Having been at the same conference: The gap was staggering. On the one side, people & teams who by now have deeply agentic workflows (not just code—individualized workflows across the board were a thing). In the middle serious discussions on rather useless things like “LOC isn’t a good productivity metric, how do we count productivity now”. And a large chunk just very disconnected from what is and isn’t possible, in both directions.
Even if we’re at the top of the S curve (personal take: Probably, at least without fundamental breakthroughs beyond “scale”), there’s massive changes already deeply baked in, and for the unaware teams, it will feel like continued exponential growth just because understanding is slowly trickling down.
The—I think—most realistic take was Bill Coughran comparing it to the dot com boom, the fact that there were a lot of dead bodies left on the ground after that, and that a few well-positioned companies experienced tremendous growth after.
Also a clear theme: Frontline/middle managers see what’s coming much better. Many are struggling hard to do the right thing. “Leadership” is often blissfully unaware and an active blocker/distraction.
Also a clear theme: Frontline/middle managers see what’s coming much better. Many are struggling hard to do the right thing. “Leadership” is often blissfully unaware and an active blocker/distraction.
Yes, and lots of middle managers can feel they’re being squeezed out (this is always happening to middle management, though, so take with a grain of salt). But some folks really believe that we’ll soon be in a world where line managers can manage many more people with the help of AI and there’ll be less need for layers to coordinate between line managers and executives. I’m somewhat skeptical about overcoming the information bottlenecks, but we’ll see.
Having been at the same conference: The gap was staggering. On the one side, people & teams who by now have deeply agentic workflows (not just code—individualized workflows across the board were a thing). In the middle serious discussions on rather useless things like “LOC isn’t a good productivity metric, how do we count productivity now”. And a large chunk just very disconnected from what is and isn’t possible, in both directions.
Even if we’re at the top of the S curve (personal take: Probably, at least without fundamental breakthroughs beyond “scale”), there’s massive changes already deeply baked in, and for the unaware teams, it will feel like continued exponential growth just because understanding is slowly trickling down.
The—I think—most realistic take was Bill Coughran comparing it to the dot com boom, the fact that there were a lot of dead bodies left on the ground after that, and that a few well-positioned companies experienced tremendous growth after.
Also a clear theme: Frontline/middle managers see what’s coming much better. Many are struggling hard to do the right thing. “Leadership” is often blissfully unaware and an active blocker/distraction.
Yes, and lots of middle managers can feel they’re being squeezed out (this is always happening to middle management, though, so take with a grain of salt). But some folks really believe that we’ll soon be in a world where line managers can manage many more people with the help of AI and there’ll be less need for layers to coordinate between line managers and executives. I’m somewhat skeptical about overcoming the information bottlenecks, but we’ll see.