TL; DR: AI Panic & Mercantilism — Food for Agile Thought #568
Welcome to the 568th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,213 peers.
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This week, Venkatesh Rao reads AI panic as mercantilism, since it treats intelligence as scarce and ordinary people as untrustworthy, and he predicts abundant AI will raise the returns on attention. Jeff Gothelf, however, believes AI erased shipping’s quality filter, so he proposes separating building from shipping and setting success criteria upfront. Teresa Torres and Petra Wille see evals as the old work of defining good, while Janna Bastow recommends reporting bets, evidence, return, and next allocation. Allan Kelly contends corporate products need lifetime value management, and Lenny Rachitsky talks with Rob Snyder about his PULL framework for finding real product-market fit.
Next, Zvi Mowshowitz finds a profitable Anthropic S-1 that downplays existential risk, while Torsten Slok shows margins rising only for the Mag 7, suggesting AI may struggle to raise profit elsewhere. Claes Bäckman contends take-home grades no longer measure learning, whereas Sean Goedecke rejects claims that using AI well is trivial. Ben Tossell feels overwhelmed and proposes building only what is fun, and Marc Andreessen wants companies to rein in agent chaos just enough, never cage it.
Lastly, Seth Godin proposes a Chief Decision Officer who creates better conditions for decisions, while Adam Grant, Marissa Shandell, and Courtney Elliott find narcissism, driven by a craving for status, was the only trait that consistently predicted CEO resistance to remote work. Steef-Jan Wiggers shows developers saving ten-plus hours weekly with AI fell from 68% to 26%, while Mack Grenfell finds only 40% of 1,285 AI-cited statistics matched a study. Finally, Bill Gross recommends that you stop starting from a blank page, since Idealab.ai offers more than 1.2 million free business ideas.
Disclaimer: I read Charniak/McDermott’s book on “Artificial Intelligence” decades ago; of course, I use AI for research, translations, proofreading, challenging story arcs and article structures, and summarization. It is a production tool, not a substitute for thinking.
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Does AI Panic Rhyme with Mercantilism?
: Cognitive Mercantilism: AI panic weirdly resembles the anxiety that accompanied early capitalism
Venkatesh Rao suggests AI panic mirrors mercantilism: treating intelligence as scarce and ordinary people as untrustworthy. He proposes that abundant AI will instead raise the returns on attention, prompting more voluntary effort, a cognitive industrious revolution. Elites fearing democratized intelligence, he believes, resemble mercantilist aristocrats who once dreaded emancipated farm laborers.
🎯 Product
: How to manage the inevitable mess of running a company where everyone is a builder
Jeff Gothelf believes AI erased the quality filter on shipping while builder roles stifle judgment about what deserves shipping. He proposes separating building from shipping and requiring success criteria upfront.
and : 🎙️ Defining What Good Looks Like
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille suggest AI evals are old work: defining what good looks like. They warn against measuring technical performance instead of customer value, or outsourcing the definition.
(via ProdPad): Your Board Update Is the Reason Product Looks Like a Cost Center
Janna Bastow suggests boards see product as a cost center because the update reports it like one. She proposes reporting bets, evidence, return, and next allocation instead of shipped features.
and : 📺 🎙️ An 86-minute guide to finding PMF
Lenny Rachitsky talks with Rob Snyder, who helped over 50 startups reach $1M ARR, about his PULL framework for finding real product-market fit, and why he advises against design partners.
: Heterogeneous Product Management is the future
Allan Kelly believes the Silicon Valley view of product management, built around selling products, is just one model. Corporate products need lifetime value management, which makes the role harder to define.
🧠 Artificial Intelligence
: Anthropic Files Its S-1
Zvi Mowshowitz reads Anthropic’s S-1 closely and finds a profitable company holding most of the cash it raised, while existential risk appears only briefly, in the passive voice, and is downplayed.
: AI is overwhelming and I’m doing it wrong
Ben Tossell admits that managing agents to optimize everything left him busy but stuck. He proposes a 30-day reset: build only what is fun; add no tools without clear pain.
(via Apollo Global Management): No Signs of AI Payoff Outside the Tech Sector
Torsten Slok shows revenue per worker and margins rise for the Mag 7 but stay flat outside tech. He suggests AI may struggle to turn cheap intelligence into higher profits.
: Practical AI for Academics
Claes Bäckman suggests that take-home grades no longer measure learning. His workshop slides for university teachers show an agent writing a thesis during the lecture, then cover AI detectors and their limits.
: Getting good at AI takes time and practice
Sean Goedecke rejects claims that using AI well is trivial. He believes supplying context, knowing model limits, and spotting typical mistakes are durable skills; avoiding AI likely leaves you behind.
🖥 🇬🇧 The A3 Delegation System Pilot Workshop, December 3-17, 2026, Starting at $149
Your team already delegates work to AI: reports, research, customer feedback analysis, stakeholder communication, or parts of operational workflows.
But can you answer these questions without improvising?
- What may AI decide, and what must remain a human decision?
- What does “good enough” mean for this particular work?
- Who verifies the result before somebody acts on it?
- Who checks whether the delegation still works after the model or workflow changes?
If those answers live in one person’s head, or nowhere, your problem is no longer prompting. You have a delegation problem.
The A3 Delegation System gives you a practical way to decide what AI may do, hand over the work clearly, define acceptable results, and inspect the AI delegation over time. The class is in English. 🇬🇧
Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 The A3 Delegation System Pilot Workshop, December 3-17, 2026, Starting at $149.
➿ Agile, Leadership & Career
: Caveman leadership and the CDO*
Seth Godin suggests we decide like cavemen around a fire, with comfort over effectiveness. He proposes a Chief Decision Officer who creates conditions for better decisions instead of making them.
(via Andreessen Horowitz): Let Chaos Reign, and Then Rein In Chaos
Marc Andreessen suggests chaotic bottom-up adoption signals a technology that matters, as with PCs, spreadsheets, and email. He believes companies should rein in agent chaos just enough, never cage it.
(via Knowledge @ Wharton): Why Narcissistic Leaders Don’t Like Remote Work
Adam Grant, Marissa Shandell, and Courtney Elliott found that narcissism was the only trait that consistently predicted CEO resistance to remote work, driven by a craving for power and status rather than distrust of employees.
📯 AI-Assisted Refinement Preparation
Preparing a refinement session is tedious, and AI is good at the tedious part: reading every Product Backlog item, every repeated comment column, and the team’s own records on the afternoon before. The risk sits elsewhere. A refinement agent asked to “help with refinement” can take the conversation away from the team without writing a single acceptance criterion: “suggesting” to the Product Owner or Product Manager which items to close, merge, split, or create is enough, and the questions the team was supposed to work out arrive in the brief already answered.
The remedy is a boundary decided before the first run: the agent marks evidence and asks questions, the Product Owner checks the brief and sets the agenda, and the team refines. Writing that boundary into an A3 Handoff Canvas, together with what the agent reads and who checks its output, turns a good intention into a rule the agent follows and the Product Owner can verify.
Thesis: This article explains how Product Owners and Product Managers can use AI to prepare Product Backlog refinement without pre-empting the team’s conversation: four evidence checks, a four-part test separating suggestions from decisions, written boundaries, and human verification of the agent’s brief.
📺 🇬🇧 Watch the video now: AI Refinement Prep Traps and How to Avoid Them.
👉 Learn more: AI-Assisted Refinement Preparation.
🛠 Concepts, Practices, Tools & Measuring
(via Idealab.ai): Discover the idea for you or improve the one you have, and we’ll help you build it.
Bill Gross proposes that you stop starting from a blank page. Idealab.ai offers more than 1.2 million free business ideas, matched to your skills, capital, and location, each with evidence and what to build first.
(via Trakkr): Zombie Stats: Where the Numbers AI Quotes Come From
Mack Grenfell traced 1,285 statistics cited by five AI assistants and found that only 40% had a matching study. He shows that assistants agreeing on a number is no proof that it has a source.
(via InfoQ): Developers Reporting Double-Digit Weekly Time Savings From AI Fell From 68% to 26%
Steef-Jan Wiggers shows that the share of developers saving ten-plus hours weekly with AI fell from 68% to 26% in a year. Correcting AI output adds friction, and only 42% of leaders have the right metrics.
📅 Scrum Training & Event Schedule
You can secure your seat for Scrum training classes, workshops, and meetups directly by following the corresponding link in the table below:
| Date | Class and Language | City | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🖥 🇬🇧 November 27, 2026 | GUARANTEED: AI4Agile Online Course v4 (AI4Agile Certificate; English; Online Course) | Online Course | $149 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.) |
| 🖥 🇬🇧 December 3-17, 2026 | A3 Delegation System Pilot Workshop 2 (English; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | $149 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.) |
| 🖥 🇩🇪 December 8-9, 2026 | Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1099 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.) |
| 🖥 🇬🇧 December 15-16, 2026 | Professional Scrum Master – Advanced Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1189 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.) |
| 🖥 🇩🇪 February 16-17, 2027 | Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1099 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.) |
See all upcoming classes here.
You can book your seat for the training directly by following the corresponding links to the ticket shop. If the procurement process of your organization requires a different purchasing process, please contact Berlin Product People GmbH directly.
📺 Join 6,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product YouTube channel to improve learning, for example, about the AI Panic:
- AI Refinement Prep Traps and How to Avoid Them.
- AI-Assisted Product Discovery — Agent Assists, Team Decides.
- Before You Switch the AI Model: The Hidden Cost of "Updating" Models.
- How the A3 Delegation System Helps to Avoid AI Debt.
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✋ Do Not Miss Out: Learn more about the AI Panic — Join the 20,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community
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If you would like to join, all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.
Help your team to learn about the AI Panic by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide:
