SproutVest Field Notes
Guides to decisions that are expensive to get wrong
Field Notes covers technical decisions where the analysis is hard to find and the cost of being wrong shows up in a budget review months later. Each edition carries a framework that stays true and, where the topic demands it, a dated market snapshot that will not. The snapshot is always labeled as such, because selling a dated artifact without saying so is how you end up owing strangers an update.
Every edition publishes its opening sections openly, readable in full without an email address, so you can judge the work before it asks anything of you. Some editions are free in their entirety. Others carry a paid full edition, priced per edition and marked below.
Every figure is cited to its source with the date it was retrieved. Nothing is sponsored, and no vendor pays for placement.
Editions
No. 3 · September 2026 · Free
The Second Wave: An Operator's Guide to Siting Compute in the Gulf South
The utility territory map for 1 to 50 MW compute projects in Louisiana: which announced gigawatts are already spoken for, who owns generation versus who buys wholesale from whom, the incentive stack that actually applies below the $200 million floor, the four cost-allocation questions every project now gets asked, and a worked 20 MW example where the energization date decides the deal.
Sections 1 and 2, including the territory map, free to read in full; complete report free with an email address. Read it →
No. 2 · August 2026 · $199
Which AI model should your business actually run?
A buyer's guide to the open and closed models on the market, written for mid-market teams who have to pick one and live with the consequences. The seven selection criteria, cost per resolved task rather than cost per million tokens, the self-hosting break-even, a two-week evaluation protocol, and an August 2026 pricing landscape covering Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, Qwen, Llama, Gemma and the open-weight hosts.
Sections 1 and 2 free to read in full, no email required. Read it →
No. 1 · July 2026 · Free
Build, Buy, or Rent: An Operator's Guide to AI Compute Decisions
The economics of AI compute: the real cost stack, a worked cost model across on-demand, reserved, and owned paths at three utilization levels, the decision framework for when each is right, and the four questions investors should ask.
Free with an email address. Read it →
Questions
Write to [email protected]. If the decision behind an edition is one you would rather talk through, book a call at cal.com/sproutvest.