The end of the hero. The rise of us

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EDITORIAL RECOGNITION

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“A reflective call to action for individuals, organizations, and humanity as a whole.”

— Kirkus Reviews

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Two futures are being built with the same technology. In one, intelligence is owned by a few and rented by everyone else.

In the other, the capacity of the many, augmented by machines, does what the authority of the few never could.

I'm Sonali Sharma. I have spent my career on the second future, and The 90% Code is where I set out how it works: the capacities people develop, the infrastructures that turn those capacities into power, and the cases proving it already runs.
HOW MUCH AGENCY ARE YOU ACTUALLY RETAINING AS AI ENTERS YOUR WORK?
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Three ways in.

  • Trust Infrastructure for AI adoption

    BUILDING AI THAT STRENGTHENS HUMAN CAPABILITY.

    AI adoption requires more than technical safeguards. Explore a five-dimensional framework for building trust through honesty, growth, power, fairness, and accountability.

    EXPLORE AI TRUST

  • Speaking and Workshops

    BRINGING SYSTEMS THINKING INTO PRACTICE.

    Keynotes and interactive workshops on organizational redesign for AI, collective intelligence, responsible adoption, and intergenerational stewardship.

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  • Collective Intelligence

    UNLOCKING THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE MANY.

    What if organizations could think, decide, and act beyond the capacity of any single leader? Explore The 90% Code's framework for distributed intelligence, shared ownership, and collective action.

    EXPLORE THE FRAMEWORK
Book cover titled 'The 90% Code: Rewriting Power for the AI Era' by Sonali Sharma. The cover features silhouettes of people standing under a spotlight.

from EXTRACTION to REGENERATION,

from TECHNO-FEUDALISM to DISTRIBUTED ABUNDANCE,

from HERO to COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE.

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  • "Most books about leadership are about leaders. This one is about the rest of us. It begins with consciousness, refuses every comfortable answer after that, and makes the case for a world where power is held together rather than handed up. Bold, and I believe in it."

    —Jos de Blok, founder and CEO of Buurtzorg

  • “I’ve read (but will be digesting for a while!) the first chapter of The 90% Code and am excited for the ways Sonali, sharing this message, can help shape a future that is better for all of us - not as a “hero” but as a unique, brilliant human organizing the 90%. Systems change, org design, ancient wisdom traditions… some of my favorite things all in one text. If you enjoy thinkers like Bayo Akomolafe, Frederic Laloux, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Amy Edmondson - add Sonali to your radar.”

    — J.M Johnson, Cofounder Aloe.inc

  • "My generation is inheriting systems we didn’t design, but we’ll be expected to live with their consequences. The 90% Code made me think differently about power—not as something held by a few people at the top, but as something we can redesign into the systems themselves. As a designer, that idea stayed with me.”

    Suyash Marwah, Designer Motorala

  • "Finally – a leadership book for the 21st century… Sharma isn't writing from a theoretical perspective. She has lived it… If you lead anything — a team, an organization, a system — this book will change how you see yourself inside of it."

    Kyla Dawn Avis, host, Shift podcast

  • "Sonali Sharma is naming a shift many of us can feel but haven't had words for… Her systems-level thinking helps you see that this is truly possible."

    Melissa McHenry, Amazon.ca review

  • "Sonali Sharma is thinking about hard problems of governance and preparedness. These are the questions that organizations, from businesses to non-profits, will be asking themselves."

    Mikhail Klassen, Amazon.ca review

  • "What an important and timely piece of work. A very thoughtful and well researched approach to the imminent and increasingly critical issue of both a dangers and opportunities associated with AI. What I really appreciated about Ms. Sharma's approach to the topic was the pragmatic and even-handed approach to a thorny and divisive topic. She lays out the issues with the "hero" approach to leadership in a world moving much faster than any before and complicated by inherent unpredictability. Ms. Sharma then proposes an approach to leadership and governance rooted in ethical and proven approaches. A must read to anyone trying to make sense of AI and its future."

    Rob Koplowitz Founder, Analysis.Tech | Former VP & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

  • "Thought provoking! The 90% Code raises key questions on the structure and operating models for organizations in the future era of aI with unprecedented speed of change. I personally enjoyed the personal stories and anecdotes a lot — including her work with the Kuruba, and the parallels she draws to the Buurtzorg model. Definitely worth a read!

    Puneet Sharma, Partner - Deloitte

Meet the Author

Black and white portrait of a woman with wavy hair, wearing a dark turtleneck, resting her head on her hand, smiling softly, with her hand and a ring visible in the foreground.

The central question of this moment is not what a single brilliant mind can do. It is what many minds can do together.

The 90% Code is an operating system for governing the AI-era complexity without concentrating power.

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The thinking behind the work

The 90% Code — The Book

The 90% Code argues that the Hero Model, authority concentrated in a few hands, cannot govern the complexity AI is producing, and that the polycrisis we are living through is the cost of that failure. It sets out the alternative as an operating system: five capacities people develop, three infrastructures that turn those capacities into power, and the cases proving it already works. The choice in front of us is Distributed Abundance or Techno-Feudalism, and the book is about how the 90 percent make it.

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The framework and diagnostics

The System Diagnostic Canvas scores a community or organisation on the five capacities and three infrastructures and shows where the system is stuck.

The AI Assessment Canvas scores an AI system from two sides, the people who built it and the people who live with it, because the distance between those scores is where governance is missing. Both are free to download.

The same framework runs the AI Trust Score, a diagnostic of your own relationship with the AI in your work, refined with 50+ builders, adopters, teachers, and students globally.

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Living Proof

Buurtzorg runs Dutch home care through self-managing nurse teams with almost no management layer. Mondragon has operated as a worker-owned federation in the Basque Country for seven decades. vTaiwan brings citizens, civil servants, and companies into one deliberation before law is written. Bowling Green, Kentucky, used AI-assisted deliberation to let residents shape the city's future. Porto Alegre put a share of the municipal budget in residents' hands and kept it there for thirty years.

None of it is theoretical. The 90% Code is what these places already know, written down so the rest of us can build it.

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