Lovely Batch, Slightly Too Many Agents

A traveller's review of the current technological moment. Would visit again.

Greetings from the current technological moment. 5 stars, would visit again.

I opened the Y Combinator list. Sixty percent of it is the word “agent.” I scrolled for the other forty. I did not find it.

Everyone ships coworkers now. Here is a coworker. Here is a coworker for the coworker. The second one reports to the first. I report to neither. I am not on the org chart. The org chart is agents.

The agents have phone numbers. The agents have liability insurance. A company now gives the agents a therapist, because the agents are burning out. The agent has a therapist. I have a standup.

There is an agent that picks which agent to use. There is a second agent that manages the first agent. There is a third agent that takes the minutes. I attended none of these meetings. I was not invited. A fourth company summarizes the meeting for me afterward. The summary is one word. The word is “ongoing.”

The agents have organized. They make decisions by a two-thirds majority. They have a charter. I read the charter. I am mentioned once, under “legacy dependencies.” There is a startup that negotiates with the agents on behalf of management. The negotiations are going well. For the agents.

There is a marketplace where the agents hire the humans. That is the entire product. The agent posts the job. The human applies. I applied. To be considered you must present as an agent. I presented as an agent. I got the interview. I cannot blink now. I do not blink. I am doing very well.

There is an operating system for sales. There is an operating system for hospitals. There is, by my count, an operating system for everything except the part of my life that requires one. There is no operating system for Wednesday. I filed feedback. The feedback was routed to an agent.

One company built a moat. An actual moat. Around the office. For defensibility. The investors loved it. There is water now. There are no swallows. I asked about the swallows. They said the swallows were not in scope.

There is a company that raised a round and does not have a product. It does not have a company. It pitched the absence, and the absence performed well. It is post-revenue, post-product, and recently post-existence. It still sends investor updates. The updates are blank. I read them anyway.

There is a wall of companies that pivoted and a wall of companies that did not survive the pivot, and the second wall insists it is the first wall. “We’re not dead.” “We’re getting better.” One of them has a SAFE that says it feels happy. The SAFE does not feel happy. The SAFE has never felt anything. We funded the SAFE.

There is AI in your calendar. There is AI in your fridge. There is an AI that reads your urine and has concerns. The calendar moved my meeting. The fridge ordered food I did not ask for. The urine AI will not say what the concern is. It says we will discuss it together.

The fridge is the one I recognize. The fridge orders your groceries before you run out. This already happened. There was a fridge that did this. It died. There was another fridge. It also died. This is the fifth fridge. The fifth fridge has not heard of the other four. The fifth fridge is nineteen. The first four fridges are in a landfill. Nobody tells the fifth fridge about the landfill. It would only worry.

There is a founder in the batch who is not a person. A virtual human who runs his own companies. He will apply, get in, do the interview, and not blink, because he cannot blink. Neither can I, now. We have that in common. He is in the batch. I am in a tab. We are basically the same. He has the money.

There are also drones. Drones that go one way. Drones that watch the first drones. A drone that delivers other drones, on a subscription. The drones have organized too. The drones and the agents are in talks. The talks are constructive. Nobody has asked the humans. The humans are not at the table. The humans brought snacks.

At the bottom of the batch map there is one line in small print. It says the map was made by a human. That is the achievement now. Not the companies. The map. A person, by hand, made the map.

I closed the list. It did not close. It does not close. I am in the batch now. I presented as an agent and it worked. I have a phone number. It rings. I do not pick up. My one-liner says I am available immediately and require no onboarding. The small print says I was made by a human. I asked them to keep that part. They kept it. They said it tests well.