Marc Andreessen on agency, Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters, and being a Team A player

Welcome back to the Z Fellows newsletter! Every Monday we share 3 ideas - to help you build companies, ship products, and create your life's work.

1: Marc Andreessen on agency

“This term agency that’s become very popular, certainly in California over the last couple years, is really interesting. I had trouble with it early on because I was like, agency, what are they talking about?

What they’re really talking about is initiative. Willingness to just do things. Being a primary participant in events.

At first I was like, well yeah, that’s obvious. And then I realized it’s actually not so obvious anymore, because so much of our society is based on rules. Everybody gets taught by default that you’re supposed to follow all these rules. And if you break the rules, everybody freaks out.

We’ve worked our way psychologically and sociologically into a state where the natural assumption for a lot of people is that what you train kids to do is follow rules. And yeah, some rules are important.

I literally had this conversation with my ten-year-old last night. I told him, in order to lead, you must first learn to obey. You need some structure. Not just pure agency.

But there’s a huge premium in life on being someone who can fully take responsibility, fully take charge, run an organization, lead a project, create something new. And maybe that’s been diminished in our culture over the last thirty years. It’s healthy that there’s now a term for it coming back into vogue.“

Source: Marc Andreessen: The real AI boom hasn’t even started yet

2: Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters

The Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters contain several quotes and insights for great company-building:

• “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But, if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”

• “Wishing makes dreams come true only in Disney movies; it’s poison in business.”

• “Culture, more than rule books, determines how an organization behaves.”

• “Pascal’s observation seems apt: “It has struck me that all men’s misfortunes spring from the single cause that they are unable to stay quietly in one room.”

• “Temperament is also important. Independent thinking, emotional stability, and a keen understanding of both human and institutional behavior is vital to long-term investment success.”

• “Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies, and they will briefly rain gold.”

Source: Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters

3: Being a Team A player

A list went viral on X explaining the difference between Team A and Team B players, detailing why Team A ultimately wins in the age of AI. While targetted at programmers, this framework has great principles for any craft:

Source: The K-Shaped Future of Software Engineering

Best of The Week

See you next Monday,

- The Z Fellows Team

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