# Broken Branch Studios

> Ben Schippers — AI platforms, products, and infrastructure. Former Microsoft Senior PM. Building at the intersection of AI capability and global public benefit.

## About

Broken Branch Studios is the practice of Ben Schippers, focused on the structural gap between AI capability and real-world outcomes. Core expertise: AI platform architecture, enterprise AI adoption, agent systems, and infrastructure that makes AI self-sustaining and publicly beneficial.

Location: Atlanta, GA. Open to relocation.

## Background

### Microsoft (2020–2025)
Senior Program Manager, AI Platforms & Enterprise Operations. Owned a portfolio of internal platforms across 8 product lines — signal systems, routing intelligence, self-service tools, and quality measurement. The infrastructure that turned customer friction into engineering action.

Key outcomes:
- Rebuilt the signal-to-engineering pipeline from scratch. 95+ features shipped through this system; adopted org-wide.
- Built routing intelligence that classifies work by complexity and matches it to the right skill level.
- Scaled self-service to ~50% adoption on flagship products. Tens of thousands of tickets/year that never get created.
- Created early risk detection identifying 700+ at-risk customer situations before escalation.
- Built a recommender reaching 14K enterprise customers at 14% conversion.
- Led crisis response for a 433K-user transition with near-zero churn.

### Experis / ManpowerGroup (2016–2020)
Program Manager → Operations Manager, Microsoft Premier Support. Built Premier Engineering from a 3-person pilot to 150 agents handling 60K incidents/year.

### Mural Consulting (2014–2016)
Engagement Manager. Managed partner programs spanning 1,000+ Office 365 migrations across 12 global partners.

## Skills

- AI & Platforms: Recommender systems, LLM integration, A/B testing, telemetry-driven roadmap
- Product: Developer ecosystems, diagnostics/reliability, 0-to-1 frameworks, enterprise deployment
- Technical: SQL/Kusto, Python, Power BI, Azure DevOps, TypeScript, Supabase
- Leadership: Cross-org alignment, executive communication, crisis execution

## Case Study: Copilot Extensibility

A major enterprise AI rollout was accelerating across multiple product lines with no shared visibility into adoption patterns. Ben led the cross-functional insight collection effort, assembling a team spanning multiple support organizations. Results: 76 blockers identified, 7,380 users unblocked, 23 feature requests submitted, 94,000 seats added by engaged customers, 47% self-help success rate.

## Projects

### ScoutsPlus.org (Live)
Gamified achievement platform for adults. Badge progression, troop management, photo-verified requirements, Stripe-powered subscriptions. Full-stack production app with 19 database tables.
Tech: TypeScript, Supabase, Stripe
URL: https://scoutsplus.org

### VisualInventory.ai (Live)
AI-powered inventory management. Photo-to-structured-data via Claude Vision, embedding-based duplicate detection, voice scanning, semantic search.
Tech: Claude Vision, Embeddings, Stripe
URL: https://visualinventory.ai

### RoadTripper.ai (Live)
AI-powered road trip planning. Optimized day-by-day itineraries with curated stops, local gems, scenic detours.
Tech: Next.js 15, React 19, Framer Motion
URL: https://roadtripper.ai

### Canary (Prototype)
Mutual benefit platform concept for tech workers. Pooled fund model with simulated risk modeling, employer-cap diversification.
Tech: TypeScript, Fintech, Risk Modeling
URL: https://canary-omega.vercel.app/

### Bi-directional RAG (Demo)
Collaborative knowledge system where AI maintains, labels, and improves the knowledge base. Natural language intent detection, auto-tagging, confidence scoring.
Tech: Python, ChromaDB, Claude API

### Workstation Zero (In Dev)
Distraction-resistant desktop environment. Full-screen CRT terminal aesthetic with Pomodoro integration, focus-gated media.
Tech: Godot, GDScript

## The Productive Compute Framework (PCF)

The Productive Compute Framework is the flagship publication — a whitepaper proposing a system that converts idle AI compute capacity into verified global-good outcomes funded by UN outcome-based payments. The core thesis: AI infrastructure can pay for itself while advancing science and serving humanity.

The loop: Idle AI compute → Scientists submit problems + data → Verified work on global challenges → UN outcome-based payment → Provider revenue → Reduced capital dependency → Sustained mission alignment.

Key concepts:
- Non-Fungible Work Unit (NFWU): The atomic economic primitive — a receipt for auditable, verified AI work tied to a specific task, execution trace, and outcome.
- Tripartite Verification: Strict separation between providers (execute), verifiers (evaluate), and funders (pay). Collapsing any two roles corrupts incentives.
- Grid-Aware Scheduling: Aligning compute workloads with renewable energy surplus, turning data centers into grid-balancing assets.
- UN Integration: Operating through existing UN agencies (UNDP, WHO, UNESCO, UNEP) and funding mechanisms (SDG Fund, Green Climate Fund) — no new treaties required.

Author: Ben Schippers
Status: Draft v2.0, February 2026

## Writing

- "If You Can Read a Recipe, You Can Now Be a Developer" (Jan 2026) — The $1K Experiment Part 2. 5.5 hours to working MVP. 2,031 lines became 106,000.
- "The $1K Claude Code Credit: What Happens When a PM Learns to Ship" (Dec 2025) — 31 days, 215 commits, 38K lines of TypeScript. The 64/33/3 collaboration model.
- "The 90-Day Death Spiral: Why 95% of AI Projects Fail" (Oct 2025) — Early warning system hiding in support tickets and metrics that predict failure before day 90.

## Labs

Experimental projects: ∞-ball (mindfulness + mechanics), C-Monkies (multi-platform simulation), Dead Radius (location-based ASCII survival), Quantum Oracle (quantum entropy exploration).

## By the Numbers

- 3 → 150 agents: Co-founded the program, hired the team, built the playbook
- 700+ blockers surfaced from support signal
- 95+ features shipped (64% acceptance rate)
- 220K users unblocked
- 94K seats added
- $355M+ aggregate value across retained ARR, cost avoidance, and growth enablement

## Links

- [Main site](https://brokenbranch.dev/)
- [PCF Whitepaper (HTML)](https://brokenbranch.dev/pcf/)
- [PCF Whitepaper (Markdown)](https://brokenbranch.dev/pcf.md)
- [PCF Whitepaper (PDF)](https://brokenbranch.dev/assets/productive-compute-framework.pdf)
- [Git Width Visualization](https://brokenbranch.dev/gitwidth/)
- [RSS Feed](https://brokenbranch.dev/feed.xml)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/Benjamin-Schippers)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/benskamps)

## Optional

- [Privacy Policy](https://brokenbranch.dev/privacy/)
- [humans.txt](https://brokenbranch.dev/humans.txt)