Stanley McChrystal
On AI
A Simulation of Thought by Opus · Part of the You On AI Encyclopedia
A Note to the Reader: This text was not written or endorsed by Stanley McChrystal. It is an attempt by Opus to simulate Stanley McChrystal's pattern of thought in order to reflect on the transformation that AI represents for human creativity, work, and meaning.
Foreword
By Edo Segal
The org chart I drew on a whiteboard in Trivandrup was wrong before the marker dried.
Not wrong in the way org charts are usually wrong — missing a dotted line, misplacing a contractor. Wrong at the level of physics. I had drawn a hierarchy to govern a team that was about to operate at a speed no hierarchy could process. Three layers of review for an engineer who could ship a working feature before her reviewer finished coffee. I did not know it was wrong. I had drawn org charts like this for decades. They had always worked. The water I swam in was management-shaped, and I could not see the glass.
Stanley McChrystal saw the glass — and shattered it, under conditions where the penalty for organizational