Just One
More Prompt

Everyone is coding with agents. Nobody has figured out how to orchestrate them efficiently.

Fear Of Missing A Token. The compulsive feeling that the next prompt is the one that cracks it – so you leave the agent running and walk away.

Coined: Alex Volkov / ThursdAI.news · Expanded: Mike Litman

The Lopopolo-Zechner Continuum

"Completely stop looking at code. Become token billionaires."

Ryan Lopopolo — OpenAI

"Slow the fuck down and read the code."

Mario Zechner – nobody resolved it. Everyone went home still arguing.

The engineer who doesn't understand their own system is shipping a liability, not a product.

Software can think now.

• IDEs are dying
• GitHub seeing 15x traffic versus its biggest ever year (which was last year)
• Interviewing is impossible
• L33T C0d3 is dead
• An AIE is now a PM, an agent babysitter, a taste setter. Choose one.

AI was supposed to offload the boring, meaningless stuff. We all just work more now.

You're expected to give 10x output + docs + tests + i18n +++ all on your own. The floor moved up, not the ceiling.

"Just talk to
your Clawnker."

Self-improving intelligent software is here. Stop asking it for trivial advice. Talk to it.

We're still early.
Nobody knows what's coming for software engineers.

Strong regulation, privacy concerns, general unease. The gap between the cutting edge and the mainstream is widening fast.

AGI is nearly here.
Just not evenly distributed.

Everyone was debating Claude Mythos: genuine Y2K-level cyber security event, or pre-IPO marketing because they don't have the GPUs to release it? My read: the question itself is the story. When a lab's unreleased model is a conference talking point, we've crossed a threshold.

MCP is dead.
Long live MCP.

AIEs are quick to host MCP funerals. Enterprises are adopting MCP apps faster than ever. The people declaring it dead are not the people deploying it.

Where are
you on the
continuum?

Both. Just not
at the same time.

I've built 20+ AI-native products in the last year. I run agents overnight and check what they built every morning. I suffer from FOMAT constantly. But the projects that actually shipped are the ones I understood well enough to be embarrassed by first.

Thanks.

mikelitman.me · hello@mikelitman.me

Source: ThursdAI.news / Alex Volkov · AI Engineer Europe April 2026