Cisco Caceres

Cisco Caceres

45 Years Building What Others Said Couldn't Work

45+ Years Experience
8+ Patents
30M Concurrent Connections
Navy Veteran
Book a Reality Check Read My Story
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The Short Version

I toggled my first program into an Altair via front-panel switches in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, I ran BBSs when "online" meant dialing in at 300 baud. In the 1990s, I had two full T1 lines running into my house (3 Mbps total, when most people were on dial-up) because I was running servers before "the cloud" existed.

By the 2000s, I'd upgraded to an 8 Mbps point-to-point microwave link feeding a 60-server data center in my basement, complete with dedicated cooling. I was running "the cloud" before AWS existed.

I spent the 2000s surviving the crash. I spent the 2010s fixing the messes left by "move fast and break things."

I served aboard the USS Missouri during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The Navy taught me that systems don't care about your feelings. If you ignore physics, ships sink. If you ignore economics, startups die.

I don't sell "digital transformation." I sell reality checks.

Why "RoamingPigs"?

My late wife MJ and I donated everything we owned and traveled the world together for over eight years—until COVID forced us to pause. Just our backpacks and each other. We lived in Vietnam, made Tokyo's Shinjuku our favorite haunt, explored South Korea, found the best street vendors in Bangkok—chasing great food wherever we went. We called ourselves the Roaming Pigs.

It was the most rewarding and meaningful time of my life.

I created The Mariajuanita Guzman Art Foundation in her memory, and I started RoamingPigs to help fund it. This is my tribute to her.

The spirit carries forward into how I work: go where the good stuff is, commit fully, never half-measure anything. I don't sit still. I don't stay in the corporate pen. I go where the problem is.

Operating Principles

The Constitution I Work By

Physics Over Feelings

Latency is determined by the speed of light. Costs are determined by supply and demand. No amount of "Agile" or "Vibe Coding" can negotiate with these realities.

Code is a Liability

Every line of code you write is a line you have to debug, secure, and upgrade. The best architect is the one who talks you out of building the feature.

Scar Tissue Over Certifications

I don't have a certificate that says I know how to scale. I have the scar from when my system hit 30 million concurrent connections and didn't crash.

Skepticism is a Service

Vendors lie. Dashboards lie. AI hallucinations lie. My job is to be the professional skeptic who checks the chrome://sandbox and reads the assembly.

Margins Over Architecture

Beautiful systems that lose money aren't beautiful. Ugly code that prints cash is a masterpiece. I optimize for survival, not elegance.

History Repeats

I've watched the same mistakes play out across the dot-com crash, the blockchain bubble, and now AI. Pattern recognition beats novelty every time.

Notable Scars

Systems that taught me what works and what doesn't

ZettaZing / ECHO

Architected a push platform that handled 30 million concurrent connections (simulated via 3,000 AWS instances). It didn't break. Designed to scale to billions.

Voice AI / DHS

Deployed speech recognition for the US Coast Guard in environments so noisy that standard ASR failed. This wasn't a demo; lives were on the line.

AMBIE

Acoustic intelligence for environments where standard ASR fails. Maintaining 90-95% accuracy where commercial systems drop to 14-40%. The next scar in progress.

MSNBC / Workbench

Built content management systems before "CMS" was a term. MSNBC's publishing platform in the mid-90s, when the web was still young and everything was being invented.

Career Timeline

Oct 2025 - Present
Founder, AMBIE
Acoustic intelligence ASR for high-noise environments
Oct 2021 - Present
Founder & CEO, Barbarians Inc
Software studio for startups
Aug 2021 - Nov 2024
Founder & CTO, Voice AI (Government)
Voice AI for Coast Guard, DHS
Jan 2014 - May 2017
CTO, ZettaZing
ECHO: 3,000 AWS instances, 30M connections
Jun 1996 - Feb 2004
CEO & CTO, Core Logic Software
Dot-com era consulting. RUM, CoreBA, Mortar Maker
Aug 1995 - Nov 1998
Software Developer, Microsoft/MSNBC
Built Workbench CMS
Oct 1990 - Aug 1992
Gunner's Mate, US Navy, USS Missouri
Desert Shield/Storm, Decommissioning crew
Late 1970s - 1980s
BBS Sysop
Running bulletin boards when online meant 300 baud

Current Ventures

AMBIE

Acoustic intelligence ASR. Real-time speech recognition that maintains 90-95% accuracy in high-noise environments where commercial systems fail.

ambie.ai →
Auralytic

Voice analytics platform. Extracting actionable intelligence from conversations at scale—speaker identification, sentiment, compliance, and real-time insights.

auralytic.ai →
Abundera

Autonomous AI that acts as a complete family office—managing wealth, optimizing taxes, booking travel, and tracking health—for a fraction of traditional costs.

abundera.ai →
RoamingPigs

Technology consulting that sees it through. Home of the Field Manual—160+ articles on what actually works in tech.

roamingpigs.com →
Barbarians

Software studio for startups. Building products that work, not products that demo well.

barbarians.com →

From the Field Manual

Lessons from 45+ years of building systems that work

Your AI Vendor Is Lying
AI & Tech January 2025

Your AI Vendor Is Lying to You

Every accuracy claim on that slide deck was measured under perfect conditions you'll never have. Here's how to test what they won't show you.

Browse All 160+ Articles →

Currently Building

What I'm working on right now

Active Development

AMBIE

Acoustic intelligence for high-noise environments. Building an ASR system that maintains 90-95% accuracy where commercial solutions fail at 14-40%.

Python Whisper FiLM Cloudflare Workers
Follow the progress →

Patents & Recognition

Battle "E" Ribbon
National Defense Service Medal
Southwest Asia Service Medal (2 Bronze Stars)

Book a Reality Check

I am expensive because I am fast, and I am fast because I have seen your problem before. If you want a "Yes Man" to validate your roadmap, hire a Big 4 consultancy. If you want to know why your cloud bill is $50k/month or why your AI agent is hallucinating, call me.

Start the Conversation cisco@roamingpigs.com