Lenny Rachitsky · 3 min read · AI & Product
The AI paradox: More automation, more humans, more work | Dan Shipper
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Dan Shipper argues that the future of work will merge deep AI capabilities with human labor, centering on AI-native workflows and 'super-agents' inside everyday tools. He predicts Codex/Claude Code will be central, the forward deployed engineer will be the most valuable hire, and SaaS economics will shift as users bring their own AI tokens, making automation more about human-AI collaboration than replacement.
Key Takeaways
- The future of work will run inside AI agents (Codex/Claude Code) and a 'super-agent' in Slack that every employee uses.
- The forward deployed engineer becomes the most valuable new hire, with PMs and full‑stack designers thriving in an AI era.
- SaaS economics will shift as users bring their own AI tokens into apps, suggesting margins can improve and SaaS is not dead.
- Automation is not a cure-all; CLIs will fade and the focus will be on building software for humans and agents to use together.
- The AI job apocalypse is not happening; organizations should embrace human‑plus‑agent workflows.
Excerpt
Dan Shipper is the co-founder and CEO of Every, a media and software company that’s become a living laboratory for the future of work. Everyone at his company of about 30 people is an AI early adopter; from editors to ops people, they use AI to do much of their work, giving Every a unique lens into where the world is heading. A year ago on this show, Dan predicted that people were sleeping on Claude Code for nontechnical work, which proved to be remarkably prescient. Today he’s back with another set of calls: the SaaS apocalypse is dumb, CLIs…