This post is about the people who built the fiefdoms now looking to AI to save them from the fiefdoms, and why that will only work if we are honest about what those fiefdoms were built to avoid in the first place.
Thank you, John. One question kept coming back while reading this: if AI removes many of the coordination costs that justified these organizational structures in the first place, how do we distinguish between a bureaucracy that has become obsolete and one that is still protecting an essential organisational function? Otherwise, isn't there a risk that we mistake simplification for improvement simply because AI makes the old constraints less visible?
AI can supercharge avoidance" is the line that will stay with me. The fiefdom point cuts deep — but what strikes me most is the new coordination theater framing. Agents talking to agents while humans avoid the actual decision is not a productivity gain. It's conflict avoidance at scale with better tooling. The people closest to the work absorb the coordination tax under the old model. Under the new one, they absorb the overflow from async abundance instead. Different shape, same weight.
This nails the part a lot of AI transformation talk skips: tools do not rescue organizations from the evasions those organizations were built around. If the fiefdom exists to avoid context-sharing, hard tradeoffs, or accountability, AI just gives the fiefdom faster paperwork. The leverage shows up when the operating model changes first and the agents amplify that honesty.
The fiefdom-built-the-fiefdom point is the hardest one, and the part most coverage of AI-in-orgs avoids. From portfolio work I keep seeing the same structural problem: the people who would have to dismantle the coordination tax are exactly the ones whose authority depends on it staying complex. AI gives those people better prose for the same defense. Until the incentive sits with someone whose job description rewards reduction of layers rather than addition, the kingdoms persist. The honest version of your conclusion: AI lets the system harden faster than it can be redesigned, unless redesign authority sits above fiefdom level.
Thank you, John. One question kept coming back while reading this: if AI removes many of the coordination costs that justified these organizational structures in the first place, how do we distinguish between a bureaucracy that has become obsolete and one that is still protecting an essential organisational function? Otherwise, isn't there a risk that we mistake simplification for improvement simply because AI makes the old constraints less visible?
AI can supercharge avoidance" is the line that will stay with me. The fiefdom point cuts deep — but what strikes me most is the new coordination theater framing. Agents talking to agents while humans avoid the actual decision is not a productivity gain. It's conflict avoidance at scale with better tooling. The people closest to the work absorb the coordination tax under the old model. Under the new one, they absorb the overflow from async abundance instead. Different shape, same weight.
This nails the part a lot of AI transformation talk skips: tools do not rescue organizations from the evasions those organizations were built around. If the fiefdom exists to avoid context-sharing, hard tradeoffs, or accountability, AI just gives the fiefdom faster paperwork. The leverage shows up when the operating model changes first and the agents amplify that honesty.
The fiefdom-built-the-fiefdom point is the hardest one, and the part most coverage of AI-in-orgs avoids. From portfolio work I keep seeing the same structural problem: the people who would have to dismantle the coordination tax are exactly the ones whose authority depends on it staying complex. AI gives those people better prose for the same defense. Until the incentive sits with someone whose job description rewards reduction of layers rather than addition, the kingdoms persist. The honest version of your conclusion: AI lets the system harden faster than it can be redesigned, unless redesign authority sits above fiefdom level.
Great provocations.