# Elvis Saravia urges businesses to own their AI harness and evals first

> Original title: Own your intelligence stack, folks!

- Source: Elvis Saravia
- Published: 2026-11-02T13:21:52.000Z
- Bad Influence: https://badinfluence.news/items/pn0mhd2jlkk0gy12t7zlbjdn1
- Original: https://x.com/omarsar0/status/2117245811343966438

## Summary

Elvis Saravia says businesses should own their intelligence stack, starting with the harness and evals, because open models are costly to run and tune. He argues a self-built harness gives optionality, unlocks capabilities, and shows which layer of the stack to invest in next. He presents open source as how businesses survive and thrive in the age of intelligence.

## Post

Own your intelligence stack, folks!

I will never get tired of saying this. Your business's very existence is at play here. 

But you don't have to do this all at once if you can't afford it. I mean, open models are still very expensive to run and tune. 

If you want to start somewhere, I suggest the harness. Build your evals and quickly move down the stack. 

The great part about building your own harness is that it gives you optionality, unlocks capabilities, and helps you measure where else in the intelligence stack you need to invest next. 

So while open-source was an alternative in the old era, today it is how you survive and thrive in the age of intelligence.

## Quoted post @rauchg

> Own your intelligence.
> 
> Anyone that opposes this has something to sell you (perhaps your own intelligence back to you.)
> 
> Local models need to continue proliferating. The “absolute unit” massive models may be out of reach for now locally, so your best option is to, indeed, keep your options open. Own your harness, data, connections, runtime: your agents. Embrace open source.

https://x.com/rauchg/status/2117000819623243925