Use AI at work? You might be a manager and not even know it.
Philip Su is on the frontline of AI. He worked at OpenAI until 2025, when he left to found his startup, Superphonic. Before that, he worked at Microsoft and Meta.
In January, Su made a provocative claim on Substack: “AI Killed the Individual Contributor.”
Su wrote that software engineers are asked to perform tasks once reserved for managers: set priorities, resolve conflicts, and give feedback. Rather than building, they’re spending time “pondering and tweaking the machine that builds the thing.”
“The halcyon days of the IC are over,” Su wrote. “Not because AI codes better than you, but because maximizing your productivity necessitates focusing your time on all the things that are, at…