For most of my career, I worked inside a large financial institution. My work wasn’t theoretical — it involved problem-solving inside real systems, with real constraints, incentives, and unintended consequences.
Over time, I began to notice something that stayed with me:
many of the systems we rely on every day often work exactly as designed — even when the outcomes feel unfair, extractive, or difficult to explain.
Fiction gives me a way to explore those systems safely.
Rather than arguing policy positions or proposing fixed solutions, I use storytelling to ask questions like “what happens if this continues?” and “what might change if incentives were structured differently?”
This page outlines some of the recurring system-level questions I return to, and why fiction has become the most honest way for me to examine them.
Many employees assume that if they invent something at work, credit or compensation will naturally follow. In practice, most employment contracts include intellectual-property clauses that transfer ownership to the employer — sometimes broadly and permanently.
This isn’t necessarily illegal.
It’s structural.
Why it matters:
When creative ownership becomes separated from creators, innovation can slow, resentment can grow, and value may become increasingly concentrated.
How I explore this in fiction:
In The Billionaire’s Clause, I imagine a world where employees begin to notice the long-term implications of these clauses — and what happens when they question them through legal, ethical, and collective means.
Why fiction helps:
Fiction allows these dynamics to be explored without harming real people or organizations, while still respecting how contracts, courts, and power tend to function in the real world.
Digital platforms often describe themselves as neutral marketplaces. In practice, they set rules, influence visibility, and adjust terms — sometimes unilaterally.
Why it matters:
Small creators, authors, and businesses can become deeply dependent on systems they don’t control, with limited options when conditions shift.
How I explore this in fiction:
Several of my stories examine what happens when platforms gradually move from service providers toward gatekeeping roles — and how individuals attempt to regain autonomy without dismantling the ecosystem itself.
Why fiction helps:
It allows proportional responses to be explored — not revolutions — and invites reflection on where responsibility realistically sits.
Most misinformation isn’t created by villains. It often emerges from incentive structures that reward speed, outrage, and confirmation over accuracy.
Why it matters:
When engagement consistently outranks verification, public trust erodes — even when journalists and institutions are acting in good faith.
How I explore this in fiction:
In my political thrillers, I imagine alternative verification models, slower journalism, and systems designed to label uncertainty rather than obscure it.
Why fiction helps:
It allows experimentation with new frameworks without undermining free expression or real-world institutions.
Large organizations rarely fail because no one sees the issue. More often, they struggle because incentives discourage people from speaking too early or too clearly.
Why it matters:
When early warnings are ignored, costs tend to multiply — financially, socially, and personally.
How I explore this in fiction:
Through characters who notice small anomalies early and must decide whether to stay silent, step away, or act.
Why fiction helps:
It restores moral agency to individuals operating inside systems that can feel immovable.
I don’t write fiction to provide answers.
I write to preserve better questions.
When a system feels broken but hard to articulate, fiction becomes a diagnostic tool — a way to slow things down and examine the machinery more clearly.
If these questions resonate, my novels explore them narratively rather than academically.
You can find them here if you’re curious:
👉 (Click here to check out my Books)