Ben Perreau

Building @parafoilco | Before: Working with Fortune 100 CxOs on Leadership, Strategy & Culture | Former Prod Mgr & Journalist | LA via SF via LDN via someplace.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

@briannekimmel @gregisenberg (And so have they!)

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

@briannekimmel @gregisenberg +1 to this advice. Ideally by the time you raise, you have already passed the vibe check.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

@JoinBlind I’d probably pump my IPO by doing some big talking.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

Pretty much all the cuts in tech this year have come from CEOs (a) over hiring at the end of ZIRP and not being able to realize the value in their headcount or (b) pretty standard organic shifts like a new department head.

But boy do we like talking about AI.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

@business How many people is this? 5? 15? This is only a story because Uber is well known. Pretty much any new department head is going to make some modest changes like this.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

What a fascinating time for Anthropic. A well timed IPO that’s for sure.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

@celinehalioua It’s wild how the learning curve keeps going. But now you’re getting feedback and on the move, the returns start to compound, for you and for your team.

It’s easier to learn than it used to be, we built Parafoil so you can get feedback on every conversation you have.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

@ybhrdwj @EliasBiz Who needs AGI when we have this.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

Depends on the organization, but leadership skills, mostly.

One example: if you are to commit the resources of your org in a specific direction, how do you know it’s the right call? How are you enrolling the rest of the org in that direction. The quality of that decision, and your ability to engage your stakeholders in it will be even more crucial.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

This. Because when everything is agentic and knowledge work is commoditized, all that matters is the human differentiator.

[Ethan Mollick @emollick]

A critical question in agent design is “how do we build agentic workflows so humans are given significant, interesting, or variance-producing decisions as they come up in the work?”

A Claude-run company has no source of competitive advantage compared to other Claude-run firms.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

@vixsheikh Thank you sir.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

CEO: “We hired a lot of people, I failed to achieve the growth I hoped for with that headcount, I’m now incentivized to scale back.” is closer to a ground truth for most layoff stories right now.

But there’s more nuance in it than this platform can often bear. Some jobs do get reshaped when new tech appears.

So far: anybody claiming to know anything much more insightful than that is just taking a bet.

[Reid Hoffman @reidhoffman]

Just a reminder that we're likely to see more layoffs announced "because" of AI –– it makes companies seem strong and moving forward.

It's important not to ignore other factors, including hiring trends 2020-2023, that might be present.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

All that is going to matter is soft skills.

Think about it. Everyone has agents. They do the “hard skill” work. What do you do? Code? Design? Project manage? No.

- Discernment: what does good look like?
- Problem framing: what should we focus on next?
- Building influence and political acumen: how do I persuade others that this is worth expending resources on?
- Decision making/ownership: I made the call on this and take responsibility?
- Empathy/ethnographic skills: this is the customer job to be done.

We’re about to see the biggest repricing of “soft skills” in the history of work.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

@ryancarson I loved my time in SF in my 30s. I learned a lot about how people are building tech and very little about how the world really works.

It’s there if I need it.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

@championswimmer Nice piece. A lot of truth in it I think.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

@raihan_ @sm Indeed. It is precisely a future we are anticipating.

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

@petergyang The fourth is where we all end up with commoditized knowledge and tools and realize the quality of the human element is the differentiator.

3-5 years.

[scott belsky @scottbelsky]

OH: “whatever therapy the CEO hasn’t done becomes the psychosis of the organization.”

[Ben Perreau @perreau]

Quality is tricky to quantify.

I think it will be awesome for efficiency. But a company with more specialized roles and enough slack in the system to be creative will drive better innovation.

Looking at Coinbase right now? For them this is not a time for innovation, and that’s ok.