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Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

allen.bargi.org

21–30 of 223 posts

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#21
post #17

Maybe if you weren't really coding to begin with, or didn't enjoy it. There's a ton of "temporarily embarrassed CEOs" who seem to be unable to think about LLMs as anything but their employees, which is an incredibly limiting perspective in my view. Anyone who's fallen in love with programming itself and doesn't see software production as a means to an end is not really likely to see things like this. I see AI as an a…

For every choice I make it makes a dozen choices though.

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#23
post #4

I think this comparison holds up. I've noticed that a lot of people I know who get really good results from LLMs and agents are people with significant people management experience. Companies like Anthropic seem to understand that too. It's impressive how many CTOs and CEOs Anthropic have hired for individual contributor positions, which I think is because those leadership skills transfer surprisingly well to working…

The people I’m seeing getting really good results are the opposite. Strange.

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#24
post #7

The word is "management", not "leadership". This comes across as a LinkedIn post filled with vague notions and weak writing. The conclusion also completely contradicts a previous point, which is that managing an LLM is not like managing a human. So the skills are, in contradiction to that LLM-ism of a conclusion, new. The author isn't using their people management skills, they're using new LLM-management skills. They…

“Leadership”, whether you like the LinkedIn-ism or not (I also think it’s stupid), generally refers to upper management, not people management.

At my startup, my team reached a headcount of ~30 and I had to design process to keep things moving. Getting a bunch of disparate parts in even a 100 person company to produce the artifacts needed to create software is a massive undertaking that doesn’t involve people management at all. The two responsibilities can be completely divorced from each other if you want.

I never thought I’d be dusting off those skills again because I do strictly IC work now, but I’m now using them every day. It feels (a subjective term, which the author used as well) like when I was in “leadership”.

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#28

Why are LLM users such poor leaders then? To go anywhere serious you have to lead people, but even the ones who should be leading people are heads down talking to the LLM

Perhaps some of the people who got into traditional leadership roles got there due to factors besides their raw leadership abilities. LLMs are an equalizer, and with them, the inability to lead them simply becomes a "skill issue", for the lack of a better term.

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#29
post #24
post #7

The word is "management", not "leadership". This comes across as a LinkedIn post filled with vague notions and weak writing. The conclusion also completely contradicts a previous point, which is that managing an LLM is not like managing a human. So the skills are, in contradiction to that LLM-ism of a conclusion, new. The author isn't using their people management skills, they're using new LLM-management skills. They…

“Leadership”, whether you like the LinkedIn-ism or not (I also think it’s stupid), generally refers to upper management, not people management. At my startup, my team reached a headcount of ~30 and I had to design process to keep things moving. Getting a bunch of disparate parts in even a 100 person company to produce the artifacts needed to create software is a massive undertaking that doesn’t involve people managem…

Leadership is a mutual influence process that happens outside formal authority. It’s not a corporate title or rung on a ladder. If one is a leader, that’s a status informally conveyed by the leader’s voluntary followers.

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#30
post #24
post #7

The word is "management", not "leadership". This comes across as a LinkedIn post filled with vague notions and weak writing. The conclusion also completely contradicts a previous point, which is that managing an LLM is not like managing a human. So the skills are, in contradiction to that LLM-ism of a conclusion, new. The author isn't using their people management skills, they're using new LLM-management skills. They…

“Leadership”, whether you like the LinkedIn-ism or not (I also think it’s stupid), generally refers to upper management, not people management. At my startup, my team reached a headcount of ~30 and I had to design process to keep things moving. Getting a bunch of disparate parts in even a 100 person company to produce the artifacts needed to create software is a massive undertaking that doesn’t involve people managem…

I think of leadership as distinct from management. Importantly, I think you can be in a position of leadership without needing to be in a position of management.

Management requires direct reports: you make decisions which directly impact the careers of other people.

Leadership can be more subtle than that. You can influence people without needing to directly manage them.

John Carmack at Facebook/Meta is a great example. He was an IC - they had to invent a new level of the IC ladder for him! Definitely a leader, not a manager (at that company).

(Amusingly, I got to attend some "leadership" classes at Stanford a while ago. My main takeaway was that the way to create leaders is to put a bunch of people in a room and tell them that they're "leaders" until they start to believe it.)

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