The February 2026 training that Segal documents in You On AI — twenty engineers in Trivandrum achieving twenty-fold productivity gains with Claude Code — provides the Myrdalian framework its clearest empirical case. The engineers gained capability that transformed their individual productivity and professional range. They can now build across domains, ship faster, attempt projects previously beyond reach. The empowerment is real and should not be minimized. The Myrdalian reading supplements rather than replaces this account by insisting on the simultaneous backwash effects the individual-empowerment narrative underexamines.
The twenty-fold productivity gain accrues, in the first instance, to the company that employs these engineers — a company headquartered in the United States, serving a global market, generating revenue that flows to shareholders and executives in the developed world. The engineers' increased capability serves the company's strategic priorities, set in meetings where the Trivandrum team's interests are one input among many and rarely the decisive one. The engineers'