AI era skills: Why cultivating agency matters more than job titles | Max Schoening (Notion)

Key Concepts

• Agency: The realization that the world is malleable and created by people no smarter than oneself; the ability to effect change.
• Malleable Software: Software that prioritizes the user's ability to customize and adapt it to their needs, rather than being rigid "ivory tower" products.
• Taste: The ability to run a "virtual machine" in one's head to predict how a specific in-group will react to an idea, developed through repeated iterations and feedback.
• Tiny Core: The philosophy that great products are built around one exceptionally good, simple superpower rather than a bloated feature set.
• Incremental Correctness: The practice of iterating rapidly while maintaining high standards for quality.
• Vibe Coding: The trend of using AI to prototype and build software, though the speaker notes a current lack of reliability in the resulting software.

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1. The Evolution of Product Building

Max Shing argues that the role of product teams is shifting as AI lowers the barrier to entry.

• The "First 10%" Rule: AI has made the initial 10% of any project (prototyping, scaffolding) essentially free. The challenge remains in the final 90% of polish and reliability.
• Designers and PMs as Builders: Shing encourages non-engineers to "think in code." This isn't necessarily for production deployment, but to understand the "material" they are designing with, which is essential for building effective agentic loops.
• The "Factory" Mindset: Modern product building involves creating "software factories"—agentic loops that automate repetitive tasks. A sign of a mature team is when human intervention in the code feels like a "bug."

2. Agency and Career Philosophy

Shing emphasizes that "skill issues" are often just excuses. True success comes from agency.

• Driving Like It’s Stolen: Even when not a founder, employees should act with the ownership of one. This involves identifying what the organization needs and taking initiative to fill those gaps, regardless of one's formal job title.
• The "Steve Jobs" Realization: One day, you realize the world is made by people no smarter than you. This realization is the catalyst for changing things rather than just following instructions.
• The "Permanent Underclass" Fallacy: Shing warns against the frenetic, fearful mindset that one must "catch the last train" to success. He advises young professionals to focus on what they are passionate about rather than succumbing to industry hype.

3. Malleable Software and Product Strategy

• The "Tiny Core" Principle: Successful products (e.g., GitHub’s Pull Request, Notion’s Blocks, Heroku’s git push) succeed because they have one tiny, perfect core. Pitfalls occur when teams try to add "one more feature" to compensate for a weak core.
• Jobs to be Done (JTBD): Shing uses this framework to force teams to zoom out. He asks: "Would you actually buy the thing you just built?" It serves as a reality check against "marketing speak" and internal bias.
• The SAS Apocalypse: Shing believes the "SAS apocalypse" is exaggerated. While tools will become more general, users still want "as-a-service" models because they don't want to maintain the full stack themselves.

4. Developing Taste

Taste is not an innate talent but a result of reps.

• Methodology: To build taste, one must iterate, get feedback, and observe how a specific in-group reacts to an idea.
• Environment: Surround yourself with "tasteful" things (e.g., well-designed physical objects) to calibrate your own standards.
• The "Virtual Machine" Analogy: Having taste means being able to simulate the reaction of your target audience to a product idea before it is even built.

5. Notable Quotes

• "One day you wake up and you realize the world is made up by people no smarter than you. It just really awakens you to the idea that you can just change things."
• "I don't care at all whether designers write code that lands in production. The reason I like thinking in code is because it forces you to consider the medium."
• "All the great products have something tiny that is a superpower."
• "We already have universal basic income. It's called knowledge work."

6. Recommended Resources

• "Code" by Charles Petzold: Essential for understanding how computers actually work.
• "Tools for Conviviality" by Ivan Illich: Explores the balance between human autonomy and industrial-scale technology.
• "Seeing Like a State" by James C. Scott: A critique of how systems create "fake legibility" that often ignores the reality of how things actually function.

Synthesis

The core takeaway is that we are entering an era where the ability to build is becoming commoditized, shifting the value toward agency, taste, and the ability to identify a "tiny core" of utility. Rather than fearing AI or stressing over career paths, professionals should focus on "tinkering," building things, and maintaining a high standard of quality. The most successful individuals will be those who treat their work as a craft, maintain a sense of ownership, and refuse to be cogs in a machine.