# Judgement, Taste, Prompt Engineering - Marc Andreessen

*CreatorClub* · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypuyrgMP95w

## Summary

Marc Andreessen and the host discuss how AI changes career development across product management, engineering, and design. Andreessen argues that AI handles task-level work, freeing people to focus on higher-level judgment and design questions, and that combining skills across multiple domains makes people non-fungible and superpowered. He also stresses that AI is a teacher, not just a tool, and that watching and questioning AI agents builds the grounding needed to work with them effectively.

## Key points

- Andreessen says AI will do task-level work like designing icons, so designers will focus on higher-level questions like what a product is for and how it makes people feel.
- He cites Scott Adams' career advice that being good at two things has more than double the additive effect, as with Dilbert combining cartooning and business knowledge.
- Hollywood has a Mexican standoff between directors, writers, and actors, each believing AI lets them replace the other two roles.
- The T-shaped strategy means broad familiarity across domains plus deep expertise in at least one, and AI makes becoming a triple threat far easier.
- Larry Summers' version of the advice is 'don't be fungible' — don't be replaceable by being just one thing.
- Andreessen says AI will teach you anything you ask, and people should spend spare hours having AI train them in new skills with assignments and evaluations.
- Watching an agent think and work teaches architecture and lets you intervene when it goes sideways, similar to needing theory of mind with human colleagues.
- You can have one AI write code and another AI debug it, playing them off against each other — what people call LLM councils.
- The host notes that design feels like the hardest of the three skills to learn by watching and talking, and Andreessen confesses he always wanted to be a cartoonist.

## Notes

### Design in an AI World
- AI will excel at task-level design, like producing a thousand icon designs, but capital-D design remains about what a thing is for and how it functions in a world of human beings.
- Great designers ask whether a product makes people happy, fits into their lives, or challenges them the right way — those higher-level questions become more of the job.
- A 25-year-old designer today can harness AI over a decade to become the best designer ever, because Johnny Ive did everything he did without AI.

### Combining Skills
- Scott Adams' career advice: he could have been a pretty good cartoonist or pretty good at business, but being a cartoonist who understood business made Dilbert possible.
- The additive effect of being good at two things is more than double, and three things is more than triple — you become a super relevant specialist in the combination.
- In Hollywood, the superstars are writers who can also direct, called auras — the real creative forces that move the field.
- Hollywood has the same Mexican standoff as tech: the director, writer, and actor each believe AI lets them replace the other two, and they're all correct.

### The T-Shape and Not Being Fungible
- The top of the T is how many domains you know well enough to use AI tools in; the stem is how deep you go in at least one domain.
- Larry Summers' advice: don't be fungible — don't be replaceable. Having a rare combination of skills makes you massively important.
- The host proposes an F or E sideways framework: get good at at least two things, since the silos between PM, engineer, and designer roles are disappearing.

### AI as Teacher
- Andreessen stresses AI will teach you anything: ask it to train you, give you problems and assignments, and evaluate your results.
- Watching an agent think and work teaches architecture and lets you intervene when it makes a mistake — you need theory of mind, just as with human colleagues.
- You can have one AI write code and another debug it, playing them off against each other — what people call LLM councils.
- Andreessen confesses he always wanted to be a cartoonist but has no art skills.

## Transcript

[00:00] is the skill of taste and design and user experience. It feels like that's a very hard skill to learn and to me tells me design is going to be much more valuable in the future. Yeah, that's right. And again here this this is a great example. So the again the task level the the the the task level of like design the perfect icon, right, is going to be like all right, the A's going to do that all day long. It's give you a thousand icon designs. It's going to be great. like it's going to be fantastic like whatever you know and there will still by the way there will still be some level of human icon design or whatever but like they is going to get really good at that but like what are we trying to do like the you know kind of

[00:35] capital D design of like all right what is this thing for and how does this how is this going to function in a world of human beings and like you know what what's going to is this going to make people happy when they use it is going to make people feel good about themselves um is it going to fit into the rest of their life is it going to you know I don't know challenge them in the right way you know all these kinds of higher level questions that the great designers have always thought about like that the the job of designer right will involve much more of those higher level more important components and and then again with with AI doing a lot more of the underlying tasks and so you know one way to think about it is you know I

[01:07] don't know you you think like I don't know the world's best designers you know Johnny IV or whatever and you could be like wow like if I'm a designer today if I'm a 25-year-old designer and I and I aspire to be you know Johnny Iv in a decade um it's it's all of a sudden I have a new path that I can use to kind of get to to to get there which is I can you Because Johnny did everything he did without AI. Now, you know, a young designer can be like, "Wow, if I really harness AI in a decade, I'm going to be like the best designer the world's ever seen because it's not just going to be me. It's going to be me plus being so super empowered by this technology to be able to do so much more." Um, and then

[01:39] so much more of my time and attention is going to be is going to be able to be focused on these higher level things that most most designers never get to. And I think that that's going to be another great example of that. So maybe what I'm hearing here is kind of this T-shaped strategy of be if you want to be successful in any three of these roles, be very very very good at that specific role, product management, engineering, design, and then get good enough at these other two roles. >> Well, so I think that's great. I think that's really really relevant. And then you know Scott, you know, Scott Adams unfortunately just passed away. um you know which is which which is a real tragedy but um I was always I I referred

[02:10] for years to actually Scott Adams he had this famous um he had this famous kind of career advice he would give people which I I think makes a lot of sense which which which dubtales with what you're saying which is he he used to say used to say it's like look he said um you know I I could he he said you know I could have been a pretty good cartoonist u or I could have been like pretty good at business but the fact that I was a cartoonist who understood business made me like spectacularly great at making Dilbert Right? Because even the world's best cartoonists who didn't understand business could have never written Dilbert. And then the world's best business people who didn't know how to do cartoons couldn't have done Dilbert.

[02:43] It took somebody who actually had both of those skills to be able to make Dilbert, right? Which is one of the most successful cartoons in history, right? And so so the way Scott always described it was that that the from a career development standpoint that the additive effect of being good at two things is like more than double, right? Um the additive effect of being good at three things is more than triple, right? um be because you you you be you become a super relevant specialist in the combination of the domains. Um and and you you look you see this all I mean you see this all over you know you see this all over the economy I mean you see this all over the economy but I'll you know give you an example Hollywood you just

[03:16] Hollywood as an example you know there are a lot of writers who can't direct a movie and they can be very successful writers there are a lot of directors who can't write a movie they can be very successful directors but the superstars in the entertainment industry are the people who can write and direct right and you know they have a term for those they call those auras right and that's you know those are the people who are like the real creative forces that move the field and so and so again and by the way Hollywood actually it's really it's been spent spending a lot of time talking to Hollywood people about AI. Hollywood has the same Mexican standoff going um right now that we that we described in tech except in Hollywood

[03:46] for example for filmm it's the director it's the writer and the actor right because the director is now thinking wow I don't need the writer anymore because the AI can write the script and I don't need the actor anymore because I can have AI actors the writer is saying I don't need the director because [laughter] I can direct the movie and the AI can do the actors and the actor is saying I don't need either one of these guys I can have the AI direct the thing I can have the AI write the thing and I'm just going to show up and do my performance right and so so it's it's it's the same it's the same kind of tri triangular configuration. And again, what what's great about it is they're all correct, right? Each person in each

[04:17] of those three fields is going to be able to expand laterally and pick up those other those additional skills. And then as a consequence, you're going to have more people who can write and direct or write and act or direct and act or do all three. And and I think, you know, to your point like your your your T-shift thing, like I I think that's going to be true basically across the entire economy. And and and if you think about the T is if you think about the T configuration, it's like yeah, the bre the breath the breath the top of the tea is like how many individual domains are you familiar enough with to be able to use the AI tools to be able to do really good work. And then the the this part of the tea is how deep can you go

[04:50] in at least one of those domains so that you really really deeply know what you're doing. But like if you're like super deep on coding and you can use AI to do design and you can use AI to do product management, right? That that's your T right there. and and you're a triple threat at the top of the tea, but with this level of technical grounding underneath that. And I mean, at that point, you're again, you're the superpowered individual, you're going to be able to just perform like feats of magic, uh, for example, in terms of designing and building new products, you know, that people in my generation couldn't have even dreamed of. And so I I I think I think that this is a universal kind of theory that I think

[05:20] can can apply across the entire economy. >> I'm going to invent a new framework right now. Okay, forget the T framework. Uh, I'm picturing an F sideways or an E where there's three two or three, [laughter] I don't know, downward parts. And so what I'm hearing is get good at least two. >> I think that's right. I think that's right. Yeah. The combination. Yeah. Um, my my friend Larry Summers had a had a different version of the Scott Adams thing, which is he used to tell people he said the key for career planning is he said don't be funible. >> Right? [snorts] And you know that's he's an economist and so that was economics speak and and what that means is what that means essentially is don't be replaceable and

[05:56] so don't be a cog right so and what that meant was don't just be one thing right so if you're if you're if you're quote unquote you know again just a designer just a product manager just a coder like then in theory you can be swapped in or out but if if you have this if you have this yeah to if you have this E or F you know laying on it side kind of thing and if you have if you have this combination of things it's actually quite rare then all of a sudden you're not fungeible not only you're not fungeible like you're actually massively important because you're one of the only people in the world who can actually do that combination of things. Um, and yeah, that that your ability now to become one

[06:24] of those people is like just titanically enhanced uh with AI as compared to anything we've ever seen before. This is so interesting because I've worked with people that are good at these two skills and they were always called unicorns at the company. She can code and design. Oh my god. And what I'm hearing here is this is what you need to become. You need to become really good at at least two things there. I think you use the term smoke stack or something where it's like PM over here engineer design. And what I'm hearing here is you need to get good at at least two of these skills. The silos of these two roles are disappearing. >> That's right. That's right. And again, I can't I can't overstress the following

[06:55] for for anybody listening to this. The thing about AI that I think people are just like not getting enough benefit out of yet is just it will teach you. [laughter] Like this is amazing. Like there's never been a technology before where you can ask it like teach me how to do this thing, right? So it's I always feel like it's like it's like people spend too much. It's one of these things where it's like so much focus on figuring out how to use like a large language model is like okay what am I going to try to get it to do for me right which is of course very important but the other side of it is what can I get it to teach me how to do right and it's it's just as good at that right um and so again this

[07:32] is this level this level of latent superpower like you know people who really want to like improve themselves and like develop their career should be spending every every spare hour in my view at this point talking to an AI being like all right train train me up like tell me tell supermpower me tell me how to you know train train me train me how to be you know I'm a coder train me how to be a product manager. It will happily do that. It's it knows exactly how to do that. You know, run me, you know, make me problems, you know, make me assignments, then evaluate my results, right? And it will do it will do that just as happily as it will do work quote unquote for you. >> Two tricks I've heard along those lines.

[08:01] One is uh to watch the output, what the agent is doing and thinking as it's doing the work. So, if you're not an engineer, is just sit there and watch it think and make decisions. And it's almost become this like layer on top of learning to code is learning to see what the agent is doing and thinking because that teaches you about architecture. And the other is uh a couple podcast guests have mentioned this when you get stuck and then you figure out how to unstuck yourself, you ask it, what could I have done differently? What could I have said that would have avoided this error in the first place? >> Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Look, on that first one, and this again, this is what I'm doing with my

[08:33] 10-year-old. Yeah. Look, if if if you ask an Yeah, this is this is a really good point. So if you ask an AI to write me this code and then and then it doesn't it comes back and it doesn't work right like if if all you know is like single function I asked and it gave me back something that's not good like what do you like what do you even do with that right like you don't understand why it gave you that result do you really understand it even what do you even understand what to tell it to try to get it to do something different but to your point like if you actually wa if you actually watch what it's doing um and and and then and then you you have the grounding you know kind of that leg of the of your ear or your F um if

[09:06] you have that grounding then you can be Oh, I see what it's doing. I see where it made the mistake. I see where it went sideways. And then you're all of a sudden able to intervene and able say, "No, no, that's not what I meant. Do this other thing." Right? And so, and again, this is this this this is a big part of having having the actual kind of, you know, synergistic relationship. Um, is that you understand? And by the way, look, I mean, this is like everything I'm saying is, you know, everything everything that we're saying right now also is the same as if you're working with human beings, right? Like, you know, if you and I are colleagues and I, you know, would ask you to do something, you come back with something

[09:32] completely different. Like, I I do need to understand what was happening in your head, right? in order to in order to be able to get you need to give you fe give you feedback, right? If I just tell you, oh that's wrong, it doesn't like nothing happens. I need to actually understand I need to have theory of mind, right? I need to understand what you were thinking in order to really give you the right feedback. Um and so and and you know and again the great thing with AI is AI will happily sit there and explain all day long why it's doing what it's doing. It'll you know it'll happily critique itself, you know, and you can do this by the way a very fun thing where you can have have one AI critique the other AI, right? um

[10:05] which is another thing which is like you have one AI write the code, you have another AI debug the code and so you can actually use you can play the AI off against each other and get them to argue with each other. Um and yeah, the these are all these are all the kinds of skills that are going to become I think incredibly valuable. >> I think people call those LLM councils. Yes, >> they're talking to each other. >> Yeah, that's right. That's right. >> I do feel like if I were like I'm I have no design background. I've always wanted to design. I I've always wanted to be a great designer. Uh it feels like that's the hardest one to learn of all these three by just watching and talking, right? because there's a lot of exposure

[10:34] hours as as folks have used this term just like how do you learn to be a great designer that feels like that's going to be really hard and valuable. So, my my true confession is I've always kind of wanted to be a cartoonist, but I have no like art skills. But as we're talking, I'm like, it might be