Fair Game - by Rob Collie (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Half your newsfeed says you're hopelessly behind on AI. The other half says it's a sham.

Both are engineered to make you click - and both lead to the same place: paralysis. Because what passes for AI expertise right now is mostly a temporary information advantage masquerading as expertise.

*Fair Game* is the way out.

Rob Collie knows that paralysis firsthand. As CEO of a data consulting firm, he watched AI threaten to upend the very business he'd spent a decade building. When fear finally drove him to dig in, what he discovered was unexpected:

AI success isn't really about AI.

It's about data - and the software around it. Problems he's been solving for thirty years.

This book is the distillation of what Collie and his team learned building real AI solutions for real businesses - not theorizing from a stage. *Fair Game* walks you through how AI systems actually work, not at the PhD level, and not at the hand-wavy keynote level, but at the Goldilocks level where real decisions get made.

You'll learn:

- A five-part recipe for AI success you can apply to any project

- Why successful AI is always custom AI - and why "custom" is less scary than it sounds

- How to evaluate any AI proposal, hire the right team, and know when you're being sold snake oil

You'll understand everything from how LLMs actually work to why your proprietary business knowledge is the one thing AI can't get on its own - all without jargon and using analogies you'll actually remember. Each chapter ends with a practical cheatsheet you can bring to your next meeting. By the time you've finished, the five-part recipe won't feel like a framework. It'll feel like common sense. You don't need to become an engineer. You need to become an architect - someone who knows what to build, what to demand, and what to call BS on.

Because AI isn't out of reach. It's fair game.

About the Author

At Microsoft, Rob Collie led engineering teams for Excel before helping build Power BI from the ground up - and redefining an industry in the process. He founded P3 Adaptive to take that disruption to the business world - then wrote three bestselling books to make sure nobody got left behind. Now, in the age of AI, P3 is doing it again: real solutions for real companies, no hype, no gatekeeping. Rob writes the way he consults: direct, specific, and allergic to jargon.