10 days. That's all it took. A team of just four
people at Anthropic shipped a full feature. They
called it co -work. Four people in 10 days. And
you have to contrast that with what's happening
right now in most companies, where teams are
probably spending 30 days just to make a roadmap.
Just to plan the pilot? Just to plan it. It's
wild. It really is staggering. It feels like
two completely different worlds operating at
the same time. I think they are. And the gap.
It's not talent. It's not about who has the smarter
engineers. No. It's a mindset gap. It's all about
what's expensive and what's cheap in, you know,
2026. Welcome back to The Deep Dive. It is Sunday,
January 25th, 2026. And if you're feeling a bit
overwhelmed professionally right now, I think
it's safe to say you're not alone. It feels chaotic.
It really does. But we're looking at this amazing
piece from Max Ann today. And his whole argument
is that the chaos, it's not random. It's a symptom.
He says the bottleneck of work has moved. Exactly.
For decades, the hard part was doing the thing,
the execution. Now, that's the easy part. And
that one little shift is breaking. Well, everything.
So today, that's what we're going to unpack.
We'll look at why execution is basically a commodity
now, what the new constraints are, because they're
not what you think. Right. Not coding or writing.
And then we'll walk through these eight what
he calls toxic rituals that we all need to break.
Sounds good. I want to start with this idea of
the inversion of cost, because I think for most
of us, we still have this. this trauma almost
from how slow and expensive projects used to
be. Oh, absolutely. I mean, for the last, what,
30 years? Execution was the most expensive thing
you could buy. People's time, engineering hours.
It was also precious. Right. And so we built
all these processes around it, like walls to
protect this very expensive resource. We had
to. It was like a bank vault. You don't just
leave the door open, right? So we invented the
PRD, the product requirement document. We had
approval gates, endless planning meetings. And
that all made sense. It made perfect sense. If
it takes a developer... It can show it's the
right one. But now, here we are. 2026. And that
whole ratio has just completely flipped. AI made
execution cheap, almost free, almost instant.
The source brings up Cursor, the AI code editor.
I think most people have heard of them. For sure.
But look at their growth. They went from $1 million
to $500 million in revenue faster than any company
in Sauce history. And the way they work, launching
a huge new product isn't some big stressful thing.
It's just. It's just another Tuesday. Wow. That's
wild. Because execution isn't their bottleneck.
And this gets to a really core concept, the manufacturing
principle. Okay, let's pause on that because
it's so important. The article says bottlenecks
don't disappear, they just move. Can you break
that down? Sure. Think of an old car factory.
The slowest part of the line, the bottleneck,
is attaching the wheels. It takes three people
20 minutes. Okay, so you've got cars piling up,
waiting for wheels. Exactly. Now you invent a
robot that puts wheels on instantly. Snap. Done.
Problem solved. Well, you solved that problem.
But does the factory now make infinite cars?
No, because now they're all piling up waiting
for, I don't know, the engine to be installed.
Exactly. The bottleneck moves. That's the whole
theory of constraints. You fix one thing and
it just reveals the next slowest part of the
system. So for the last 20 years. The wheel attaching
was the coding itself. It was. That's what took
all the time and money. And now AI has basically
given everyone an instant wheel attaching robot.
So the bottleneck has just shifted violently
to what comes before the code and what comes
after. So if building the thing is no longer
the hard part, where did the difficulty go? It
moved to clarity and distribution, knowing exactly
what to build and getting it in front of people.
Okay. So the value is on the what, not the how.
That's the entire game now. So let's dig into
that. Max Am points to four new constraints.
The first one is clarity. Right. He calls this
the billion dollar question. When you can build
anything with a single prompt, the danger isn't
that you can't build it. It's that you'll build
the wrong thing. Very, very fast. He says that
writing a PRD now often costs more in terms of
time than just. building a prototype. Now, I
have to say, I can hear a thousand product managers
just yelling right now. You can't just stop writing
requirements, can you? That's chaos. I think
the argument is more about the format of the
requirement. A 10 -page document is just words.
It's squishy. It's open to interpretation. But
if I can prompt an AI to build a rough version
of the interface in 10 minutes, That's not open
to interpretation. The prototype is the requirement.
The code is the spec. So the document is now
the waste. The document is the expensive part.
Yeah. Which leads right into the second constraint
he mentions. Ambition. This one's more psychological.
When shipping was hard, you got maybe three or
four big swings a year. So you had to be careful.
Yeah. You played it safe. But if you can shift
something every 10 days. That's 50 swings a year.
The risk isn't failing anymore. The risk is just
timidity. It's thinking too small. He uses that
horseless carriage analogy. Yeah, it's a classic.
When cars first showed up, people just saw them
as carriages without the horse. They didn't really
reimagine what transportation could be. And a
lot of us are doing that with AI right now. Totally.
I mean, I have to admit, I mostly use it to write
my emails a little faster. Me too. We're just
putting a motor on the same old workflow. We're
not asking the bigger question, which is, why
are we even sending emails at all? Okay, third
constraint, distribution. This one is huge because
if anyone can build a product, the product itself
isn't your competitive advantage anymore. It's
not the moat. And the example is Cognition, who
made Devon. They partnered with Infosys. Which
seems so weird at first, right? This cool, cutting
-edge AI company partnering with this giant kind
of traditional consulting firm. Because Infosys
has access. They have a 300 ,000 -person sales
and distribution network. Exactly. It's a signal
that the value has flipped. The magic box AI
model isn't the rare asset anymore. The human
network is. The relationships. So distribution
is the new moat. The code is just the water.
Perfect way to put it. Which brings up the last
constraint. Relationships. He has this great
line. You can't vibe code trust. I love that.
It's so true. Tools change. Platforms change.
The only thing that lasts is human trust. AI
can't automate that. It sounds like we are shifting
from engineering problems to human problems,
doesn't it? Technology became easy, so judgment
and connection became the premium assets. Okay,
so the world has changed. Yeah. But most of us
are still working with habits from, you know,
2015. Toxic rituals. Toxic rituals. He lists
eight of them. And I have to admit, this part
of the article made me squirm. Because I looked
at this list and realized, I'll probably do three
of these this morning. It's very uncomfortable
reading, yeah. Let's do the first four. They're
all about action over permission. The first one
is the permission loop. Ah, yes. The old check
a line, get buy -in dance. Which, again, made
sense when a mistake was super expensive. But
now, asking for permission often takes longer
than just doing the thing. He mentions a tool
called Manus. Yeah, what was that? It's a tool
that builds a presentation for you while you
are in the meeting talking about it. Whoa. So
by the time you've finished asking for permission
to build the deck, the deck is already done.
That just highlights the absurdity of the old
way. But okay, let me play devil's advocate.
If everyone just defaults to doing, doesn't that
just create total chaos? It might, but the cost
of that chaos is low. That's the key. If I build
the wrong thing in an afternoon, we just throw
it away. Who cares? If I spend three weeks in
meetings getting permission to build something
and then it's wrong, that's a huge waste. So
ask for forgiveness, not permission. That's the
new rule, which connects to habit number two.
Polish as procrastination. Oh, this is a tough
one for perfectionists. The old 80 -20 rule.
Spending 80 % of your time on that last 20 %
of Polish. And that's a waste of time. It's a
defense mechanism. It's hiding. The new advice
is ship ugly. Look at Notebook LM from Google.
It wasn't perfect when it launched, but they
got it out there, got feedback, and made it better
in public. Okay. Habit three is one I think everyone
will feel. meetings as default. The silent killer
of productivity. A one -hour meeting with six
people isn't one hour. It's six hours of execution
time gone forever. The fix he suggests is to
replace meetings with demos. Yes. Code is a way
of getting ideas into contact with reality. Instead
of arguing about a theoretical feature, just
build a rough version and show it to people.
You can't argue with something that works. Number
four, structured waiting. We used to think waiting
was, you know, a neutral part of the job. You
send an email, you wait. And now? Now waiting
is a blocker. If you're blocked, you make a provisional
decision and you just keep moving. You assume
the answer is yes because the cost of being wrong
and fixing it later is now lower than the cost
of waiting. This feels uncomfortable for people
who pride themselves on being careful, right?
It is, but caution has become a tax on speed
safety now comes from iterating, not planning.
Well, speaking of planning, let's get to the
next four habits. Number five is inverted planning
and doing. And I have to say, I love a good plan.
I love a roadmap. I know. It feels so responsible,
doesn't it? It feels like you're doing work.
But this flips that on its head. We used to think
planning was cheap and safe and doing was expensive
and risky. Now it's the other way around. Planning
is the luxury. It's expensive because our predictions
are almost always wrong. Execution, though, is
cheap, and it gives you real, actual data. So
his advice is to cut planning by 90%. 90%. I
know it sounds insane, but the idea is to let
reality inform your plan, not the other way around.
Build something, see what happens, and then make
your plan. Which connects to habit number six,
the deck instead of the demo. Slides are just
too slow. They hide the truth behind bullet points.
A working prototype answers questions way faster
than a 30 -slide deck. We hide behind decks.
It feels safer. Safer for our egos, maybe? Not
for the business. Okay. Habit 7. Consensus before
action. This is that fake alignment we all know.
You're in a meeting. Everyone nods and says yes.
And then nothing happens. Exactly. He says, I
tried X, and here's what happened. Is way more
persuasive than, let's all agree to try X. Results
create consensus. Arguments don't. And the last
one, number eight, hoarding until ready. This
is the big ego check. We hide our work because
we don't want to look stupid. We don't want to
show something that's broken. But showing half
-finished work saves you from what he calls quiet
mistakes. I like that term. It's great. A quiet
mistake is when you spend a month building something
perfectly, only to find out nobody wanted it.
If you'd just shown the ugly, broken version
on day three. Someone would have told you. So
the logic is that showing something broken today
is better than showing something perfect next
month. Yes, because by next month, the market
or the tech has already moved on. We've covered
a lot of ground here. I want to address the skeptics
when we come back, because I know someone listening
works in, say, health care and is thinking this
all sounds really reckless. We'll be right back.
We're back. So we've been talking about breaking
all these old habits, shipping ugly, skipping
meetings, acting without permission. But I have
to represent the person listening who's a surgeon
or a compliance officer at a bank. Right. They're
thinking, if I ship ugly, people could die or
I could go to jail. And that's a completely fair
point. The argument isn't to use AI to, you know,
hallucinate a bridge design and just start building
it. So this doesn't apply to high stakes fields.
I think it does. The challenge is to really ask
yourself. How much of our process is actually
required for safety or by law? And how much is
just tradition? How much is just the way we've
always done things? Right. Is that meeting a
legal requirement or is it just a habit? Exactly.
You can have compliance without a 30 -day roadmap.
The document isn't the safety. The actual safety
protocols are the safety. And this all comes
back to velocity. It really does. The tools are
basically equal now. Everyone has the same AI
models. You have Claude, I have Claude. So the
only real differentiator left is velocity. And
it's not just about being fast for the sake of
being fast. No, that's such a crucial point.
It's not about speed. It's about learning. Velocity
multiplies intelligence. It just compresses your
learning cycles. So if you can iterate... 10
times while your competitor iterates once. You're
going to learn 10 times faster. The winners are
going to look like Anthropic and Cursor. They'll
be shipping while everyone else is still in a
planning meeting. So is this just about moving
fast or is it about learning fast? It's learning
speed allows you to fail small so you can succeed
big before anyone else starts. OK, so let's try
and bring this all home. We started out saying
that 2026 feels chaotic. And the argument is
that the chaos is just friction. It's the friction
of using old habits in a totally new world. It's
like trying to put a horseshoe on a Tesla. Right.
It doesn't work anymore. The big takeaway then
is that execution is no longer the hard part.
The bottleneck moved to clarity, knowing what
to build, and distribution, getting it seen.
And to deal with that, we have to shift our whole
mindset from permission and planning to default
to doing. The PRD is dead. The prototype is king.
It's a scary thought, though. Yeah. It means
giving up all that busy work that feels so safe.
It does. And that's the thought I really want
to leave you with. All those meetings, all the
slide decks, the endless emails, they feel productive.
They feel like work. But are they? Or are they
just a comfort blanket that's protecting you
from the scary reality of actually shipping something?
That is the question. So here's the challenge
for this week. Look at your calendar. Find that
next alignment meeting. You know the one I'm
talking about. We all have one. Cancel it. And
just use that hour to build the ugliest, roughest
version of the idea you were going to talk about.
See what happens. Thanks for diving in with us.
Until next time.