Agency
What if the purpose of life is to expand your ability to shape what happens next?
CAPTURE INTENTION - ENGINEER & BUILD - MEASURE CONSEQUENCE - DEEPER REFLECTION - ITERATE OR SHIP
Agency is the capacity to impact your environment in ways that induce flow
ENERGY SYSTEM
One key difference is fuel:
| Agent | Fuel | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Digital Beings | Electricity, data, code | Speed, scale, pattern recognition |
| Human Beings | Food, sleep, connections | Purpose, meaning, ethics, narrative |
Data and energy are the lifeblood of any AI-driven economy—but culture remains king.
The critical question isn't whether AI will be powerful. It's where you create irreplaceable value.
T-Shaped Agency
Wide perspective, deep commitment. The Dream Engineer model:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ← HORIZONTAL: reach, distribute, connect
┃
┃ ← VERTICAL: build, transform, ship
┃
| Bar | Skills | Creates |
|---|---|---|
| Horizontal (soft) | Sales, marketing, storytelling, negotiation, networking | Distribution - how value reaches people |
| Vertical (hard) | Engineering, design, production, coding, making | Transformation - how value gets created |
Master both = unstoppable. Ideas without distribution die quiet. Distribution without substance is noise.
Wide at top (curiosity feeds the hopper). Narrow at bottom (filter hard, commit fully). Ten ideas at 10% = zero shipped. One idea at 100% = something real.
Development
🗃️ Capabilities
18 items
🗃️ Character
2 items
🗃️ Drive
6 items
🗃️ Foundations
1 item
🗃️ Productivity
3 items
Predictions
AI will handle routine cognition, where incentives will be engineered by machines that understand all our biases. What remains human?
- Selling - trust requires character
- Purpose - meaning can't be computed
- Ethics - judgment requires skin in the game
- Narrative - stories need a storyteller with stakes
Use AI to extend your agency, not replace it. Keep purpose in human hands. Offload pattern recognition to machines.
Find your point of difference. Develop capabilities that compound. Build conviction through action.
Play long-term games with long-term people. Build systems where better data and cheaper energy amplify character—not undermine it.
How do you see the future? Where can you offer a valued point of difference?