The Variance

I’m Doug Katz, the creator of Children of Chaos. It’s a fairly new venture, but you may have read some of the articles I have out there. I’m publishing here and a couple of other places, and you might see my shares under my other business ventures. I figured it was time to start adding video to what I’m creating — that’s a lot of the currency of how things are done today. Thanks for reading The Children of Chaos! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. As

"You don't solve a problem until it's a problem — until it's an aspirin and not a vitamin." That realization changed the direction of my life more than I understood at the time. Like many people, I spent most of my life identifying as capable. Army service, athletics, business, building, problem-solving — I saw physical capability as normal, stable, and largely permanent. But over time, injuries, wear, surgery, and age began forcing a different conversation. Not all at once.

Late diagnosed. No meds — bad heart valve, stimulants were never an option. For most of my life I was navigating this without even knowing what I was navigating. What I finally figured out through experience is that the wiring wasn't the problem. It was the environment. Find the terrain that rewards what you are, and everything shifts. That's what Children of Chaos is built on. If your wiring has ever felt like the enemy, it probably wasn't. It was the terrain. Learn more →..

How our inherited tools shape — and limit — what we think is possible. The kitchen knife was not designed around task optimization. It just ended up that way because of the connection to knife design in general. The shape made sense given the constraints of the time — forged metal, a handle you could grip, a blade that could be sharpened on a stone. But the linear knife wasn't originally optimized for cooking. It was optimized for staying alive. When a single blade had to ser

Part 3: Maximizing the Value of High-Variance Wiring on Your Team This is part three of a four-part series on ADHD and organizational dynamics. Parts one and two were written for the person living inside the wiring — how to add value as a peer, how to navigate the relationship above you, how to build the currency that funds everything else. This one changes chairs. Thanks for reading The Children of Chaos! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This one

PART 2: Value-maxing as an ADHD Subordinate This is part two of a four-part series on ADHD, leadership and organizational dynamics. Part one was about the team — how to add value as a peer, build currency horizontally, and stop performing as a normative version of yourself that was never going to hold. This one moves up. The relationship with the person above you. Same wiring, higher stakes. Because the person above you controls your terrain, your tasking, and your trajectory

The right structure doesn't suppress high-variance wiring. It gives it somewhere to go. I was recently fortunate enough to have the opportunity to appear on Faster Than Normal with Peter Shankman. Not only is he an amazing host but the interview covered a lot of common ground that can hopefully be beneficial to other Children of Chaos. Not only did our shared neurological wiring have similarities but also the way that we approach focusing it in a productive manner. FULL AUDIO

What a Miscellaneous Billing Classification Reveals About a System That Was Never Built for the People It Claims to Serve By Douglas Katz I did not come to this work as an expert. I came to it as someone whose body stopped cooperating. After years of military service and a lifetime of physical activity, the cumulative damage caught up with me. My shoulder. My grip. Upper extremity impairments that turned something as fundamental as preparing my own food into a daily negotiati

PART 1: Optimizing as a Team Member This is part one of a four-part series on ADHD, leadership and organizational dynamics. Full disclosure, I use the word ADHD because it’s the common language. Not because I accept the disorder framework. What I carry doesn’t look like a disorder when I examine it honestly. It looks like a mismatch — between the wiring and the systems that were never built for it. I’m not a clinician. Everything here comes from the wiring. In a stone arch ev

Search "best knife for arthritis" and you'll get a list. Usually ten items. Lightweight handles. Softer grip materials. Ergonomic curves. What you won't get is an explanation of why any of them are easier to use. Or whether they actually are. I've been building an adaptive kitchen knife for several years now — as a disabled veteran, as someone who has navigated my own grip limitations in the kitchen, and as a person who went looking for a better tool and couldn't find one. So

ADHD is often framed as a disability. I personally do not feel that way. For some people, it is—but that experience is shaped heavily by environment. There are theories that different cognitive styles evolved for different roles—some oriented toward structure and order, others toward movement, adaptation, and uncertainty. Both are valuable. But modern systems tend to reward only one. When the environment aligns with the wiring, performance changes. This is about ability—and f

We need to start thinking about what can go right with AI and who it can help. Much of the public conversation about artificial intelligence revolves around replacement. The argument tends to fall into one of two camps: either AI will replace human thinking, or it will diminish the value of human work. The framing assumes that the central question is substitution. But from where I sit, that isn't the most interesting aspect of what these tools are doing. The more compelling d

Sometimes in life, roads don’t fork. They intersect. Recently I stepped back onto an Aikido mat after several years away. Within the first few training sessions — most of which ended with me on the floor, where I seemed to be spending more time than I remembered — I realized something that should probably have been obvious much earlier. Getting up after being thrown took longer than it used to. A lot longer. And the getting up was just the beginning. I also found immense j

Commercial kitchens face mounting challenges, from managing rising labor costs to ensuring employee safety. Traditional knife systems, with multiple tools requiring frequent maintenance, create inefficiencies and risks that can disrupt operations. The NULU knife offers a groundbreaking solution by consolidating six traditional knives into one ergonomic, versatile tool. Coupled with a tailored sharpening subscription service, NULU provides measurable productivity gains, cost s

Introduction The design of cutting tools is central to effective food preparation, directly impacting not only the efficiency of tasks but also the user’s long-term comfort, safety, and overall experience. For many individuals, particularly those with upper extremity limitations or mobility impairments, traditional knives can be a source of strain and fatigue due to the physical effort required to perform common cutting tasks. Because inefficient cutting can actually contribu

I wasn’t surprised when I was diagnosed with ADHD. I had known for years. The diagnosis didn’t reveal something new about me; it confirmed something I had already been living. The intensity. The jump-cut thinking. The friction with monotony. The ability to feel underloaded in stable environments and sharply alive when stakes rose. What changed wasn’t the label. What changed was perspective. For most of my life, ADHD functioned as an explanation for inconvenience. It explained

When I first got into the adaptive space, I figured the hardest part would be design. Adaptive products, after all, carry real responsibility. They have to work for people who don’t have the luxury of trial-and-error, who aren’t looking for novelty or marginal improvement, but for something that meaningfully changes how they move through the world. I was wrong. Design was hard, but it was solvable. What surprised me — and what continues to surprise a lot of founders and organ

Entrepreneurial lessons from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or making good in a wary world. There are very few movies that feel universally beloved—not just popular or successful, but beloved. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is one of those rare cultural touchstones. I've never met anyone who actively dislikes it. That alone should tell us something. It isn't just nostalgia. It isn't just Gene Wilder's performance or the songs or the candy. It's what the movie sa

We’re a small startup, and we take every bit of feedback seriously — sometimes personally. When you spend years developing something you believe can genuinely help people, criticism hits differently than you’d expect. A recent Amazon review stopped me in my tracks. The reviewer called the NULU “an overpriced pizza cutter,” “irresponsible,” and even predicted it would end up “in evidence bags more than kitchens.” I’ll be honest — that one stung. Not because it was harsh, but b

We all move along the Ability Curve. Designing for each other means designing for ourselves — now and in the future Biology Always Wins: The Reality of the Ability Curve We don’t like to think about it, but here’s the truth: You will be disabled someday. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually, biology catches up to all of us. It could be an injury. A chronic illness. Aging joints. Shaky hands. Slower reflexes. Lost strength. It happens to everyone — not because w