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Dima and Slava find that scaling productivity with AI likely means going from a faster tool to running a team of synthetic labour — and that the challenges of delegation are nothing new.

• Productivity with a tool vs. productivity with an agent: a tool allows you to do things better/faster and with an agent you set it an objective that feeds into your bigger goal
• Agentic threshold: the executor must pass judgment rather than just carry out instructions
• Synthetic labor — AI agents you delegate work to
• Verification Tax: it is more effective to delegate tasks that take long to do but are easy to verify — verifying by re-doing the task yourself defeats the purpose
• ICs delegate to themselves, managers delegate to others
• Delegating to others is a distinct muscle that needs development
• Slava is worried that most managers don't operate at the higher levels of delegation even with real people
• Building the pyramid down — AI lets an IC build a hierarchy of agents below them, compressing what used to require climbing the corporate ladder

"Do this for me is a tool. Do it with me is borderline. Think for me would be closer to agency." — Slava