Done For You, Running In Your Home
A Personal Chief of StaffI build it. I maintain it. You just text it.
Mine gives me back about twelve hours a week: a morning brief, an inbox that triages itself, dates that never slip, paperwork that chases itself. I install that system on a Mac Mini in your house, shaped to your life, and your first morning brief arrives the day after install day. Guaranteed to save you at least three hours a week, or the install is free.
“Chief of staff” is a big claim. See exactly what mine handles: morning briefs, inbox triage, follow-up nudges, and total recall of every conversation. That system, wired to your life, is what I install.
Joshua Thacker. Former SaaS COO, USAF veteran. I run my own life on this system.
The Short Version
You already know you want this. You don't want to build it.
Some people want the weekend of building: that's the Tahoe Build Retreat. This page is for everyone who has said the other thing to me: “I don't want to learn it. Can you just do it?”
Yes. I bring a Mac Mini configured with the same second-brain system I run my own life on, sit with you for an afternoon while we connect your accounts, and tune it for thirty days until it knows your world. After that it runs around the clock, and I keep it maintained so you never think about it.
The baseline is the system documented on the Hermes page. My own daily operating rules, extracted into a product. Every install starts there, then gets shaped to your actual life: your people, your recurring chores, the specific paperwork that stalls in your drawer.
Proof: watch me run mine, live
Meet My AI Chief of Staff: A Live Demo
The full hour, recorded live: the second brain, Howard answering audience questions, and the 12 hours a week it gives back.
What You Get
Eight jobs it takes off your plate, from day one.
Each of these replaces something you currently do by hand, do late, or quietly drop. This is the baseline every install ships with; at discovery we map your specific world (your recurring chores, your tax season, your travel) and shape the system around it.
A morning brief, 7am daily
Your day, your family's day, anything waiting on you, anything about to be forgotten. Two minutes to read.
A chief of staff you can text
A private channel on your phone. “Remind me about the retirement dinner.” “Chase the rollover people again.” Type it or say it; it gets handled.
Email, handled
Your personal inbox triaged around the clock. The people who always matter reach you instantly, noise gets filed, and replies you'd dread show up as drafts.
Dates, never missed
Anniversaries, birthdays on both sides, school events, surfaced with enough lead time to actually get the gift.
Paperwork that chases itself
Rollovers, renewals, tax documents. The agent drafts the letters, tracks the steps, and nags the right people until it's done.
A second brain that compounds
Every conversation, note, and decision you feed it is distilled into one connected memory. Ask it anything about your own life and get a real answer.
Your people, mapped
The relationships that matter (family, close friends, key contacts) with the context and key dates that keep you a good friend on busy weeks.
Self-maintaining memory
Daily, weekly, and monthly consolidation runs on a schedule, plus a monthly recall test that proves the memory actually works.
Hiring humans for this list (a part-time assistant, a date concierge, someone to chase paperwork) starts around $30,000 a year and still clocks out at 5pm. All of this runs around the clock on a Mac Mini that lives in your house and belongs to you, draws about as much power as a lightbulb, and keeps nothing about your life on my infrastructure.
The Engagement
Running in your house within a month.
01
The mapping hour
A free hour. We map your world (the dates, the inbox, the paperwork, the people), pick the launch set, and you get your exact install quote. If it isn't a fit, you'll hear that from me directly.
02
Install day
An afternoon at your place. The Mac Mini arrives configured; we connect your accounts together. Every sign-in happens with you, on your machine. No credentials ever pass through me.
03
Two weeks of tuning
The system starts working immediately and I watch it closely, adjusting what surfaces in your brief, who counts as important in your inbox, and what gets chased. Then we do a calibration session.
04
Day-30 handoff
We tally the hours together (that's the guarantee checkpoint), you get the runbook and a full review of exactly what has access to what. From there, most people keep me on maintenance: I monitor, update, and keep improving it.
The Lines That Don't Move
What I never touch.
This part matters more than the feature list, and it's why the system lives in your house instead of my cloud.
No employer-owned accounts
If you own it, it's in scope, including the inbox of a business you own. What stays out is anything an employer controls: corporate email, company systems, and if you're a physician, patient anything, ever.
No financial advice, no moving money
The agent organizes, prepares, and chases paperwork. It reads your financial picture; it cannot touch your accounts. You and your advisors stay the decision layer.
No passwords in my pocket
Every sign-in happens with you, on your machine, into your accounts. My maintenance access is scoped, logged, and revocable by you at any time.
Your data stays home
Your knowledge base lives on hardware you own, on your network. AI processing runs under zero-retention terms and is never used for training. Nothing about your life sits in my cloud.
Do The Math
What is your time worth?
Don't take my word for the value. Put in your own numbers and see how long the install takes to pay for itself.
I guarantee 3. Mine gives me back about 12.
A $300k year works out to about $145 an hour.
$750/week
of your time, back
about 9 weeks
until the install pays for itself
260 hrs
a year, worth $39,000
Payback measured against the install alone. The monthly maintenance is optional; after handoff the system runs whether or not I'm maintaining it.
The Guarantee
Three hours a week, or the install is free.
At the day-30 calibration session we tally it together: the briefs you read instead of piecing your day together, the emails you never had to touch, the paperwork you didn't chase, the dates you didn't have to remember. If the system isn't saving you at least three hours a week, I refund the install in full and you keep the Mac Mini.
I can offer that because three hours is the floor, not the goal. My own system gives me back about twelve.
The Numbers
A human assistant runs $1,500 a week. Start here instead.
One number to start, quoted precisely at the mapping hour based on how complex your world is. No surprises after.
The Install
from$6,500
One-time. Everything up to a working system.
- Mac Mini, configured and yours to keep
- Full install, customized to your life at discovery
- An afternoon of setup together at your place
- Thirty days of tuning and a calibration session
- Runbook and full access review at handoff
- The 3-hour guarantee, in writing
Keep It Maintained (Optional)
$750/month
Or $7,500/year (two months free). Starts at the day-30 handoff.
- All AI model costs (you never see a usage bill)
- Monitoring, updates, and security patches
- One new capability added every quarter
- Future-proofing: new agent capabilities rolled in as they mature
- Priority response when something needs a human
Cancel anytime. The hardware and the system are yours either way. It keeps running without me; you just stop getting updates, and the metered AI costs (typically a few hundred dollars a month, which I cover) move to your own account.
Straight Answers
The questions worth asking.
What does a personal chief of staff actually do?
It carries the operational load of your life: a daily morning brief, inbox triage and drafting, reminders and follow-ups, paperwork that gets chased to completion, and perfect recall of everything you feed it. The clearest answer is to look at mine: the Hermes page documents what he reads, what he runs, and the 48 things I actually use him for. That system, wired to your life and maintained by me, is what this is.
How is this different from the Tahoe Build Retreat?
Same destination, different path. At the retreat you spend a weekend building your own system with me beside you, and you maintain it yourself afterward. This is the done-for-you version: I build it, I install it at your place, and I keep it running under a monthly retainer. Pick the retreat if the building sounds fun. Pick this if it sounds like another job.
What does the install cover, and why "from" $6,500?
Everything up to a working system: the Mac Mini itself, the full software install, the discovery session where we map your world, an afternoon of setup together at your place, thirty days of tuning with a calibration session, and a handoff with the runbook and a complete review of what has access to what. There is no second invoice for the hardware. It starts at $6,500 because not every life is equally complex: a household with a business, multiple properties, and heavy paperwork is a bigger build than a single professional's. You get your exact number at the mapping hour, before you commit to anything.
How does the 3-hour guarantee work?
Simply. At the day-30 calibration session we tally what the system actually took off your plate: the briefs, the triaged email, the chased paperwork, the remembered dates. If it adds up to less than three hours a week, I refund the install in full and you keep the Mac Mini. No forms, no fine print. I can offer it because three hours is the floor; my own system saves me about twelve.
What am I paying $750 a month for?
Three things. First, the running costs: the AI models that power the system are metered, and I cover that entirely. You never see a usage bill. Second, the upkeep: monitoring, updates, security patches, and a priority line to me when something needs a human. Third, future-proofing: this field moves monthly, and part of my job is keeping up with what the newest models and agent capabilities can do and rolling them into your system as they mature. Your chief of staff a year from now will be meaningfully better than the one I install, without you reading a single AI newsletter. If you prefer one invoice, it's $7,500 a year, which works out to two months free.
Where does my data live?
In your house, on hardware you own. Your emails, notes, and history are stored on the Mac Mini on your own network, not in my cloud, not in anyone's SaaS. When the system calls an AI model to do work, that processing runs under zero-retention terms: nothing is stored and nothing is used for training. My maintenance access is scoped, logged, and revocable by you at any time.
Do I need to be technical?
No. You interact with it the way you'd interact with a human assistant: you text it, or talk to it, in plain language. If you can write a clear message, you can operate everything. The technical side (the setup, the tuning, the updates) is exactly what you're paying me for.
Is every install the same?
The foundation is: the second brain, the morning brief, the inbox triage, the memory system. That baseline is hardened by my own daily use, and there's no reason to rebuild it per person. Everything above it is shaped to you at discovery: which accounts it watches, who counts as important, what recurring chores it owns (tax documents, license renewals, travel, family logistics), and each quarter we add a capability chosen from your actual life.
What will it never do?
Three hard lines. It never touches employer-owned systems. If you own the business, your business accounts are in scope; anything an employer controls stays out, and for physicians that means no patient data, ever. It never gives financial advice or moves money. It reads, organizes, and prepares; you and your advisors decide. And I never hold your passwords. Every sign-in happens with you, on your machine.
What happens if I cancel?
You keep everything. The hardware is yours, the system is yours, and it keeps running without me: the memory, the briefs, the routines. What stops is the maintenance: updates, model costs moving to your own account, and new capabilities. No lock-in, no export fees, no hostage data. It's your machine in your house; that was the whole point.
Start Here
Start with the mapping hour.
An hour, free, no obligation. We map what a chief of staff would take off your plate, and you leave with the blueprint whether or not you hire me. I take four installs per quarter, no more, because each one gets a month of my close attention.
Not ready for a call?
Follow the build instead. You'll see what these systems handle in practice, and you'll know when an install slot opens.