johnmaconline chain logo johnmaconline / The250
Daily one-pagers about AI, leadership, technology, and being human.

johnmaconline

I'm writing to think, learn, and remember in public. I'll be here everyday.

March 10, 2026 1 minute read

Curiosity Killed the Cat

AIHumanLeadership

We use this phrase as a helpful warning.

“You don’t need to care about that.”
“Stay in your lane.”
“I’ve already figured this out.”

But really, it’s self-preservation. We feel threatened, or we want credit for something we’ve already done, or we want to raise our hand as a good soldier.

We’ve built an entire industrial system that squashes curiosity. When you’re part of that system, it’s natural to give the side-eye to the curious.

However, curiosity has always been a sneaky-important quality of your workforce. You want people who look for better ways. You want people who want to know about the whole product or system. You want people who care about the others and what they are doing.

You want people who think, “What if…”

AI accelerates the curious.

What are you curious about?

March 9, 2026 1 minute read

100k Lines of Code

AILeadershipTechnology

I’ve “written” 100k lines of code in the last 6 weeks.

Is some of it crap? Yes. Is it bloated? Yes. Is there tech debt that needs to be cleaned up and refactored? Yes. Is some of this code doing stuff I don’t understand fully? Yes. Will there be difficult bugs to find because of all of this? Yes.

However, I’d never written 100k lines of code in a year, let alone 6 weeks.

NOTE: Lines of code is a terrible metric to measure a developer and the code itself. It’s a little bit like rating a driver by how many miles they drove today — it provides some scale, but says nothing about efficiency, quality, etc.

And my current role is “project manager.” I’m not technically a developer in this organization.

Some see this as we’re heading for disaster. Some see it as unlocking the potential of everyone.

I see it as something to master.

March 8, 2026 1 minute read

He Said. She Said. It Says.

AIHumanLeadership

Right now, we generally fall into three camps: a) “we’re doomed,” b) “it’s gonna be awesome,” and c) “we’re not sure yet, but hope it’s gonna be alright.”

At some point in the future, maybe 2 years or maybe 10 or more years, we’ll know the impact that AI has had on the human job market. And when looking back, it will seem like it was the obvious path.

But, of course, it wasn’t. Oh, sure. The soapboxers will yell, “I told you so!” with all of their data, and others will create art that amplifies the “I told you so!”-s narrative.

He said. She said.

Right now, we don’t know, but here’s what It says:

  • AI automates tasks, not whole jobs.
  • Top experts and versatile generalists win; middle work shrinks.
  • Entry-level roles get fewer and tougher.
  • Big workplace change before big productivity gains.
  • Humans stay needed for responsibility, risk, edge cases, and people work.
  • Best career move: learn the domain, check outputs, write clearly, own results.
  • Net: fewer first drafts, more review and decision-making.

Do with that what you’d like.

March 7, 2026 1 minute read

Scaffolding

HumanLeadershipThe250

Scaffolding helps us fix the places we can’t get to on our own.

When you see scaffolding, you know a few things:

  • They’re serious about fixing it
  • Fixing it requires a stable support system
  • It’s temporary, but may take a while
  • The end result is restoration to previous glory

Whatever you’re going through. Whatever problem you need to solve.

Build your scaffolding.

The end result is so much better than your present situation.

March 6, 2026 1 minute read

Crap is Still Crap

AIHumanTechnology

Lots of people are arguing over the quality of AI content.

Software. Writing. Video. Whatever.

That kinda misses the point.

Quality isn’t based on who or what generated it. It’s based on us. It’s based on you.

Crap is still crap, no matter who or what generated it.

March 5, 2026 1 minute read

Dunbar’s AI Number and AI’s Dunbar Number

AIHumanTechnology

Dunbar’s number defines a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain meaningful or stable relationships.

It’s about 150.

That’s your circle size before you lose track. That’s your startup size before you need systems and organizations. That’s your Church size before you need to formalize committees and processes. That’s your party size before you need to call the cops.

I wonder how many AI agents each of us can keep going?

For me, right now, it’s about 5. With 5 going, I’m pretty much just attending to their needs all the time. Maybe that will go up as the agents get less needy, or when I get more agents talking to agents.

Agents talking to agents.

I’m wondering what AI’s Dunbar number will be? Will it exist? Is it theoretically infinite? Is it practically related to compute power? Something else?

This one is worth watching.

March 4, 2026 1 minute read

The Main Thing or the Side Things?

AITechnologyThe250

We’ve been talking a lot in our organization about whether AI fits best doing the main thing (writing code in our case) or doing the side things (email management, test, documentation, project planning, Jira, etc).

Some vehemently fall into the camp of “AI can’t do what I do, but it can help me with the stuff I don’t want to do.”

Be careful.

I’ve written almost 100k lines of code in 5 weeks. I’ve never written 100k lines of code in a year, let alone 5 weeks.

Get AI working for you, or you’ll be working for AI.

March 3, 2026 1 minute read

The Tollbooth

HumanLeadershipThe250

Some think the way to success is to make others go through the tollbooth.

My idea. My IP. My job. My knowledge. My resources.

The tollbooth approach. If you want what I have, you gotta pay the toll. And I set the toll.

Resource tollboothing can work in specific situations for a period of time. Heck, venture capital pretty much roots around looking exclusively for tollbooths (they like to call it a moat).

But you can also choose generosity. You can choose to share. You can choose to open your arms. You can choose to wonder at what others can contribute.

There’s something to that old cliche that a rising tide lifts all boats.

March 2, 2026 2 minute read

My Foundation Shook a Bit

AIHumanTechnology

I’ve been using AI hardcore since just after the ChatGPT chatbot hit the interwebs in November of 2022.

Since then, I’ve tried many of the models and tools, and now use a combo in my daily workflow. I’ve moved on from the simple chatbot interface (which I still use quite a bit, however) to agentic coding agents and now build my own agents with agents.

These pages attest that I’m at least an AI apologist, and I might even categorize myself as an accelerationist. I’ve not been worried about AI taking over. I’ve not been worried about nefarious AI. I’ve not been worried about the Player Piano scenario, whereby AI does all the work and we sit around doing nothing.

Well, my foundation shook a bit this week.

I built a “systems engineering agent” (based on Claude Opus 4.6). I told it how to do its job from on my experiences, best practices, and industry. About 45 minutes later, “he” was ready. I fed it our marketing requirements document and told it to spit out a systems requirements document for a particular feature set.

Less than an hour later, I had a document that was 80% there. That was at least 2 weeks of work for an experienced human.

Two weeks => less than an hour.

Never more than right now do you need to understand that either AI will for you, or you will work for AI.

March 1, 2026 1 minute read

The Pareto Principle with AI

AIHumanTechnology

The Pareto Principle states that 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes.

I’m currently running under the hypothesis that AI gets us to 80% of most knowledge work we have to do. That’s how I start all of my tasks now: “OK, AI, get me 80% of the way there.”

That last 20% is on me / us.

I don’t know exactly what the future looks like. Maybe AI’s progression blows the 80/20 rule out of the water. Maybe it becomes 98/2. Or maybe the curve flattens.

But I’m pretty sure we’re already at 80/20.

Either AI will work for you, or you’ll work for AI.

Pin It on Pinterest