Most Valuable Skill of 2026: Managing AI Agents
episodePreviously titled “How I run a team of AI Agents 24/7” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
Transcript
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I don't think it's crazy to say that the people who know how to run teams of AI agents are going to be able to outperform everyone else in this AI age we're in. So how do you actually run teams of AI agents? What does this mean? What's the step-by-step way to actually do this?
What is the new agent paradigm and why should every knowledge worker become an agent manager?
And what are the tools you need to know, like Dev and AI, to actually go and do this? Well, on today's episode, I brought on Ryan Carson, and he clearly explains all of this for you. He even gives you a tour of his insane setup for how he manages his AI agents. So by the end of this episode, you're going to understand what cloud agents are. how you can set up automations, how you can create a software factory that creates software 24-7. And you're going to be able to understand it just really clearly because he does such a good job at explaining all of this. So enjoy the episode. I'll see you at the end and have a creative day.
So you're going to be able to do three things really well. You're going to be able to run cloud agents. You're going to be able to do automations. And you're going to be able to ship faster. So whether you're a founder, a solopreneur, a stay-at-home parent, you're just going to become an agent pro by the time we're done.
Okay, because I think a lot of people listening to this might have played with agents, cloud agents, but you're going to help them just get the confidence basically to be world class. I think that's what I've been thinking a lot about. It's like, okay, there's a bunch of people who have played with agents, but how do we become world class agent agents? operators.
Yeah. Essentially you are a manager of agents now. So no matter what you used to do, whether it was a people manager and IC, you are going to become a manager of agents now and you need to be the best in the world.
How does Ryan set up his eight-screen desk and security practices for managing agents?
And it doesn't matter whether you're a VC, a founder, an IC, a mom, a dad, like a college student, you should manage agents and be the best at it. And we're going to show you some tips for that. Okay, so where do we start? Okay, so let me give some context, right? So people understand where is this coming from. So I've been a founder CEO for like 25 years. I'm working on my fourth company now. At my last company, Treehouse, which was acquired, we had, you know, I think up to like 110 full-time employees, taught a million people how to code. You know, so I've done the whole build organization thing and manage organization thing. And you learn a lot about managing people on that. And now this startup, which I'm running it, I am one employee right now.
So we've raised a seed round. We're scaling really fast. Our revenue probably is going to 4X this month. And I'm probably going to be hiring my first employees. Um, we are essentially an AI divorce agent for divorce firms. So, uh, we, we, we do the, the dirty topic that no one seems to want to tackle, which is family law. So I've learned a lot about how to scale me. Right. Um, and so I'm going to help folks understand how do you manage a lot of agents? Well, um, how do you check the work? How do you automate things? How do you work from your phone? Um, you know, I do almost 50%, probably more of my work from my phone. Um, And it's pretty wild. So that's where we're going to take you. And I will say as well, like this is going to change every three to six months.
So we're going to share a lot with you. Get your hands dirty. Try it. And the best way to learn is to do.
Cool, yeah. I'm particularly interested in the phone stuff because I actually do 0% of my stuff on the phone. What?
Yeah.
Okay, let's talk.
So let me start by just showing you, well, when I'm at my desk, what is the world like? So right now I'm in my home office. I work from Connecticut, and I do all my desk work here.
Why run agents in cloud VMs instead of local development environments?
And I've got this big 52-inch Dell monitor. I used to have a couple monitors, and I was like, screw it. I just want a huge monitor. so, uh, let me share my screen and, uh, all right. So what I do is I set up eight screens on my monitor and, uh, I also, uh, enjoy food, uh, and snacks as, as I code.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:15
2
What is the new agent paradigm and why should every knowledge worker become an agent manager?
0:15–2:03
3
How does Ryan set up his eight-screen desk and security practices for managing agents?
2:03–4:13
4
Why run agents in cloud VMs instead of local development environments?
4:13–10:31
5
How does Ryan scale output (22–40 PRs/day) and stay sane while managing many agents?
10:31–16:37
6
What three automations should founders build first (QA, production watchdog, self-improvement loop)?
16:37–20:25
7
How does the daily self-improvement loop (Grace) grade chats and automatically ship fixes?
20:25–24:22
8
How can you control token costs with model routing and cheaper fine-tuned models?
24:22–44:46