Stuart Du Casse has spent 30 years inside enterprise systems. Finance. Public sector. Regulated industries. He's the guy leadership calls when dashboards say green but their gut says something's about to blow up.

After watching the same patterns repeat for three decades — middle management containing bad news, millions wasted on testing theater, organizations throwing bodies at problems instead of fixing root causes — Stuart built AutoSpec QA and started selling his expertise directly to the C-suite.

His engagement model? The 3x3. Three critical user journeys. Three tiers of analysis. Time-boxed. Outcome-based.

In this conversation, Stuart and Kirk dig into:

- "Automation Theater" — when testing activity gets confused with actual risk reduction

- Why middle management's incentive is containment, not transparency

- How to tell a CEO their systems are at risk without getting shown the door

- The feast-and-famine pipeline problem every independent professional faces

- Why pricing by outcome beats pricing by the hour

- The truth about competing with 20-year-olds when you're 59

If you think your expertise is "too niche" to go independent, this episode will change your mind.

Your niche doesn't have to be obvious. It has to be specific.

Connect with Stuart: LinkedIn: Stuart Du Casse

Website: autospecqa.com

Join The Crew — experienced professionals building independent practices. Not motivation. System. https://theretern.com/

Full show notes: https://theretern.com/unrigged

HR filters you out. Founders don't. That's the whole game.

Tyler Wells spent 8 years building his career at an ad agency in Knoxville. Then brain cancer changed everything.

When he asked for basic accommodation during chemotherapy - just a lighter workload while his body fought for his life - HR's response was brutal: "We're not obligated to help you." They repeated it five times.

This wasn't some startup. This was a global company with "unlimited PTO" - the same policy they called "abuse" when Tyler actually needed it.

In this episode, Tyler breaks down:

• The moment he got his diagnosis at a coffee shop
• How "unlimited PTO" is corporate America's biggest bait and switch
• Why he had to work through surgery, radiation, and chemo
• The systematic betrayal that pushed him to independence
• Why network gets you started but process scales your practice

Tyler's original LinkedIn story went viral with 760K+ views because it validates what millions of experienced professionals face: corporate promises evaporate when you need them most.

Resources mentioned:

• Tyler's LinkedIn and portfolio: tylerwells.me
• Corporate Refugee Quiz: theretern.com/quiz
• UNRIGGED podcast: Subscribe wherever you listen

Samriddhi Chakraborty quit corporate in her mid-20s after watching her career become "a black box of templated synergy." Now she runs Evango Group in India as a "fractional everything."

In this episode:
- Her cold outreach to land client #1 (agencies wouldn't touch them)
- Why "timing beats fit" in prospecting
- Building fractional in a market that doesn't think it works
- The moment she stopped chasing "shimmer" brands

If you think you're too young, too old, or in the wrong market for fractional — listen up.

Take the quiz: theretern.com/quiz

60% of executives over 50 experience age discrimination in hiring. The system is rigged — but there's a bypass.

HR filters you out. Founders don't. That's the whole game.

In this episode:

• The LinkedIn/AARP data on age discrimination (it's worse than you think)

• Why HR is incentivized to filter you out — and it's not personal

• The fractional executive bypass: Talk to founders, not recruiters

• "Qualify hard, close soft" — the framework that actually works

• The David story: What founders really need (hint: it's not dashboards)

• Your first move this week — 3 companies, 3 problems, 0 applications

Key insight: HR filters you out. Founders don't.

Your experience isn't a liability. It's the product.

Join The Crew — where corporate refugees navigate this together. Weekly calls, deal flow, accountability. $99/month, 15 founding spots.

https://theretern.com/crew

Show notes: https://theretern.com/blog/podcast-001-age-discrimination-bypass