David Heinemeier Hansson

August 9, 2026

Endless execution

The age of agents has brought us endless execution. Every idea, every hunch, every experiment is now within immediate reach. For people with endless ideas, this is nirvana.

It's also the most fucking sci-fi thing I've ever been privy to. The internet was a revelation, but it all felt understandable. The science, the standards, the methods.

But working with agents truly is magic. In the best possible sense of the word. Technology so advanced that it seems scarcely comprehensible. HOW ARE WE MAKING COMPUTERS DO THIS???

I understand the general outline of the underlying mechanism for producing this intelligence: the training, the weights, the math. But the sum effect of those parts is still so wildly, intoxicatingly massive that it's hard to resist reaching for the metaphysical.

Quantum computing is full of similar mind-bending ideas. Superpositions. The multiverse. All very OUT THERE. But quantum computing isn't having an impact today. These incomprehensibly clever AI agents are.

And the impact is that I feel like there's a little genie trapped in my machine now. There to fulfill every wish and every whim. It's taken months to internalize just what liberation this grants those with the ambition to imagine.

Now I could write at length about all the caveats. All the potential dangers. All the ways it's not quite there yet. But it would be an insult to the marvel of this moment. AGI is a nefarious concept to pin down, but I'm not sure how different whatever definition we eventually settle on will look from what I'm already experiencing on the daily.

This is simply the most fun I've ever had with a computer. And I've loved them dearly for over forty years. I loved programming them myself. I loved the games. The configuration. The tactile experience. But none of it as much as I love the power to execute every idea that crosses my mind.

What a time to be alive. Nay, what a blessing.

About David Heinemeier Hansson

Made Basecamp and HEY for the underdogs as co-owner and CTO of 37signals. Created Ruby on Rails, Hotwire, Kamal, Omarchy. Wrote REWORK, It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work, and REMOTE. Won at Le Mans as a racing driver. Invested in Danish startups.