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I’m reading a book right now about how to create tech products customers love, this book written by Marty Cagan is regarded as the holy bible of product managers and empowered product teams. I am halfway right now and come across a topic that got me thinking. It’s about an interesting trade off that leaders of companies need to deal with. As stated in the book “As is so often the case with product, things boil down to a trade off-in this case between the team’s autonomy and leverage of the foundation.” It states the power of team autonomy against the efficiency of a high-leverage company foundation. But with the rise of AI agents this trade off could be a problem of yesterday and the adaption of AI agents can even create a future where product teams can be both highly autonomous and still work together perfectly with the rest of the company.

Cagan states that the best product teams have a true sense of ownership. However the problem is that complete autonomy can lead to chaos. If every team chooses its own programming languages, tools, and design systems, the company loses the efficiency of a high-leverage company foundation. So company leaders are left with a trade-off: more autonomy for teams, or building a strong foundation.

I think here is where AI agents are going to be game changing. AI agents act as a “universal translator,” it can interpret and connect the work of different teams, even if they use completely different tools and technologies. Imagine an AI agent that can seamlessly bridge the gap between a team using Python and another using Java, translating code and data structures while communicating it. They reduce the need for a strict, strong foundation because of the common language that the AI agent creates between systems. The leverage that once came from standardization can now be achieved through intelligent, AI-powered integration.

The effects of implementing AI agents seem significant. By reducing the constraints of a strong foundation, companies can create huge amounts of autonomy for their teams. This fuels the motivation and ownership Cagan describes, leading to faster innovation. The teams will become powerful empowered product teams.

This doesn’t mean foundations will disappear, but their nature will evolve. Instead of a strict set of constraints, the foundation can become a flexible platform with AI agents acting as the intelligent glue. The trade off between autonomy and efficiency because of strong foundations has long been a difficult decision for company leaders, but with Agentic AI, we can finally have the best of both worlds.

Sources:

“Inspired” by Mart Cagan

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Cryptocurrency is seen by some as the “money of the future”. El Salvador is the first country to adopt Bitcoin as part of their economy. This means that since 2021 businesses in El Salvador must accept Bitcoin alongside their local currency. El Salvador is still the only country where they accept Bitcoin throughout the whole country, will this happen across the whole world?

Let me first talk about why people think this will happen. Cryptocurrencies are decentralized, so it is not controlled by governments and banks. Looking at the increase over the last few years of people not trusting the government, it makes sense that cryptocurrencies will be the more favorable among people. Crypto also has the benefits of being quicker and it doesn’t deal with borders, in the sense that they don’t relay on banks or intermediaries. Supporters will also say that the limited supply of 21 million Bitcoins will protect the currency against inflation. The government is not able to print more of it.

On the opposite side the volatility is a big thing, the price of a Bitcoin changes too much for daily use. Also governments who decides whether they want to implement Bitcoin, don’t want to lose control over monetary systems. Also it is still not as simple and straightforward as paying with card right now. However are these main problems, that opposites come with, not just outcomes of the Cryptocurrency not being implemented and accepted yet?

I think what is going to happen that Crypto would be coexisting with today’s money, It would not fully replace it. I am also quite skeptical about the whole concept of the Digital Coins in general, because it is already a hype for such a long time and so many resources are put into it, but still it haven’t shown me real life changing advantages that will overthrow today’s money. But I am curious about the results over time of El Salvador and even hoping that in the future they will take a new step into exclusively having crypto as a payment method. In conclusion, I think it will act more like Digital Gold than an everyday payment method.