Sinofsky: AI struggles in companies because most workers can't flowchart their own jobs for agents
a16z · x · 2026-10-20
a16z highlights a discussion on why AI diffuses slowly into companies, featuring Steven Sinofsky and TownAI founder Jean-Denis Greze.
- Sinofsky: most work runs on tacit know-how that's hard to turn into step-by-step instructions. 'Algorithmic thinking is really hard for the vast majority of people who have jobs' — ask anyone to flowchart their own job and most will fail; in a 50-person marketing org maybe one person could document the process. So employees' ability to tell agents what to do is severely limited; agents are the next abstraction layer of interaction, and abstraction layers have always been hard to spread.
- Greze: AI isn't diffusing because the world lacks tinkerers. A text box isn't enough — products must identify the value proposition and do the work. His example: a surfboard rental business using Town to inspect boards and buggies for damage works because one person there 'gets AI' enough to tinker a solution.
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