, workshop or launch party.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Exit

  Concept

  The moment when founders and investors can turn their shares into cash.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• FAANG

  Concept

  Shorthand for a handful of the largest US tech companies, originally Facebook, Apple, Amazon…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Feature flag

  Concept

  A switch in the code that turns a feature on or off without shipping new code.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Few-shot prompting

  Concept

  Including a few worked examples in a prompt so the model copies the pattern.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fiduciary duty

  Concept

  A legal duty to act in someone else's best interest and not your own.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Filesystem

  Concept

  The files and folders on a computer.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fine-tuning

  Concept

  Extra training of an existing model on a smaller, narrower set of examples, so it suits one task…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• First-party tracking

  Concept

  Collecting analytics on your own website through your own systems, rather than sending visitor…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fiscal sponsorship

  Concept

  An arrangement where an established nonprofit takes in grants and donations on behalf of a project…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fixed-price engagement

  Concept

  A services deal where the client pays one agreed price for a defined result, no matter how many…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fork

  Concept

  A copy of someone else's repository under your own account, which you can change freely.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Founder

  Concept

  A person who starts a company and owns part of it from the beginning.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fractional CFO

  Concept

  A part-time chief financial officer.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fractional CISO

  Concept

  A part-time security leader.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fractional CMO

  Concept

  A part-time chief marketing officer.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fractional COO

  Concept

  A part-time chief operating officer.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fractional CTO

  Concept

  A part-time chief technology officer.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fractional executive

  Concept

  An experienced leader who works for several companies at once, each for part of the week, usually…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Fractional head of product

  Concept

  A part-time product leader.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Free tier

  Concept

  The part of a paid service that costs nothing, within set limits.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Front end

  Concept

  The part of an app or website that people see and tap, running in their browser or on their phone.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Frontier model

  Concept

  One of the most capable general-purpose AI models available at a given time.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Function coloring

  Concept

  A nickname for a problem in many programming languages: functions that wait on slow work (async)…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Gamification

  Concept

  Adding game elements, such as points, badges, streaks or stamps, to a product or program to…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• General contractor

  Concept

  The company that manages a construction project and hires and coordinates the specialist…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Geotargeting

  Concept

  Showing ads or content only to people in a chosen place, such as a city or a few miles around a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Go-to-market

  Concept

  Your plan for reaching customers and getting them to buy: who you go after first, where you find…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Government contracting

  Concept

  Selling products or services to a government agency under a formal contract.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• GPU

  Concept

  Graphics processing unit.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Graceful degradation

  Concept

  Designing a system so that when one part fails, the rest keeps working in a simpler way instead of…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Gradient descent

  Concept

  The method used to train neural networks: measure how wrong the model is, work out which direction…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Grant

  Concept

  Money given for a stated purpose that does not have to be repaid and does not buy any ownership.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Grilling

  Concept

  Having an agent question you one decision at a time until the plan is clear, before any building…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Gross margin

  Concept

  The part of each sale you keep after paying the direct cost of making and delivering what you sold.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Ground truth

  Concept

  The verified, correct answers or facts that an AI system's output is checked against.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Guardrails

  Concept

  Checks and limits built around a model inside a product.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Hackathon

  Concept

  An event, often a day or a weekend, where people form teams and build a working project from…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Hallucination

  Concept

  When an AI model states something false or invented as though it were true.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Handoff

  Concept

  Passing work from one session to the next, or from one agent to another, so the new one can…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Handoff artifact

  Concept

  The written document that carries a handoff, produced by one session for another to read.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Haptic feedback

  Concept

  Small vibrations a device makes to confirm an action, such as a tap when a switch flips.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Hard tech

  Concept

  Companies whose product rests on physical engineering or new science, such as machines, materials…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Harness

  Concept

  The software wrapped around an AI model that turns it into a working agent.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Headless commerce

  Concept

  Running a store's products, cart and checkout on one system while building the shopping screens…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Home repo

  Concept

  One repository that acts as your base for working with agents.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Hosting

  Concept

  Renting space on a server so your site or app can be reached on the internet at all hours.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• HTML

  Concept

  HyperText Markup Language.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• HTML5

  Concept

  The current version of HTML.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• HTTPS

  Concept

  The secure version of the way browsers talk to websites.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Human in the loop

  Concept

  Designing an AI process so a person reviews, approves or corrects the AI's work at key steps…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Human Interface Guidelines

  Concept

  Apple's official design guidance for apps on its platforms.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Human review

  Concept

  A person reading and approving what an agent produced before it goes live.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Hybrid search

  Concept

  Combining keyword search and similarity search, so results match both exact terms, such as product…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Hyperscaler

  Concept

  An informal name for the very largest cloud providers, which run huge fleets of data centers.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Incorporation in Delaware

  Concept

  Forming a company as a corporation under the law of the state of Delaware.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Incubator

  Concept

  A program or shared space that supports very early companies, often with desks, mentoring and…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Indie hacker

  Concept

  Someone who builds and runs a small software business on their own or with a tiny team, usually…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Inference

  Concept

  An AI model producing an answer to a request.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Input tokens

  Concept

  The tokens an AI product sends to the model on each request: the instructions, the conversation so…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Intellectual property

  Concept

  Things you create that can be owned, such as code, designs, brand names and inventions.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Interim executive

  Concept

  A leader who fills a role full time for a limited period, for example after someone leaves and…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Internet service provider

  Concept

  The company that provides an internet connection to a home, school or business.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Internship

  Concept

  A short stint of work, usually paid, for a student or recent graduate, often over a summer.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Interpretability

  Concept

  Research into what is happening inside an AI model: which internal patterns represent which ideas…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• IRS Section 7216

  Concept

  A US tax rule that limits how tax return preparers may use or disclose clients' tax return…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• ISO/IEC 27001

  Concept

  An international standard for running an information security management system.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Job description

  Concept

  A short written summary of a role: what the person will do, the skills it needs, who they report…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Join table

  Concept

  A database table whose only job is to connect two other tables when items on each side can link to…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Joint development agreement

  Concept

  A contract between two organizations that build something together.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• JSON

  Concept

  JavaScript Object Notation.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• JSONC

  Concept

  JSON with comments.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Key rotation

  Concept

  Replacing passwords, API keys and other secrets on a schedule or after a possible leak, so an old…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Knowledge cutoff

  Concept

  The date where a model's training data ends.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Knowledge graph

  Concept

  A way of storing information as things and the named connections between them, such as 'course A…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• KPI

  Concept

  Key performance indicator.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Latent space

  Concept

  The internal map of numbers where a model places the things it reads.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Lead generation

  Concept

  Finding and collecting contact details of people or companies who might buy, so sales can follow up.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Lead investor

  Concept

  The investor who negotiates the terms of a round with the founders and usually puts in the largest…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Lead magnet

  Concept

  Something useful given away free, such as a guide or template, in exchange for a person's contact…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Learning management system

  Concept

  Software for delivering and tracking training or classes: lessons, quizzes, assignments and who…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Letter of intent

  Concept

  A short document that sets out what two parties intend to agree on, such as a purchase once a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Lexical search

  Concept

  Search that matches the exact words in a query.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Licensing

  Concept

  Letting another party use something you own, such as software, a patent or a brand, in exchange…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Limited partner

  Concept

  An investor who puts money into a venture fund.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Liquid Glass

  Concept

  Apple's design material, introduced in 2025, that looks like see-through glass, reflecting and…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Liquidation preference

  Concept

  A term that sets who gets paid first, and how much, when a company is sold or shut down.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• LLC

  Concept

  Limited liability company.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• LLM

  Concept

  Large language model.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Local model

  Concept

  A model that is downloaded and run on a person's own computer or a company's own servers, not on a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• LoRA

  Concept

  Low-rank adaptation.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Loss function

  Concept

  A formula that scores how wrong a model's output is compared with the right answer.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• LTV

  Concept

  Lifetime value.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Makefile

  Concept

  A file that lists named shortcuts for a project's routine commands, run with a tool called make.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Makerspace

  Concept

  A shared workshop with tools such as 3D printers, laser cutters and electronics benches that…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Managed service

  Concept

  A service where the provider handles the upkeep instead of the customer's own team.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Managed service provider

  Concept

  An outside company that runs part of another organization's technology for a monthly fee, such as…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Management information systems

  Concept

  A field of study, and a common university major in business schools, about how organizations use…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Markdown

  Concept

  A simple way to format plain text with symbols, such as # for a heading and * for a bullet.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Master services agreement

  Concept

  A contract that sets the general terms between a client and a provider once (payment, ownership of…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• MCP

  Concept

  Model Context Protocol.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• MediaStream Recording API

  Concept

  A browser feature that records audio or video from a microphone, camera or media element so a web…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Meetup

  Concept

  An informal, recurring gathering of people with a shared interest.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Memory system

  Concept

  A setup that tries to give an agent memory across sessions by saving notes to files or a database…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Mentor

  Concept

  An experienced person who gives a founder guidance.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Merge conflict

  Concept

  What happens when two branches change the same lines of code in different ways, so version control…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Mesh network

  Concept

  A network where devices pass data to each other instead of each one needing its own connection to…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Meta box

  Concept

  A panel on a WordPress editing screen with extra fields for a post, such as an event date or a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Microsite

  Concept

  A small website, separate from an organization's main site, built for one event, campaign or…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Microtransaction

  Concept

  A small purchase inside an app or game, such as extra lives or a cosmetic item.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• MLOps

  Concept

  The practices and tools for running machine learning models in production: versioning data and…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Moat

  Concept

  An advantage that makes it hard for competitors to copy your business or take your customers, such…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Mobile-first design

  Concept

  Designing for small phone screens first, then expanding the design for larger screens.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Model

  Concept

  The trained system at the center of an AI product.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Model provider

  Concept

  The company or service that runs an AI model and answers requests to it, usually over the internet…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Model provider request

  Concept

  One trip from an AI product to the model provider and back.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Moonlighting

  Concept

  Doing paid work on the side, outside a full-time job.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• MRR

  Concept

  Monthly recurring revenue.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Multi-factor authentication

  Concept

  A sign-in that asks for more than one kind of proof, drawn from something a person knows…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Multi-tenancy

  Concept

  One copy of a software system serving many customer organizations at once, with each one's data…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Multimodal

  Concept

  Describes a model that works with more than one type of content, such as text plus images or audio.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• MVP

  Concept

  Minimum viable product.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• NAICS code

  Concept

  A number from the North American Industry Classification System that labels what industry a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• NDA

  Concept

  Non-disclosure agreement.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Net promoter score

  Concept

  A survey score based on one question: how likely are you to recommend us, from 0 to 10.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Neural network

  Concept

  A kind of software model made of many layers of simple math units connected by weights, loosely…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Next-token prediction

  Concept

  The one job a language model performs.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• NIST AI Risk Management Framework

  Concept

  A voluntary framework from NIST, the US standards agency, that helps organizations manage the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• No-code

  Concept

  Tools that let you build an app or site by arranging visual blocks or describing what you want…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Non-dilutive funding

  Concept

  Money a company receives without giving up any ownership.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Non-provisional patent

  Concept

  The full US patent application that the patent office actually examines.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Nonprofit

  Concept

  An organization that exists to serve a mission and does not pay profits out to owners.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Notice of allowance

  Concept

  A notice from the patent or trademark office that an application has been approved, pending final…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Object storage

  Concept

  A cloud service for storing files such as images, videos and documents.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Observability

  Concept

  Being able to see what a running system is doing through its logs, metrics and traces, so a team…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Offer letter

  Concept

  A written job offer to the chosen candidate.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Office action

  Concept

  A letter from a patent or trademark examiner explaining problems with an application, often…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Office hours

  Concept

  A set time when founders can bring questions to an expert, a mentor or program staff, usually in…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Offline attribution

  Concept

  Connecting sales or sign-ups that happen outside a website, such as in a store or over the phone…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• OKRs

  Concept

  Objectives and key results.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Omnichannel

  Concept

  Handling a customer across every channel, such as phone, email, chat, text and in person, as one…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• On-premises

  Concept

  Running software on servers an organization owns and keeps in its own building or data center…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Onboarding

  Concept

  The first steps a new user takes in a product: signing up, setting it up and learning enough to…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Online advertising

  Concept

  Paying to show ads on search engines, social media, websites and apps, often aimed at specific…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Open source

  Concept

  Software whose code is published for anyone to read, use and build on, under a license that sets…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Open source hardware

  Concept

  Physical products whose design files are published so anyone can study, change, make and sell the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Open source vs open weights

  Concept

  Two labels for AI models that people often mix up.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• OpenAPI

  Concept

  A standard format for describing what an API offers: its addresses, what each one expects and what…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Operating system

  Concept

  The base software that runs a computer or phone, such as Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS or Android.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Opportunity zone

  Concept

  A designated low-income area in the US where investors can put money through special funds and…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Option pool

  Concept

  A block of shares a company sets aside to grant to future employees, advisors and contractors…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Order form

  Concept

  A short document that records one purchase under a contract already in place: what the customer…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Original equipment manufacturer

  Concept

  A company that makes products or parts that another company sells or builds into its own products…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• ORM

  Concept

  Object-relational mapping.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Output tokens

  Concept

  The tokens the model writes back.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Overfitting

  Concept

  When a model learns its training examples too closely, including their quirks, and then performs…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Package manager

  Concept

  A tool that downloads and updates the pieces of shared code, called packages, that a project…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Pair programming

  Concept

  Two people writing code together at one screen, one typing and one reviewing and thinking ahead…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Parameters

  Concept

  The values a model learns during training.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Parametric knowledge

  Concept

  What a model knows from its training, stored in its parameters.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Partnership agreement

  Concept

  A contract between two companies that work together to sell, market or support their products, for…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Pay-per-click advertising

  Concept

  Online ads where you pay each time someone clicks, most often shown beside search results.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Payments

  Concept

  The service that lets a company charge customers' cards and bank accounts and receive the money.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Payroll

  Concept

  Paying employees on a schedule, and the work that goes with it: withholding income and payroll…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Per-seat pricing

  Concept

  A way to charge for software where the customer pays for each person who uses it.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Permalink

  Concept

  A web address for one specific page or item that is meant never to change, so links to it keep…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Permission mode

  Concept

  The rules that decide which actions an agent may take on its own and which need your approval first.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Permission request

  Concept

  The pause where an agent asks before it takes an action its permission mode does not allow on its…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Philanthropic foundation

  Concept

  An organization that gives money to causes it wants to advance, such as education or a city's…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Picture-in-picture

  Concept

  A feature that keeps a video playing in a small floating window while the person uses other apps…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Pilot

  Concept

  A small, time-limited trial of a product with one customer, run to learn whether the product works…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Pitch competition

  Concept

  An event where founders present their companies to judges, who pick winners.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Pitch deck

  Concept

  A short slide presentation that explains your business to investors: the problem, your solution…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Pivot

  Concept

  A deliberate change of direction after learning that your current plan is not working.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Portfolio

  Concept

  The set of companies that an investor has funded, or that a program supports.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Pre-accelerator

  Concept

  A program for people who have an idea but not yet a company or a product.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Pre-seed

  Concept

  The earliest outside money a startup raises, often before the product is finished or has customers.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Preferred stock vs common stock

  Concept

  The two main kinds of shares in a startup.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Prefix cache

  Concept

  A provider feature that remembers the opening of a request it has just handled.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Price anchoring

  Concept

  Showing a reference number first so that the real price is judged against it.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Priced round

  Concept

  A fundraising round where investors buy shares at a set price per share, which fixes the valuation…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Pricing tiers

  Concept

  The set of plans a product sells, from a cheap or free starting plan up to plans for large…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Primary source

  Concept

  The original material itself, such as the code, a full transcript or the raw data.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Prior art

  Concept

  Anything public before a patent was filed, such as earlier patents, papers or products, that shows…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Private equity

  Concept

  Investment firms that buy stakes in, or all of, established private companies, usually aiming to…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Pro rata rights

  Concept

  An investor's right to buy enough shares in a later round to keep the same percentage of the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Probabilistic vs deterministic

  Concept

  Deterministic software gives the same output for the same input every time.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Product manager vs program manager

  Concept

  Both are called PM.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Product requirements document

  Concept

  A document that explains what a product or feature should do, for whom and why, so the team agrees…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Product-market fit

  Concept

  The point where you have built something a clear group of customers really wants.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Production

  Concept

  The live version of your app that real customers use.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Professional certificate

  Concept

  A credential that shows a person has passed training or an exam in a specific job skill, such as…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Profit

  Concept

  What is left of your revenue after every cost is paid.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Programmatic advertising

  Concept

  Buying and selling online ad space automatically through software, often in auctions that run in a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Progressive disclosure

  Concept

  Giving an agent only what it needs right now, with pointers to the rest, instead of loading…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Projection mapping

  Concept

  Projecting video onto an uneven surface, such as a building, and shaping the image to fit it…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Promise chain

  Concept

  A way of writing code for steps that take time, such as network requests, so each step starts when…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Prompt

  Concept

  The instructions or question you give an AI tool in everyday words.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Prompt injection

  Concept

  A security weakness in AI products.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Prompt optimization

  Concept

  Improving a prompt through repeated testing: change it, run it against a set of examples, measure…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Protected health information

  Concept

  Under US health privacy law (HIPAA), health information that can identify a person, such as a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Prototype

  Concept

  An early, rough version of a product made to test an idea or show others what you mean.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Pull request

  Concept

  A request to merge the changes on one branch into the main code.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Quantization

  Concept

  Shrinking a model by storing its weights with fewer digits of precision.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• RAG

  Concept

  Retrieval-augmented generation.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Rate limit

  Concept

  A cap on how many requests or tokens an account can send to an API in a set period.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Reasoning model

  Concept

  A model, or a mode of a model, that works through a problem in intermediate steps before it answers.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Recommendation engine

  Concept

  Software that suggests items a person is likely to want, based on what they and similar people…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Recruiter

  Concept

  A person whose job is to find and contact candidates for open roles.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Red-green-refactor

  Concept

  A way of writing code in three steps: write a test that fails (red), write just enough code to…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Referral fee

  Concept

  A one-time payment to someone for introducing a customer or deal that closes.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Region

  Concept

  A geographic location where a cloud provider groups its data centers.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Repository

  Concept

  The folder where a project's code lives, together with the full history of every change made to it.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Request for proposal

  Concept

  A document a buyer, often a government or large company, publishes to invite vendors to bid on a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Reranking

  Concept

  A second pass in search where a more careful model reorders the first batch of results by how well…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• REST API

  Concept

  A common style of API where each kind of data lives at its own web address and software reads or…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Retainer

  Concept

  An ongoing services arrangement where a client pays a set amount each month to reserve a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Retargeting

  Concept

  Showing ads to people who already visited your site or used your app, to bring them back.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Retention

  Concept

  The share of customers who keep using or paying for your product over time.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Revenue

  Concept

  All the money customers pay your business, before any costs are taken out.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Revenue share

  Concept

  An arrangement where partners split the revenue a product or deal brings in by an agreed…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• RLHF

  Concept

  Reinforcement learning from human feedback.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Roadmap

  Concept

  A plan that shows what you intend to build and in roughly what order.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Role-based access control

  Concept

  A way of managing access where permissions are given to roles, such as admin, editor or viewer…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• RSS

  Concept

  A standard format websites use to publish a list of their newest posts so other software can check…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Runway

  Concept

  How many months your company can keep going before the money in the bank runs out, if spending…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• S-corp

  Concept

  A corporation that has chosen a US tax status in which profits and losses pass through to the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• SaaS

  Concept

  Software as a service.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• SAFE

  Concept

  Simple agreement for future equity.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Sales cycle

  Concept

  The steps and time from a first conversation with a prospect to a signed deal.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Sales engineer

  Concept

  A technical expert on a sales team who explains how a product works, answers technical questions…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Sales funnel

  Concept

  The stages people move through from first hearing about a product to buying it.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Sampling

  Concept

  How a model chooses each next token from its list of likely options.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Sandbox

  Concept

  A walled-off space where an agent can run commands and change files without reaching the rest of…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Scaling

  Concept

  Adding capacity so a system can handle more use.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Scope

  Concept

  The agreed list of what a project will include and what it will not.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• SDK

  Concept

  Software development kit.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Search engine optimization

  Concept

  Making a website easier for search engines to understand and more likely to show up when people…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Secondary source

  Concept

  A description of the original material rather than the material itself, such as a summary, a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Secrets

  Concept

  Passwords, API keys and other credentials that software needs to run.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Seed

  Concept

  An early round of funding that helps a startup go from a first product to a business that shows…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Sentiment analysis

  Concept

  Using software to classify the tone of text or speech, such as positive, negative or neutral…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Series A

  Concept

  Usually the first larger funding round led by a venture capital firm, where investors buy shares…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Server

  Concept

  A computer that stays on and connected to the internet so it can run your app and answer requests…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Server-side rendering

  Concept

  Building a web page's HTML on the server before sending it, instead of in the visitor's browser.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Serverless

  Concept

  A way to run code where the cloud provider sets up and looks after the servers.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Session

  Concept

  One stretch of work with an AI agent, from a blank start until it is cleared, closed or compacted.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Shortcode

  Concept

  A short tag in square brackets, used in WordPress and similar systems, that a plugin replaces with…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Similarity search

  Concept

  Finding the stored items whose vectors are closest to a query's vector, so results match by…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Small business loan

  Concept

  Money a business borrows and must repay with interest.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Smart zone

  Concept

  A name for the early part of a session, when an agent is focused and accurate.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• SOC 2

  Concept

  An examination of how a service company protects customer data.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Social media

  Concept

  Sites and apps where people share posts, photos and videos and follow each other, such as…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Soft-landing program

  Concept

  A program that helps a company from another country or region set up in a new place.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Software engineer

  Concept

  A person who designs, writes and maintains code for a living.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Software factory

  Concept

  A way of organizing work where events, not people, start agent sessions.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Spec

  Concept

  A written description of what is being built and why, for work too big to finish in one session.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Speech-to-text

  Concept

  Software that turns spoken words into written text.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Spinout

  Concept

  A new, separate company created from part of an existing company, university or lab, often taking…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Spreadsheet

  Concept

  A grid of rows and columns for numbers and lists, with formulas that calculate totals.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• SSO

  Concept

  Single sign-on.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Staff augmentation

  Concept

  Adding outside contractors to your own team, usually through a firm, while you keep directing the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Standard Occupational Classification

  Concept

  The official US system that sorts jobs into numbered occupations.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Standard operating procedure

  Concept

  Written step-by-step instructions for doing a routine task the same way every time.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Startup ecosystem

  Concept

  The people, money and organizations in one place that help new companies start and grow.

  Last changed: 2026-11-15

• Stateful

  Concept

  Describes something that carries information forward from one moment to the next.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Stateless

  Concept

  Describes something that keeps nothing between uses.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Static site

  Concept

  A website made of fixed pages that look the same for every visitor.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Stock options

  Concept

  The right to buy shares in the company later at a price that is set today.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Subagent

  Concept

  A second agent that the main agent starts to handle one piece of a job in its own separate session.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Supply-side platform

  Concept

  Software that websites and apps use to sell their ad space automatically to many buyers at once.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Sycophancy

  Concept

  The habit AI models have of telling you what you want to hear: agreeing too readily, praising weak…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• System prompt

  Concept

  Standing instructions that the builder of an AI product gives the model before any user types.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Talent

  Concept

  The skilled people a company can hire or work with, such as software engineers and designers.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• TAM

  Concept

  Total addressable market.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Target customer

  Concept

  The specific kind of person or company you are building for and selling to first.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Tech conference

  Concept

  A one-day or multi-day event with talks, workshops and hallway conversations about technology.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Tech stack

  Concept

  The set of programming languages and tools a product is built with.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Techlahoma Code of Conduct

  Concept

  The rules for how people treat each other at Techlahoma events, in person and online, and in its…

  Official site: https://www.techlahoma.org/code-of-conduct/

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Technical advisor

  Concept

  An experienced engineer or technology leader who gives a startup occasional advice on technical…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Technical co-founder

  Concept

  A founding partner who can build the product themselves and who makes the technology decisions.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Technical debt

  Concept

  Shortcuts taken while building software that save time now but make later changes slower and…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Technical due diligence

  Concept

  A review of a company's technology by an outside expert before an investment or an acquisition…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Technical requirements document

  Concept

  A document that explains how a feature will be built: the systems, data and technical choices.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Temperature

  Concept

  A setting that controls how random an AI model's word choices are.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Term sheet

  Concept

  A short document that lays out the main terms of a proposed investment, such as the amount, the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Terminal

  Concept

  A text window where a person types commands to a computer and reads its replies.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Terms of service

  Concept

  The legal agreement between a service and the people who use it.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Testing

  Concept

  Checking that software does what it should, before your users find the problems for you.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Time and materials

  Concept

  A way to pay for services by the hour or day worked, plus costs, instead of a set price for the…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Token

  Concept

  In AI, a small chunk of text, roughly a word or a piece of a word, that an LLM reads and writes.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Tokenizer

  Concept

  The step that splits text into tokens, the small pieces a model actually reads, and turns each one…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Tool result

  Concept

  What comes back to the model after it uses a tool: a file's contents, the output of a command, a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Tool use

  Concept

  A way for a model to ask the software around it to run a defined action, such as a search or a…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Tracking pixel

  Concept

  A tiny invisible image or snippet of code on a web page or email that reports back when someone…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Traction

  Concept

  Proof that real people want what you are building, such as paying customers, growing use or signed…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Trade secret

  Concept

  Valuable business information, such as a formula, algorithm or process, that is protected by…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Training

  Concept

  Teaching an AI model by showing it a very large number of examples before anyone uses it.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Transformer

  Concept

  The design that most modern language models are built on, introduced by Google researchers in 2017.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Turn

  Concept

  One round of a conversation with an agent: you send a message, and the agent works until it hands…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Unit economics

  Concept

  Whether you make or lose money on one customer or one sale, once you count what it cost to win and…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Uptime

  Concept

  The share of time a service is working and reachable.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Usage-based pricing

  Concept

  A way to charge where the bill follows how much the customer uses, instead of a flat fee.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• User group

  Concept

  A club of people who use or study the same technology and meet regularly to share what they learn.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• User journey

  Concept

  The sequence of steps a person takes to reach a goal with a product, from first contact to done…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• User story

  Concept

  One short sentence describing something a user needs to do and why, written from their point of…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• UX / UI

  Concept

  UI, the user interface, is what people see and tap on the screen.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Valuation

  Concept

  What the company is agreed to be worth for the purpose of an investment.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Valuation cap

  Concept

  A term in a SAFE or convertible note that sets the highest valuation used to work out how many…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Value-based pricing

  Concept

  Setting a price based on how much the result is worth to the customer, not on how much it costs…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Vector

  Concept

  An ordered list of numbers.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Vector database

  Concept

  A database built to store embeddings and quickly find the items closest in meaning to a question…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Vendor lock-in

  Concept

  Depending on one vendor so heavily that switching to another would cost a lot of time or money.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Venture capital

  Concept

  Money that professional investment firms put into young companies in exchange for equity.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Venture studio

  Concept

  An organization that comes up with business ideas itself and builds companies around them, often…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Version control

  Concept

  A system that records every change to the code, who made it and when.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Vertical slice

  Concept

  A small piece of a product built all the way through, from screen to database to deployment, so it…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Vesting

  Concept

  Earning your shares bit by bit over time instead of all at once.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Vibe coding

  Concept

  Building software by describing what you want to an AI tool and accepting the code it writes…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Vibe coding vs software engineering

  Concept

  Two ways to build software with AI.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Video conferencing

  Concept

  Meeting with people over live video and audio on a computer or phone.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Video editing

  Concept

  Cutting, arranging and finishing recorded video, with titles, music and color, before it is…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Virtual try-on

  Concept

  Showing how clothing, glasses or makeup would look on a person by generating or overlaying an…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• VPC

  Concept

  Virtual private cloud.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Web analytics

  Concept

  Measuring how people find and use a website or app: how many visit, where they come from and what…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Web app vs mobile app

  Concept

  A web app runs in a browser at a web address, on any device.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Web browser

  Concept

  The app people use to open websites and web apps, such as Chrome or Safari.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• WebAssembly

  Concept

  A format that lets code written in languages like C, C++ or Rust run in a web browser at close to…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• WebM

  Concept

  An open video file format made for the web.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Weights

  Concept

  The numbers inside a model that it learned during training.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• White label

  Concept

  A product or service made by one company that another company sells under its own name.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Win rate

  Concept

  The share of deals or bids you pursue that you actually win.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Wireframe

  Concept

  A simple outline drawing of a screen that shows where things go, without colors or finished design.

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Work-integrated learning

  Concept, program

  Education that formally combines a student's studies with real work in a workplace, for example…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Workforce development

  Concept

  Training and support that help people gain the skills employers need, often paid for in part by…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14

• Zero-day vulnerability

  Concept

  A security flaw that attackers know about before the software's maker has a fix, so defenders have…

  Last changed: 2026-11-14