Teams Matter More, Not Less
When you can build the whole thing yourself, it’s tempting to just… build the whole thing yourself.
AI has made me dramatically more self-sufficient. I take on problems I would have collaborated on before. I finish things faster. I need less help.
That last part is the trap.
The Amplification Trap
Yes, AI amplifies individual capability. Dramatically. I’ve experienced this firsthand — my output as a developer has accelerated in ways I couldn’t have imagined a few years ago. I’m building things faster and taking on problems I would have hesitated to touch before.
But I recently built something that worked beautifully from my perspective. Clean architecture, solid capabilities, exactly what was needed. What I hadn’t considered was how others would experience it — the change management, the adoption curve, how people outside my head would perceive and interact with what I’d built.
I was moving so fast I forgot that my definition of “done” isn’t the only one that matters.
Robert Pirsig wrote about this in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — the mechanic and the rider look at the same motorcycle, but they’re not seeing the same thing. One sees the engine. The other sees the ride. Neither is wrong. They’re just standing in different places.
A team gives you those multiple definitions of quality before you ship, not after. You can amplify your perspective 10x, and you still have one perspective. You can accelerate your judgment, but it’s still your judgment — with all its blind spots.
What Teams Actually Provide
Teams aren’t parallel processing — five people doing one person’s job faster. They’re five different ways of seeing the same problem.
In my experience, the value shows up in specific moments: the edge case someone else notices, the question that reveals a hidden assumption, the colleague who’s been burned by this exact approach and knows why it failed.
That kind of coverage doesn’t come from amplifying one person. It comes from combining different people.
The Leadership Question
For team leaders, I think the temptation to shrink teams is real — but worth resisting. The better question: what does each person uniquely bring? What perspective, what experience, what way of seeing problems?
Teams with similar backgrounds and thinking patterns risk amplifying their collective blind spots right alongside their strengths. Diversity of thought becomes the counterweight to amplification risk.
The Solo Question
For individual contributors, productivity isn’t the same as completeness. Sure, some projects genuinely benefit from a single clear vision. But most of what we build has to work for people who weren’t in our head when we built it — and that’s where the solo approach breaks down.
I’ve found value in seeking out people who think differently, sharing work before it’s polished, inviting challenges. The goal isn’t needing fewer people — it’s making every interaction count.
You can amplify your output. You can’t amplify your blind spots away.