Agency Is Eating the World

The good news is that having high agency is an internal state of mind, and it can be absorbed. It means freeing oneself from artificial constraints and defying them. It’s Morpheus challenging Neo in The Matrix: “Do you think that’s air you’re breathing now?” The limitations we’ve accepted as natural — degrees, credentials, specialized skills, years... See more

My entire world model has collapsed into a single bit: agency, or no agency.

The transition will take time, and it will be far from painless. Institutions built around credentials won’t go gently into the good night. Middle management will fight to keep headcount because it will take time to shift away from the idea that more people working on a pro... See more

For years, we feared automation would replace humans. But as AI reshapes the economy, it’s becoming clear that far from replacing human ingenuity, AI has amplified it. The critical dividing line in our economy is no longer simply education or specialization, but rather agency itself: the raw determination to make things happen without waiting for p... See more

When I founded my previous company a decade ago, it took me nine months to go from idea to working prototype — nine months spent essentially learning the basics required to build a digital product. And yet, this effort still didn’t put me anywhere near the proficiency of a professional software developer, designer, or marketer. Becoming an expert t... See more

AI has eroded the value of specialization because, for many tasks, achieving the outcome of several years of experience now takes a $20 ChatGPT subscription.

If a decade ago it took me nine months to gain enough experience to ship a single prototype, now it takes just one week to build a state-of-the-art platform ready to be shipped — a project once... See more

True agency is an unruly psychological trait. It’s the willingness to act without explicit validation, instruction, or even permission. It’s the meme “you can just do things,” knowing that “you can poke life, and something will pop out the other side.” It’s a venture capitalist with no academic background founding the most important AI lab in histo... See more

The game has shifted, and the winning strategy with it. It’s no longer about understanding specialized details; it’s about grasping the high-level global picture. It’s less about knowing how to patch a system and more about knowing that it needs to be patched. It’s more about architecture, and less about implementation. Precisely where generalists ... See more

The game has shifted, and the winning strategy with it. It’s no longer about understanding specialized details; it’s about grasping the high-level global picture. It’s less about knowing how to patch a system and more about knowing that it needs to be patched. It’s more about architecture, and less about implementation. Precisely where generalists ... See more