There’s a popular narrative in tech culture that frames high agency as a kind of self-sufficiency superpower.
The high agency person is the one who learns every tool, picks up every skill, and never depends on anyone else to get things done.
They’re the product manager who teaches themselves Figma so they can ship designs without waiting on a designer.
They’re the person who learns to code so they don’t need to rely on engineers. On the surface, this sounds empowering, maybe even admirable.
But Vishal Khanna pointed out something that flipped my understanding. That’s not high agency at all. It’s low agency disguised as independence.
When you learn someone else’s job just to bypass them, you’re not being resourceful. You’re grabbing for control because you don’t trust the process or the people around you.
You’re solving for speed or autonomy in a way that ultimately weakens collaboration and diminishes the expertise of your teammates. It’s a zero-sum mindset dressed up as hustle.
High agency, Vishal explained, looks different. It’s not about doing everyone’s job. It’s about learning the language, the mental models, and the principles that let you navigate complexity and empower the people around you.
A high agency product manager doesn’t learn Figma to replace the designer. They learn design principles so they can communicate more effectively, ask better questions, and help the designer do their best work. They learn enough about machine learning not to write the code themselves, but to collaborate intelligently with engineers and unblock problems faster.
This reframe hit me hard because it exposes a deeper truth about what agency really is. It’s not about accumulating skills or hoarding control. It’s about being resourceful with what you have and who you have around you. It’s the ability to navigate any scenario not because you can do everything yourself, but because you understand how to work with others, adapt to constraints, and make smart decisions in uncertain environments.
The conversation left me thinking about how often we conflate self-sufficiency with strength, when real agency might look more like relational intelligence. In a world where tools are getting cheaper and execution is getting faster, the thing that matters most is judgment, collaboration, and the ability to act wisely with the people and resources in front of you.
I’m still unpacking what this means for how I work, but it’s already shifting the questions I ask:
Not what else can I learn to do myself? But how can I better enable the people around me?
Not how do I gain more control? But how do I navigate this complexity with more resourcefulness and less friction?
It’s a subtle shift, but it feels like the right one.
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Show Notes
In this episode, Vishal Khanna, Head of Product and Technical Go-To-Market at Exa.ai, shares insights on the ambitious mission to reinvent search in the AI-driven world.
We talk about the challenges and opportunities in taking on industry giants, the importance of thoughtful application of AI tools, and the value of fundamental problem-solving skills.
Vishal also discusses his transition from management consulting to product management, the necessity of technical literacy, and fostering high agency in teams.
This conversation explores how integrating AI with sound decision-making can drive impactful innovation in the tech industry.
Connect with Vishal
01:14 Choosing to Work at Exa
01:24 The AI Revolution and Its Impact
02:25 Challenges and Opportunities in AI
04:30 Managing Expectations with AI
05:28 The Role of Product Managers in the AI Era
11:23 The Importance of Technical Literacy
22:25 Lessons from McKinsey
25:52 Adapting to AI in Product Management
33:04 The Concept of Agency
39:31 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
