Building a Chief Agentic Officer
Mike Spade · Radical Imagination
I needed to hire 5 people.
I had $20/month.
| Role | Market Cost |
|---|---|
| Grant Writer | $50 - 70K |
| Instructional Designer | $65 - 85K |
| Research Archivist | $55 - 75K |
| Cultural Consultant | $100 - 250/hr |
| Impact Analyst | $30 - 40K |
Total: ~$250K/year — My budget: one Claude subscription.
USER
Write me a grant proposal for an education project.
AI
Sure! Here's a generic grant proposal template...
The answer is fine. It's useless the next day.
The problem isn't the AI. It forgets everything.
The Chief Agentic Officer
You talk to Spark. Spark routes to the right agent.
One interface. Eight specialized minds behind it.
| Agent | What They Do | Replaces |
|---|---|---|
| Curriculum Architect | Designs learning experiences | Instructional designer |
| Money Agent | Grant strategy, funder analysis | Grant writer |
| Cultural Archivist | Source registries, provenance | Research archivist |
| Cultural Validator | Reviews for integrity | Cultural consultant |
| Technical Mentor | Learning paths, code guidance | Senior dev mentor |
| Collective Manager | Roster, portfolio, onboarding | Operations manager |
| Impact & Engagement | Reports, social, content | Impact analyst |
| Commercial Strategist | Evaluates opportunities | Business dev |
"Google's research: multi-agent systems lose performance above 8. So we stopped at 8."
Not a database — markdown files in a git repo.
"Every agent reads the same files. The state IS the institution."
I told Spark once: "stop giving me task lists."
It never did it again. Across every future session.
Yes, the CEO of my AI system is locked behind a fire emoji and a lightning bolt.
Security through obscurity? No.
Security through absurdity.
EVERY SESSION STARTS
EVERY SESSION ENDS
"The institution documents itself."
DRAFT — Gmail
To: partner@university.edu
Hi Dr. Chen — Following up on our conversation about the VR heritage workshop. Based on our project timeline, we could demo the Du Bois experience at your faculty meeting on the 15th...
"The draft is better than what I'd write from scratch — because Spark has the full project context."
17 projects scanned. 30 connections found in one pass.
A 10-person team discovers these in weekly standups.
Spark found them in one pass.
Decision: 8th Wall over MindAR
Alternatives: WebXR (no iOS), keep MindAR (worse tracking)
Reasoning: Free, MIT license, iOS + Android
Confidence: 5/5 • Reversible: Yes
Six months from now, when someone asks "why did you choose this?" — the answer is searchable.
Confidence: 3/5
Based on secondary sources. Community consultation not yet done. Significant gaps in Garvey archive.
The AI tells you when it doesn't know.
That's rarer than you think.
⚠ CONTRADICTION FOUND
portfolio.md says Douglass is "feature-complete"
validation-log.md says "active build"
No stale data survives.
SCENARIO QUERY
"What if we skip Juneteenth and focus on July 4?"
DOWNSTREAM IMPACT
Positive: 6 extra weeks of build time for Douglass 250th...
Negative: Lose Ghana Du Bois Foundation demo slot, investor momentum from Oculus event, HBCU tour pilot visibility...
Every major decision gets modeled against the real state of the organization.
$250,000/year
$20/mo
| Component | Cost |
|---|---|
| Claude Code | ~$20/mo |
| Gmail MCP | Free |
| Calendar MCP | Free |
| Git repo | Free |
The value isn't the cost savings.
One person can operate like a ten-person company.
"The founder is still the founder. Spark is the COO."
The system is powerful. It's not perfect.
Human oversight isn't a limitation — it's the design.
The Cultural Validator cannot approve something the same turn it first encounters it.
First response is always findings and questions.
Never "looks good."
Without this rule, the AI just tells you what you want to hear.
If you have a Claude subscription and a git repo,
you can have a Spark by end of day.
You leave with a working system. Not a slide deck about a system.
ops.radicalimagination.xyz
Calendar
Live view
Budget
Real-time
War Room
Active priorities
Handoff Docs
Always current
The institution doesn't need the founder in the room to know what's happening.
155,000 lines of code.
17 projects.
1 founder.
0 funding.
8 AI agents.
$20/month.
The system didn't make the art.
The system made the art possible.
Q&A
Mike Spade · Radical Imagination
create@radicalimagination.xyz