{"author":"simonw","children":[{"author":"nx77","children":[{"author":"ceejayoz","children":[],"created_at":"2026-08-15T13:49:27.000Z","created_at_i":1786801767,"id":49310537,"options":[],"parent_id":49310501,"points":null,"story_id":49309451,"text":"https://status.claude.com/","title":null,"type":"comment","url":null}],"created_at":"2026-08-15T13:44:06.000Z","created_at_i":1786801446,"id":49310501,"options":[],"parent_id":49310420,"points":null,"story_id":49309451,"text":"Give some examples of the good results these kind of people are getting out of it...","title":null,"type":"comment","url":null},{"author":"GPerson","children":[{"author":"simonw","children":[],"created_at":"2026-08-15T19:25:54.000Z","created_at_i":1786821954,"id":49313471,"options":[],"parent_id":49310690,"points":null,"story_id":49309451,"text":"You mean they have zero management experience at all?","title":null,"type":"comment","url":null}],"created_at":"2026-08-15T14:05:30.000Z","created_at_i":1786802730,"id":49310690,"options":[],"parent_id":49310420,"points":null,"story_id":49309451,"text":"The people I\u2019m seeing getting really good results are the opposite. Strange.","title":null,"type":"comment","url":null},{"author":"slopinthebag","children":[],"created_at":"2026-08-15T20:38:09.000Z","created_at_i":1786826289,"id":49314117,"options":[],"parent_id":49310420,"points":null,"story_id":49309451,"text":"If you consider Anthropic\u2019s software as \u201cgood results\u201d than I\u2019m inclined to believe it\u2019s the opposite.","title":null,"type":"comment","url":null},{"author":"sidharthkmenon","children":[],"created_at":"2026-08-16T04:25:40.000Z","created_at_i":1786854340,"id":49316895,"options":[],"parent_id":49310420,"points":null,"story_id":49309451,"text":"but managing humans is simpler in many ways, too: there's accountability for one. and it's much easier to reason about the capability boundary of a human.","title":null,"type":"comment","url":null}],"created_at":"2026-08-15T13:33:44.000Z","created_at_i":1786800824,"id":49310420,"options":[],"parent_id":49309451,"points":null,"story_id":49309451,"text":"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 with agents.

Of course, managing agents is massively easier than managing humans! You don't have to consider the agent's own desires, goals, opinions, or emotional state when telling them what to do. Humans have agency; agents (despite the name) do not.","title":null,"type":"comment","url":null}