Justin Poehnelt

Justin owns the technical architecture behind Helen’s Foundry: its bitemporal graph architecture, verification engine, and MCP integrations.

He created and architected the open-source Google Workspace CLI, a dynamically generated Rust command surface for Google Workspace APIs built for people and AI agents.

The premise did not move with the evidence. Google fired him in April 2026 for shipping it, under the belief that the work threatened the product. Only afterward did Google catch up to the shift the CLI had exposed: its product direction moved toward agentic tooling, and an official CLI got underway.

That failure is one reason Helen’s Foundry exists. The product records strategic premises, links them to execution, and exposes the lag before an outdated premise governs another decision. Justin published a first-person account of the firing; the Helen’s Foundry thesis tells the longer product story.