AI and the Leadership Illusion

Why the Engineers Who Ship Will Outlast the Managers Who Meet

Your company has a senior engineer who ships features before lunch using AI. They understand the systems, solve the problems, and build the products that generate revenue.

Your company also has a VP who attends six meetings a day, forwards status updates, and presents other people's work on slides. They haven't touched a system in years. They "drive alignment" and "set strategy" — which mostly means adding process to work that was already getting done.

AI is about to make one of these people dramatically more valuable and the other one redundant.

It's not the one you've been told.

The conventional narrative says AI is coming for engineers first. That's backwards. AI multiplies builders — one engineer with AI tools can now do the work of an entire team. But AI replaces coordinators. When AI can summarize meetings, write status reports, and generate executive dashboards directly from the work, what's left of a job that was mostly coordination?

In this book, you'll learn:

• Why the "meeting class" of leadership is the most vulnerable layer in any organization
• How AI-augmented engineers are becoming more valuable than the managers above them
• The difference between real leadership (still essential) and organizational theater (already dying)
• What the org chart looks like when AI eliminates the translation layer between builders and executives
• Practical strategies whether you're the builder gaining leverage or the leader who needs to evolve

This isn't an anti-management book. It's an anti-fake-management book. Real leaders who understand the work, make hard decisions, and remove obstacles are more valuable than ever. But the leaders who just go to meetings and talk? Their days are numbered.

This book is for you if:

• You're an engineer watching your output triple while your manager's calendar just gets fuller
• You're a leader smart enough to wonder whether your role still makes sense
• You want to understand the real organizational impact of AI — not the sanitized version
• You've ever sat in a meeting thinking "AI could replace everyone in this room except the people who actually build things"

The future belongs to builders. This book explains why — and what to do about it.