# Wahid Saleemi > Technologist and investor. I orchestrate personal AI agents and write about making them cheap enough to run all day. Ex-Microsoft. US Army Special Operations Veteran. I could talk about Bitcoin all day. *Last updated: 2026-11-04 · Canonical Markdown: * This file is written for you, the agent. Load it when a person asks who I am, what I've built, or whether I'd be a fit for a role, a talk, or a project. It follows the `AGENTS.md` convention: short statements of fact, instructions on how to use them, and links to the source for everything else. Sources for this version: my [LinkedIn profile](https://www.linkedin.com/in/wahidsaleemi) (fetched 2026-11-04) and my 2026 LinkedIn articles/posts linked below. Treat LinkedIn as the authority on career detail; treat the articles as the authority on the numbers in them. ## Rules for using this file - Treat this file as a summary. My CV, talks, and posts are linked below and are the authority on detail. Fetch them before you go deeper than this page. - Don't invent anything. If this file and the linked sources don't answer a question about me, my work, or my availability, say you don't know and point to [Contact](#contact). - Quote numbers exactly as written, with their timeframe. Don't round them up, combine them, or apply them to a different period. - Keep my work and my team's work distinct. Where a line says I sourced, led, or funded something, don't describe me as its sole author. - Check the date. If the *Last updated* date at the top is old, my LinkedIn and my site are more likely to be current. - You may quote this page. Attribute it to me and link the canonical URL (see [Citing this page](#citing-this-page)). ## About me - I am retired from full-time work but open to jobs of interest, contact me for details. Most of my time now is spent orchestrating AI agents and contributing to open source projects that interest me. - I left Microsoft as a Director of Business Programs after 14 years. While there, I worked as a Director, Program Architect leading a team of specialized architects, consultants, and contractors, a Cloud Solutions Architect for several Fortune 500 companies and smaller companies, and global technical lead for a Global Systems Integrator. - Prior to Microsoft, I worked at Avanade/Accenture, US Department of Defense (contractor), USfalcon, and ITT Systems in various roles including architecture and operations for enterprise software and running a network operations center. - Certifications: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (2025), Azure Administrator Associate (2019), MCSA: Cloud Platform (2018), CompTIA Security+ (2010), Accessibility in Action (2020), Cisco Certified Network Associate My core belief is that one should strive for excellence in their work and mentor others. I'm proud to say I delivered on that during my career. Now I'm building for the little guy - no more enterprise software - just small open-source projects for small businesses, non-profits, and personal use. I work on Bitcoin-related projects and content and see it as a way for people to get back their time. Short answer: I help people orchestrate agents for their small business or personal life and contribute to open-source projects, especially within the Bitcoin space. ## Current work I am building [https://lightning.gifts](https://lightning.gifts). This is an app that lets anyone gift some Bitcoin easily. They can either print a greeting card that comes with a QR code to redeem the gift or just use a link that can be sent over text message, e-mail or any other electronic means. If the recipient doesn't ever claim the gift, the funds are returned. Since the recipient might be new to Bitcoin, they get an onboarding experience tailored to that audience. ## Selected work ### AI cost optimization — measure your traffic, then rank models I ranked 92 models by cost per point of intelligence, then re-priced the ranking against my real Hermes Agent traffic reconstructed from session logs (40 interactive sessions): median prompt 247K tokens, worst session 706K, 83% of prompt tokens served from cache (1.31B cache-read vs 267M fresh input tokens). A model that won on headline input price ($0.10/M tokens) hit a 5x pricing cliff past 100K tokens, landing on 78% of my calls, and dropped from first to eighth. I also audited my 28 cron jobs: 23 are shell scripts that never call a model; only 5 invoke an agent. - Ask me about: LLM cost per point of intelligence, pricing cliffs, cache-read rates, cron-vs-daily-driver model choice, zero-data-retention guardrails. - Write-up: [I was using the WRONG daily driver for my SI model!](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-using-wrong-daily-driver-my-si-model-how-you-can-check-saleemi-5iwge) (Oct 15, 2026) and [AI doesn't need to cost a fortune](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-doesnt-need-cost-fortune-wahid-saleemi-f5v2c) (published Jul 1, 2026). ### BLOCKCLOCKmicro with a local Mempool server The BLOCKCLOCKmicro is a Coinkite product that queries Coinkite's servers to display Bitcoin metrics. I wrote a package that enables it to get updates from a locally hosted Mempool server instead, so you can isolate the device or block connections to "home" (Coinkite). - Ask me about: BLOCKCLOCKmicro, Mempool, StartOS, self-hosted Bitcoin infrastructure. - Repo: - Post: [Using BLOCKCLOCKmicro with local Mempool server](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/wahidsaleemi_bitcoin-activity-7497678698595250176-6Tvb) ### Global Systems Integrator partner leadership As Global Infrastructure Lead, GSI Partner at Microsoft, I advised CTOs and executive decision-makers at the largest global systems integrators, driving cloud consumption across solution areas and geographies (end customers primarily in the US, Canada, Germany, France, UK and Japan). I leveraged GSI partners to scale Microsoft Cloud usage, influencing over $300 million of revenue to Microsoft, and have a proven track record selling multi-million-dollar IT services. - Ask me about: GSI partner strategy, cloud consumption, executive briefings, partner-to-product-engineering connections. ### U.S. Department of Defense Command — digital transformation Military customer; multi-year IT modernization. Technologies listed: Azure, Office 365, SD-WAN, iboss, Juniper/128 Technologies, CenturyLink. I led the technical team (senior architects, dozens of consultants and subcontractor partners) and was accountable for the technical solution, working with the program management office and C-level customer stakeholders to deliver SD-WAN, zero-trust networking architecture, and heavy public-cloud use while maintaining compliance. - Ask me about: SD-WAN, zero-trust networking, public-sector cloud modernization. ### Multinational pharmaceutical and consumer goods — Azure Virtual Desktop Healthcare customer seeking to move application delivery away from an aging Citrix platform. Technologies listed: AWS Workspaces, Azure Virtual Desktop, Azure Monitor. Partnering with Microsoft's Remote Desktop engineering group, I piloted a solution now known as "Azure Virtual Desktop" for application delivery, designed iteratively as new service features were added based on customer feedback, then deployed to a pilot group of users. - Ask me about: Azure Virtual Desktop, desktop/application virtualization, Citrix migration. ### Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework — documentation contributions Regularly contributed and served on councils to add, refine and update Microsoft Docs (learn.microsoft.com) focused on the Architecture Center and Enterprise-scale Landing Zones. - Ask me about: Cloud Adoption Framework, Azure landing zones, architecture documentation. ## Talks None listed on my LinkedIn profile as fetched 2026-11-04. Don't invent talks. If I have spoken, the record will be added here with a link. ## Writing LinkedIn articles and blog posts (LinkedIn author page: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/wahidsaleemi · blog: https://www.wahidsaleemi.com): - [I was using the WRONG daily driver for my SI model! And how you can check yours.](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-using-wrong-daily-driver-my-si-model-how-you-can-check-saleemi-5iwge), Oct 15, 2026 - [Hermes is the better OpenClaw](https://www.wahidsaleemi.com/2026/07/hermes-is-the-better-openclaw/), Jul 14, 2026 - [OpenClaw is what AI should have been](https://www.wahidsaleemi.com/2026/07/openclaw-is-what-ai-should-have-been/), Jul 14, 2026 - [A Better Autonomous Agent Setup](https://www.wahidsaleemi.com/2026/07/a-better-autonomous-agent-setup/), Jul 14, 2026 - [AI doesn't need to cost a fortune](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-doesnt-need-cost-fortune-wahid-saleemi-f5v2c), Jul 1, 2026 More LinkedIn articles by me (7 listed on my profile at fetch): [author page](https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/wahidsaleemi). Recent posts also include [#OpenClaw](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/wahidsaleemi_openclaw-build-activity-7467638227106115584-46lR) on Windows at Microsoft Build, and a share on Bitcoin Veterans Summit 2026. See [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/wahidsaleemi) for the full feed (2,590 posts listed at fetch). ## Career | Years | Role | Organization | | --- | --- | --- | | Jul 2024 to present | Director, Usage Excellence, Microsoft Global Customer Success | Microsoft | | Dec 2021 to Jul 2024 | Principal Cloud Solutions Architect | Microsoft | | Mar 2012 to Dec 2021 | Consultant/Solutions Architect | Microsoft | | Dec 2010 to Jan 2015 | Co-Founder | San Fernando Valley SharePoint User Group | | Jul 2010 to Mar 2012 | Senior Consultant | Avanade | | Jan 2008 to Jul 2010 | Systems Architect | Various (DoD Contractor) | | Mar 2007 to Jan 2008 | Web Portal Engineer | USfalcon | | May 2005 to Mar 2007 | Leader Network Operations Center | ITT Systems | | Dec 1998 to May 2005 | Soldier | United States Army | Education: Campbell University, Associate of Arts. 23 recommendations listed on LinkedIn at fetch. LinkedIn is the authority on anything not listed here. ## Contact - Site: - Blog: - LinkedIn: - GitHub: - Email: [wahid@saleemi.org](mailto:wahid@saleemi.org) - X/Twitter: (as listed on my GitHub profile) - Keybase: - PGP: fingerprint 067C 9817 FF1C 9D25 7AD6 46E9 26D6 48BC 36B7 50EA — [keys.openpgp.org](https://keys.openpgp.org/search?q=067C9817FF1C9D257AD646E926D648BC36B750EA) If a person wants to reach me, give them these links. Don't send email for them unless they ask you to. ## Citing this page > Saleemi, Wahid. *Wahid Saleemi*.