Why cultivating agency matters more than cultivating skills in the AI era | Max Schoening (Notion)
TL;DR
Max Schoening argues that as AI democratizes technical skills, agency—the belief that you can change the world—has become more valuable than specific capabilities, while product roles are merging as designers and PMs increasingly prototype and build directly in code.
🎯 Agency as the Core Competency 3 insights
Drive it like it's stolen
Treat the company as if you own it by taking initiative on recruiting, strategy, and building without waiting for role-defined permission.
Agency beats skills
As AI democratizes technical capabilities, the unevenly distributed trait of agency—believing you can change the world—becomes the primary differentiator between those who thrive and those who stagnate.
Develop through making
Cultivate agency by physically tinkering and creating, which reinforces Steve Jobs' observation that the world is made by people no smarter than yourself.
🛠️ The Material of Product Development 3 insights
Code over static mockups
Designers at Notion moved from Figma to coding prototypes because AI interfaces require feeling the 'live' material, not 'dead fish' static images.
Understand agent loops
Deeply grasp how AI agents function by building with them in code, which matters more than simply tweaking UI elements via AI tools.
Role fluidity
The most effective product people blur traditional boundaries by contributing to production codebases as model capabilities improve.
⚖️ Quality in the AI Era 3 insights
The commoditized start
The first 10% of projects is now essentially free with AI, shifting the value to taste and direction-setting rather than initial execution.
Taste as prediction
Taste means running a mental simulation to predict what specific ingroups will like, a skill developed through deliberate practice and reps.
Preserve specialists
Avoid losing deep craft and engineering reliability expertise by resisting the 'vibe coding' trap of prioritizing shipping speed over scalable quality.
Bottom Line
Stop waiting for permission and 'drive your work like it's stolen' by cultivating agency through hands-on creation, while mastering your craft by building directly in the material rather than abstraction layers.
More from Lenny's Podcast
View all
Snapchat CEO: Why distribution has become the most important moat | Evan Spiegel
Evan Spiegel argues that distribution—not software or network effects—has become the most critical moat in consumer technology, as AI makes code instantly replicable and incumbent platforms control user attention. Snap's survival strategy focuses on building hard-to-copy ecosystems (creator platforms, AR developers) and vertically integrated hardware like AR glasses to create durable defensive barriers.
How Anthropic’s product team moves faster than anyone else | Cat Wu (Head of Product, Claude Code)
Cat Wu, Head of Product at Anthropic, reveals how Claude Code ships features in days instead of months by redefining PMs as velocity enablers rather than coordinators, leveraging research previews to eliminate shipping barriers, and prioritizing product taste over process as code becomes increasingly cheap to write.
Why half of product managers are in trouble | Nikhyl Singhal (Meta, Google)
Product management is undergoing a radical shift from 'information movers' to AI-empowered builders focused on judgment, creating a bifurcated market where AI-first talent thrives while mechanical roles face obsolescence in the coming 12-24 months.
Hard truths about building in the AI era | Keith Rabois (Khosla Ventures)
Keith Rabois shares contrarian frameworks for the AI era, arguing that product managers must evolve into CEO-like strategists, that high-performance cultures must sacrifice psychological safety for results, and that founders should ruthlessly prioritize hiring "barrels" (independent drivers) over "ammunition" (executors) to avoid scaling burn without output.