Fallthrough The AI Factory Floor
12 snips
Jan 31, 2026 They unpack Gastown, an agent orchestration project that treats AI agents like factory workers and explores the idea of AI managers. The conversation traces computing cycles from mainframes to cloud to AI and questions where orchestration fits between APIs and agents. They debate data center locations, environmental trade offs, and the real economics of API pricing and subsidized usage.
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Episode notes
Use A Middle Layer Not Raw Agents
- Avoid running huge agent farms on interactive Cloud Code if you can use APIs or a middleware layer.
- Kris Brandow recommends a middle layer between APIs and interactive agents for non-interactive orchestration.
Reevaluate Old Trade-Offs
- Engineering choices that made sense in a prior world may be cargo-culted today.
- Steve Klabnik urges reevaluating sacred cows because the landscape and trade-offs have changed.
Plan For Limits And Billing Surprises
- Expect provider limits and billing quirks when you rely on managed agent subscriptions.
- Plan budgets and local alternatives because usage spikes can quickly hit caps or trigger fraud detection.