Text pages that run my business

Hi {{first_name|friend}},

Every AI agent working behind the scenes in my business started the same humble way, as a page of plain writing. No code, no special software, just me typing out what I wanted it to do. I want to show you one of those pages this week, because the skill it takes to write one is a skill you have been practicing for most of your career.

My Take

A couple of years ago, the word "agent" would have stopped me cold too. It sounds like something you need a computer science degree to build. What surprised me was how ordinary it turned out to be. One of mine started as a text file I typed in plain English and so did all the rest.

Allie K Miller, who works with this stuff constantly, says that single fact changes more minds about agents than anything else she tells people. One man told her it finally got him building after two years of assuming the whole thing was over his head.

What goes on the page is not technical. You write down what the job is, what the agent can handle on its own and when it needs to stop and check with you. Here is a real piece of the file for my chief of staff agent, the one I call Vanta:

Here is what I did not expect. The part that matters most is where you draw the limits, those "check with me first" lines. When people finally sit down to write one of these, they pour all their attention into what they want done and barely think about the boundaries. The boundaries are the part that counts. I wrote that pricing rule because pricing is a decision with consequences I have to own, so it never gets handed off. Knowing which calls can never leave your desk is pure judgment, the kind you have spent a career building. And you already carry a hundred rules like it in your head. You have just never had to write them down for a machine.

One more thing about that page: it keeps growing. Every time an agent does something I did not want, I add a line and slowly the file becomes a written record of my judgment about that job. That record is mine. I can carry it to whatever tool comes next, which is the whole idea behind what I call data independence plus portability: your context and your rules living in something you own instead of trapped inside one company's app.

So before you go shopping for the right tool, answer the smaller question the page starts with: what is the one job you would hand off first?

Try This Today

Before you shop for any tool, write the page by hand. It takes about ten minutes and you do not need an app open to do it.

1. Pick one job you would happily hand off. Something real and recurring, like sorting your inbox or drafting rough first replies.

2. Open a blank doc and add three short headings: what the job is, what it can handle on its own, when it should stop and check with you.

3. Fill each with a sentence or two in plain language. Save it. That page is the thing. It works in whatever tool you try next.

Watch: a 73 year old novelist on why AI should slow you down

@aiover50

#creatorsearchinsights A 73 year old novelist says AI is making her "gloriously slower." Best AI take I've read in a while. #over50 #lear... See more

Worth Knowing

AI is splitting workplace culture in two

Gallup's Q1 2026 study found AI is pushing workplace culture in two directions at once: 24% of employees say it has made their culture better and 25% say it has made it worse. The deciding factor turned out to be the manager. People whose boss actively backs AI were far more likely to say it helped, yet fewer than a third of workers say theirs does. If you are the experienced person on your team, you are the swing vote on whether AI lifts the people around you or grinds them down. Read more

The digital natives are hiding their AI use

Half of Gen Z workers reportedly feel guilty about using AI and 4 in 10 are hiding it from their employers. The generation everyone assumes is out front is using AI in secret and doubting itself. You can skip the shame entirely: use it in the open, check its work and let people see the judgment you bring to it. Read more

A famous family draws a line on AI likenesses

Robin Williams' family reopened his Instagram account, not to post memories, but to push back on people generating AI recreations of him. Their message is simple: there was a real person here and consent still matters. This is a generation that values dignity over spectacle and it is worth deciding now what you would allow with your own image and voice. Read more

Where the "magic" actually comes from

A report says rare books were destroyed to feed AI training data. It is a jarring look behind the curtain of the tools we are all told to simply trust. Staying a little skeptical about how these systems get built is just the due diligence you would apply to any vendor. Read more

Tell me

So, what is the one job you would hand to AI first? Reply and tell me. One line is plenty, I read every single one.