High Agency Matters

A high-agency person steers their path instead of drifting with it.

For generations, we’ve been told that a high IQ is the ticket to success. Top grades, test scores, and raw brainpower have been glorified as the holy grail of achievement. Yet a subtle revolution may be underway in how we understand success: in the long run, the thesis is that initiative beats intellect.

“Agency is significantly more powerful and significantly more scarce [than intelligence].” - Andrej Karpathy [1]

Recent insights - from tech leaders, psychologists, and entrepreneurs - suggest that the capacity to take action, or personal agency, matters more than sheer intelligence in determining who thrives. Karpathy, a renowned AI scientist, confessed that he “had this intuitively wrong for decades” due to our cultural veneration of IQ. Now he, and many others, recognize a paradigm shift: being smart is useful, but being proactive and doing something with that smarts is decisive. In a world full of brilliant ideas and talented people, the real scarcity is those with the agency to execute and make ideas happen.

This write-up will explore what “agency” really means, why it’s often the missing ingredient behind success, and how emphasizing initiative over intellect can transform careers - especially in engineering and technology fields. We’ll examine the pitfalls of relying solely on intelligence, why agency is rare (and precious), and how individuals and organizations can cultivate a high-agency mindset. In the end, it’s not a rejection of intelligence, but a recognition that intelligence without action is like a car with no fuel - potential energy that never turns into forward motion. To truly leverage our intellect, we must pair it with the drive to act. Let’s look at why taking initiative trumps IQ, and how you can apply this principle in your own life.

The essence of agency is being the driver, not the passenger.

The high-agency mindset is simple. See it, own it, move it forward.

At its core, agency is the trait of being an active driver of your own life rather than a passive passenger. It’s the internal belief that you can influence your circumstances and the willingness to actually do so. Psychologists describe agency as a blend of self-efficacy (confidence in your ability), determination, and ownership over outcomes. In simple terms, a high-agency person is the one who, when faced with a challenge or opportunity, says “I’ll figure it out” - and then proceeds to make it happen.

They don’t wait for instructions or perfect conditions; they initiate and improvise.

“Someone with high agency doesn’t just let life happen to them; they shape it.”

This concept is closely tied to having an internal locus of control, the belief that your actions largely determine your fate. People with high agency “lean toward an internal locus, feeling they steer their fate” 2 whereas low-agency individuals feel life is something that happens to them. High-agency folks are the self-starters: they set goals and pursue them confidently even amid obstacles, adapting as needed. Notably, agency isn’t the same as raw assertiveness or loud ambition.

It’s often a quieter, internal resolve. It’s less about dominating others and more about conquering the tasks at hand. As Karpathy’s explanation puts it, agency is the belief that you can act - paired with the will to follow through.

Consider two software engineers on a team. One is brilliant but tends to wait until a manager gives detailed direction; when problems arise, they complain that the specs were unclear. The other is maybe not a “genius” on paper, but when they see a problem, they take ownership to fix it - they teach themselves new tools if necessary, prototype solutions without being asked, and rally others to help. The second engineer is displaying high agency. She’s not content to sit idle because something wasn’t spelled out; she actively shapes the outcome.

Over time, that propensity to do things - to drive projects forward - becomes far more valuable than whatever extra IQ points the first engineer might have. Agency means seeing yourself as the protagonist in your story, not an extra waiting for directions. It’s the mindset of driving the car rather than being along for the ride.

The action advantage is why initiative beats intelligence

Determination with average smarts beats brilliance without motion almost every time.

Raw intelligence, as useful as it is, has diminishing returns beyond a point. What really separates high achievers is their propensity to act. As venture capitalist Paul Graham observes, an extremely smart but unmotivated person quickly becomes an “ineffectual but brilliant” individual, accomplishing little [6].

“It turns out it’s not that important to be smart. It’s much, much more important to be determined.” - Paul Graham

In contrast, someone with dogged determination - even if not the brightest genius - will find a way to succeed. Graham illustrates this with a thought experiment: imagine a person who is 100/100 in intelligence and determination. If you dial down their determination, before long you get a genius who can’t get anything done. But if you dial down their intelligence while keeping determination maxed, you might end up with, say, a moderately smart business owner who still manages to get rich [7]. In his words, “you can take away a lot of smart” and the determined person will still make progress [8]. In the real world, a bias for action beats a surplus of IQ.

Why is initiative such a powerful advantage? One reason is that ideas are worthless until executed. We all know of brilliant ideas that never left the paper. As entrepreneur Derek Sivers famously said, “Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.” [9][10].

A genius idea with no action yields zero; a so-so idea implemented well can change the game. It’s the doing that makes the difference. Taking initiative also creates a compounding effect: when you act, you learn from real feedback, attract collaborators, and open doors. Even failures teach valuable lessons that no amount of contemplating could reveal. In contrast, the person who endlessly theorizes and polishes ideas in their head sees no real-world improvement.

Execution is a force multiplier on any talent or knowledge you possess. This is why many industry leaders value a “bias toward action.” Amazon, for example, preaches in its principles that “Speed matters… Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study”[11]. In other words, don’t over-analyze everything - if a decision isn’t permanent, it’s often better to do something and iterate than to stall. The truth is that in most fields, you can’t think your way to greatness; you have to act your way there. Bold initiatives, even imperfect, move you forward. As one startup mantra puts it, “Ship it, then make it better.” A mediocre plan vigorously executed now is typically better than a perfect plan perpetually delayed.

We see the action advantage play out in career trajectories. The employee who volunteers for new projects, even without full expertise, ends up acquiring more skills and being seen as a leader - whereas a smarter colleague who sticks to their narrow role stagnates. Business history too shows that the first mover who executes often beats competitors who might have had a “better” idea later [12]. Simply put, you can’t win if you never leave the starting line, no matter how high your IQ. Meanwhile, even a slow runner who started the race will beat the speedster who never started. This is why initiative is often called the great equalizer - it allows an average Joe with hustle to outperform a brilliant but passive person over time.

When doing being too smart backfire?

“The problem is that intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” - Charles Bukowski [13]

If high intelligence is so great, why do so many “smart” people fall short of their potential? One counterintuitive truth is that being very smart can actually create its own pitfalls - what we might call the intelligence trap. One such pitfall is analysis paralysis. The more brainpower you have, the more adept you may be at imagining everything that could go wrong. Bright minds often overanalyze situations, seeking optimal solutions or perfect certainty. The result: they never act. As Bukowski’s darkly comic quote captures, intelligent people can be riddled with doubts and endless what-ifs, whereas those less preoccupied with perfection just charge ahead. In a startup or engineering project, this might mean the brilliant architect keeps refining an idea on paper, while a less “brilliant” team actually builds a prototype and starts gathering user feedback. By the time the perfectionist is confident, the opportunity has passed or others have iterated far beyond the initial concept.

Another facet of the intelligence trap is a fear of failure, often bred by a fixed mindset. Psychologist Carol Dweck found that people praised solely for being “smart” often develop an aversion to challenges - they don’t want to risk looking dumb or losing their smart status[14]. This phenomenon, sometimes called “smart kid syndrome,” leads to avoidance of tough problems and perseverance. Ironic as it sounds, an individual who’s always been the smartest in the room might crumble at a task that doesn’t come easily, because they’ve never learned to push through struggle. In contrast, those praised for effort or outcomes (not inherent genius) learn that trying and failing is just part of growth. As Dweck writes, “teach children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning” - then they won’t be slaves to a fragile smart ego[15]. High agency people typically have this growth mindset; they see failure not as a verdict on their intellect but as a feedback mechanism for improvement.

Intelligence can also foster overconfidence in planning at the expense of doing. A very smart person might assume they can mentally simulate everything - leading them to underprepare or ignore practical testing. They trust their brain so much that they don’t get their hands dirty. Yet book smarts without street smarts can be disastrous. In engineering, you often don’t truly understand a system until you build it and break it a few times. The “doers” who tinker, experiment, and adapt end up with deeper intuition than those who only theorize. It’s telling that many top programmers and inventors talk about “learning by doing” - an acknowledgment that no amount of pure analysis substitutes for experience. Tech legend Bruce Lee (though not an engineer) summed it up well: “The doer alone learns” [16].

Finally, consider motivation. A person gifted with a high IQ might coast through early life without needing strong work habits or initiative - things come easily in school, for example. But when the real world presents complex, unstructured problems, raw IQ isn’t enough. Success becomes about persistence and proactivity. Those who coasted can struggle, while those who had to work hard and be resourceful from the start have the grit to keep going. This is why psychologist Angela Duckworth’s research on grit (passion and perseverance) found it to be a better predictor of success in many contexts than IQ. In studies of West Point cadets and spelling bee contestants, grit out-predicted IQ for who made it through [17]. As one summary put it, a child with high perseverance will outperform a child with a higher IQ if they simply practice longer and harder[18]. Over time, the diligent “B student” can leave the genius “A student” in the dust - a common story in workplaces.

In short, intelligence alone can lull you into complacency or fear-driven inaction. The antidote is recognizing that effort, learning, and adaptation trump sheer genius. The best outcomes come when a sharp mind is paired with a bias for action. A brilliant plan is worthless if it remains in your head - or as Thomas Edison allegedly said, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” [19] To avoid the intelligence trap, one must cultivate the courage to act on imperfect information, the humility to learn from missteps, and the resilience to keep going when clever plans fail. Those qualities are all elements of agency.

Why agency is rare (and thus valuable)

“Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach… Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom.” - Seth Godin [20]

If taking initiative is so beneficial, one might wonder why it isn’t more common. The reality is that agency is rare by design of both our institutions and our own psychology. From early on, most people are conditioned to follow instructions and seek permission. Schools, for all the good they do, tend to reward compliance over initiative. As marketer Seth Godin points out, a teacher can grade correct answers easily, but it’s much harder to foster and evaluate original questioning or student-driven projects [20]. The result is an education system that produces excellent problem-solvers within given parameters, but “we are seldom taught how to ask the next interesting question.” [21] Students learn that being a good student means doing the assigned work and not coloring outside the lines. By the time they enter the workforce, many have spent 16+ years in environments that implicitly say: keep your head down and do as you’re told. This inadvertently trains people out of agency. They become uncomfortable with self-direction because they’ve had few chances to practice it.

Beyond schooling, there’s a comfort factor. Being proactive is hard work - it requires effort, risk, and stepping into the unknown. Human nature inclines us toward the path of least resistance. It’s far easier to let circumstances carry us along (the “default” life script) than to exert ourselves to change the status quo. High agency often means taking on extra responsibility and potential failure. Not everyone wants that burden. Psychologically, doing nothing (or doing only what you’re explicitly told) feels safer because you can’t be blamed if things go wrong. This leads to what some call learned helplessness: after long periods of being told what to do or feeling like you lack control, you stop looking for opportunities to assert control at all. Social commentator Simon Sarris notes that when young people are given years of “fake work” - busywork with no real impact - they unsurprisingly conclude that all work is meaningless and that they have no real power [22][23]. They enter adulthood disillusioned or waiting for permission to do something meaningful. In such a state, agency withers; passivity becomes the norm.

Culturally, we’ve also only recently begun to celebrate initiative as a virtue. For much of the industrial age, society valued reliable, compliant workers - people who would show up on time and do the repetitive tasks required. The school system was in fact modeled to produce good factory workers and clerks. As Seth Godin remarked, companies historically “bought compliance by the bushel” and viewed too much initiative as a problem [24]. Only in the modern knowledge economy has creativity and self-direction become a prized asset in employees. So we’re undoing generations of messaging that said “Just do your job, don’t rock the boat.” This shift is happening, but unevenly. Many large organizations still implicitly discourage initiative beyond one’s role, smothering those who try to go above and beyond with bureaucracy. Thus, people learn to keep their heads down.

All these factors make agency scarce - which in turn makes it incredibly valuable. Think of supply and demand: plenty of smart, skilled individuals are out there, but relatively few who will take initiative without being prompted. So those who do have high agency stand out and get disproportionate rewards. One analyst observed that because so few people habitually “bend the universe” through their actions, the ones who do are in high demand [25]. High-agency people also tend to attract followers; their confidence to act can inspire others who prefer to be led. It’s no coincidence that leadership roles (from team leads to entrepreneurs) gravitate towards those willing to say, “I’ll take charge.” As the saying goes, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king” - in a world full of passive rule-followers, the person with a bit of initiative can quickly become a leader.

In essence, agency is rare because it requires unlearning some of our most ingrained habits and fears. But that rarity is exactly why cultivating it provides an edge.

If you can break out of the compliance trap - if you maintain the mindset that you are an active agent of change - you immediately differentiate yourself.

You become the person who creates opportunities instead of waiting for them. Yes, it’s harder and sometimes scarier to live this way, but the scarcity of peers doing the same means your efforts shine brighter. Every field has unsolved problems and untapped ideas; high-agency individuals are the ones who leap to fill those voids. The rest eventually benefit from their initiatives, but it’s the initiators who reap the biggest rewards (and often have the most interesting lives).

The real-world power of agency is turning ideas into impact

“Vision without execution is hallucination.” - Thomas Edison [19]

What does high agency look like in practice? It looks like things getting done - companies being launched, projects delivered against all odds, innovations brought to market, communities mobilized to solve problems. History and modern business alike show that the people who leave a mark are not necessarily the brainiest, but the ones who act on their vision. Thomas Edison, who held over a thousand patents, famously valued dogged execution. He’s credited with saying that genius is “1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Whether or not the percentage is accurate, the message is: hard work and follow-through matter exponentially more than flashes of genius. Edison himself was not the first to dream of electric light bulbs, but he was the one who relentlessly tested hundreds of materials until he found a filament that worked. That’s agency at work - the will to do the boring, hard stuff to realize an idea.

In entrepreneurship, this principle is widely recognized. Venture investors often prefer a gritty founder who executes moderately well over a brilliant visionary who can’t implement. A study in Frontiers in Psychology found that proactive personality (a proxy for personal agency) correlates much more strongly with career success - promotions, salary growth, satisfaction - than traits like conscientiousness or even intelligence [26][27].

In fact, proactive individuals create their own luck. Because they initiate often - starting new projects, reaching out to mentors, iterating on prototypes - they encounter more opportunities and learning experiences than passive peers. Over time, this leads to a compounding advantage. The proactive employee gets assigned to lead a high-profile project (because their boss trusts they’ll drive it forward), which then gives them exposure to executives and a chance to shine, leading to yet bigger opportunities. Meanwhile, equally “talented” but less proactive colleagues wonder why they’re being left behind.

A concrete example: think of two tech startups with a similar idea. One team builds a quick-and-dirty version of the product, puts it in users’ hands, and starts improving it. The other team spends the same time perfecting a theoretical model with no user feedback. It’s common that the first team, though their initial product is imperfect, will capture the market (or at least learn exactly what the market wants) by the time the second team is ready to debut. Being the first to bring an idea to life can be a game-changer [12]. Instagram, for instance, wasn’t the first photo-sharing idea, but its founders executed swiftly on mobile at a time others were stuck on web platforms. In business, we often hear of “first mover advantage,” but more accurately it’s fast mover advantage. The window for an opportunity often belongs to those who act decisively.

Agency also manifests in leadership and influence. High-agency individuals often end up leading not because they sought power for its own sake, but because when something needed doing, they stepped up. In a software team, if a critical bug is hurting users and nobody is explicitly assigned to it, the high-agency engineer will voluntarily take ownership to fix it. Before long, others come to rely on her initiative and perhaps even report to her as the team grows. High agency is infectious; it inspires confidence and cooperation. People are drawn to those who have a “let’s get it done” attitude - it signals competence and reliability. Over time, an entire culture can form around such leaders, where execution and taking charge become the norm.

Crucially, agency turns ideas (which are abstract) into tangible results that benefit people. All the great innovations - from the light bulb to the internet - required countless acts of initiative to materialize. It’s not just the initial invention; maintaining and scaling any breakthrough also demands continuous proactive effort. Think about open-source software projects: many originate because a developer didn’t wait for someone else to solve their problem - they created a tool themselves and shared it. Linux, for example, started as Linus Torvalds’ personal project. He wasn’t necessarily the most brilliant computer scientist alive, but he took the initiative to start building an operating system for fun. Now, Linux powers a significant portion of our digital world.

Even outside of tech, in fields like medicine or social change, agency is what moves the needle. The doctor who pioneers a new treatment does so by pushing through research hurdles, often against skepticism. Civil rights advancements were achieved by individuals willing to organize and act despite personal risk. In each case, many people understood the problems intellectually, but only a few acted. Those few changed history.

To sum up, agency is the engine that converts knowledge into impact. Intelligence, creativity, insight - these are the fuel and spark, but agency is the engine turning the crankshaft, driving the wheels. Without it, even the best ideas stall in the garage. With it, even a rough idea can gather momentum and become refined along the journey. This is why companies now talk about execution as a core skill and why phrases like “real artists ship” have become mottos in creative industries[28]. It’s a recognition that doing the work is what ultimately matters. As one Amazon insider quipped, “You can’t take over the world if you don’t act.” [29] The world is indeed changed by those who show up and do the work, not by those who merely envision and procrastinate. Agency is what ensures you show up, again and again, until the job is done.

The Human advantage of AI can help with agency

“AI systems have got so useful that the thing that will set humans apart… is just having a high level of curiosity and agency.” - Jack Clark [30]

In the era of advanced Artificial Intelligence, one might ask: if machines can out-calculate and even out-reason humans in certain domains, what skill will keep us relevant? Tech leaders are increasingly pointing to agency - our capacity to initiate, create, and drive - as the defining human advantage.

Andrej Karpathy noted that after decades of chasing smarter algorithms, the scarce commodity now is human agency [31]. Jack Clark, co-founder of an AI company, observed that in a world where AI can supply answers or technical skills on demand, the differentiator between people will be who has the curiosity and boldness to use these tools in novel ways [32]. In other words, two people with access to the same AI may achieve very different outcomes - the one who proactively experiments and pushes boundaries will far outstrip the one who waits passively for the AI to spoon-feed solutions.

This suggests that initiative is becoming even more important in the age of AI, not less. Routine intelligence or knowledge (the kind measured by IQ tests or easily looked up) is increasingly handled by machines. What remains uniquely human is the drive to set goals, ask original questions, and take risks on new ventures.

An AI can process zettabytes of data and make recommendations, but it won’t start a business on its own or decide to solve a local community problem unless a human agent prompts it. It’s the human user’s agency that directs AI toward meaningful objectives. As Clark puts it, people will “out-compete one another by being increasingly bold and agentic in how they use these systems” [33]. Two engineers with identical access to AI coding assistants, for example, might have very different productivity: the one with higher agency will try more ambitious projects, utilize the AI in clever ways, and swiftly move on ideas; the other might only use the AI when instructed and for narrow tasks.

We’re already seeing hints of this. Some professionals leverage AI tools to produce remarkable creative or analytical work - they are constantly asking the AI to help explore new concepts, generate prototypes, and so forth. Others with the same tools use them minimally, sticking to familiar routines. The gap isn’t the AI itself; it’s the human initiative behind it. Curiosity, the drive to tinker and learn, goes hand-in-hand with agency here. Highly agentic individuals tend also to be curious - they’ll dig into figuring out what an AI can do, thereby discovering advantages others miss. They treat the AI as an enabler for their ideas, not a crutch to avoid effort.

Education experts like Charles Fadel argue that in an AI-abundant world, we need to prioritize teaching “the drivers: agency, identity, purpose, and motivation” to students [34]. Facts and routine skills can be offloaded to machines, but the inner drive of a person cannot be. Indeed, motivating oneself (and others) to act is becoming the critical skill. One could say humanity is moving up the value chain: from doing what computers can’t (which is less and less about calculation, and more about initiative, empathy, and creativity). Agency ties into all of those - a person with agency will seek creative solutions, will connect with others to rally support (something AI can’t replicate, as it lacks genuine social drive), and will adapt as circumstances change.

In short, as AI handles more “intelligent” tasks, what remains scarce is human agency and leadership. Those who develop these will not be easily replaced. In fact, they’ll be the ones directing the AI to new heights. It’s telling that Amazon’s leadership principles and other forward-thinking corporate cultures continue to emphasize Bias for Action even more in the AI era [35][36]. The leaders of tomorrow are not necessarily those who can out-logic a computer, but those who will take initiative to apply technology in service of bold visions.

If you’re an engineer or knowledge worker, this means doubling down on your proactive qualities is a future-proof strategy. AI might optimize or even automate chunks of your job, but it can’t replicate your willingness to go out on a limb. The person who says “Let’s try a completely new approach - I’ll take responsibility for it” will always be indispensable, because that leap of faith is a fundamentally human move. Even in a hypothetical future with highly autonomous AI, someone has to decide what problems are worth solving and why. Agency, coupled with human values, will guide those decisions. As technology accelerates, the easy thing is to rely on it and become complacent - but the high-agency path is to leverage tech as a tool while amplifying your own proactivity. Those who choose the latter will drive progress; those who don’t may find themselves driven by forces outside their control.

Initiative can outshine raw talent in engineering and tech

“You can’t take over the world if you don’t act.” [29]

In the engineering and tech world, we often idolize the “10x engineer” - the mythical developer who is ten times as productive. While technical brilliance is part of that equation, tech leaders will tell you that a lot of that 10x effect comes from initiative and ownership, not just coding wizardry. The best engineers distinguish themselves by doing things that others don’t think to do (or don’t bother to do). They don’t just solve the tasks on their plate; they find new problems to fix, streamline processes unasked, and build tools for the team. In other words, they exhibit high agency. A merely smart engineer might write excellent code when given a detailed spec. A high-agency engineer will realize the spec itself is lacking, proactively clarify requirements with stakeholders, or even push back and propose a better approach - all before being asked.

Tech giants have noticed this. Amazon’s culture, for instance, explicitly values what they call “Ownership” and “Bias for Action.” Engineers are expected to act like product owners, not code monkeys. In practice, that means if you see something broken, you fix it (or escalate it) - you don’t shrug and say “not my job.” One principle states, “Take accountability. Do all of, if not more than, what the job requires… have the backbone to make bold bets and the grit to get the job done.” [37][38]. Teams full of such individuals can move mountains. On the flip side, if you’ve ever worked on a team where everyone only does exactly what they’re told and nothing more, you know progress is painfully slow and innovation is stagnant. In engineering, the limiting factor is rarely brainpower; it’s coordination and drive. A few high-agency team members can set the pace and energize a project.

Consider startup environments, where engineers often operate with little structure. Success in a startup (or any greenfield engineering project) demands initiative. You might not have a perfect spec or any spec at all - you figure out what needs building. You test assumptions with users, you iterate rapidly. This is why you often hear that startup teams prefer “hungry” developers over purely experienced ones. Hunger in this context means willingness to figure stuff out and take initiative. As one startup CEO put it, an engineer who is always learning and pushing (even if they make more mistakes) can propel a company forward more than a genius who waits for instructions.

Even within big companies, the engineers who get promoted to tech lead or principal are not just those with the fanciest algorithms - they are the ones who consistently drive significant outcomes. Maybe they single-handedly saw a scaling issue coming and rallied a task force to address it, saving the company from a major outage. Or they prototyped a new feature in their “20% time” that became a key product. Google became famous for its “20% time” policy (allowing engineers to spend part of their hours on any project they choose) - and that policy yielded Gmail, Google News, and other big innovations, all because engineers took initiative to create something outside their official duties. Empowering agency in engineers can literally create multi-billion dollar products. Google knew that - they wanted to hire people who would seize that freedom productively.

For individual engineers, cultivating agency is career-making. When you take on tough problems proactively, you inevitably learn much more than by doing only comfortable tasks. You build a reputation as a go-to problem solver. This can lead to leadership opportunities (whether you want a management track or an architect track). Importantly, it also makes the work more fulfilling - you stop feeling like a cog and start feeling like an inventor or builder. Many developers have stories of a side project or a self-initiated fix that not only solved a pain point but also got them noticed by higher-ups.

From an employer’s perspective, an engineer with high agency is gold. As Andrej Karpathy provocatively asked: “Are you hiring for agency?” [39]. Smart companies do. They know that a team of self-directed engineers will outperform a larger team of code drones. Why? Because the self-directed team will continuously improve the product and process on their own. They won’t wait for a manager to point out that the codebase needs refactoring or that users are asking for a feature - they’ll notice and act. This autonomy accelerates development and innovation. It’s no wonder that interviewers often probe for signs of initiative: “Tell me about a time you went beyond your job description” or “Describe a side project you’re proud of.” They want to hear that you won’t just do the bare minimum.

In summary, whether you’re building the next rocket or debugging a legacy system, agency is the trait that turns an engineer from a good performer into a linchpin of success. It’s what enables one developer to manage an entire system end-to-end (because they took the time to understand it deeply and improve it), while another equally bright developer only touches what they’re assigned. One becomes indispensable, the other replaceable. High-IQ talent is common in tech hubs; high-agency talent is the competitive advantage. As a software engineer, if you combine your technical skills with proactive execution, you’ll find you can achieve far more - and enjoy a more dynamic career - than those who merely “write good code.” In the tech world, the future belongs to engineers who don’t just solve problems - they seek them out and own them.

Hire for agency; it may predict success better than raw talent alone

“We look for three things when we hire people: intelligence, initiative or energy, and integrity.” - Warren Buffett [40]

For organizations, the implication of all this is clear: hiring and nurturing high-agency individuals is a recipe for success. Traditionally, many hiring processes (especially in tech) have fixated on measurable intelligence proxies - elite school degrees, puzzle-like coding tests, IQ-type assessments, etc. While it’s important to ensure a baseline of technical competence, companies have learned the hard way that the smartest candidate on paper isn’t always the best candidate on the job. Someone with sky-high aptitude but low drive can become a “brilliant slacker” - full of unrealized potential and unfinished work. By contrast, a candidate with moderate credentials but a track record of taking initiative can turn out to be a star who grows rapidly on the job.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett famously said that if you hire someone without integrity, you want them to be dumb and lazy - implying that intelligence and energy (initiative) in a person lacking character can do harm [40]. But assuming you filter for integrity, the next thing to look for is that spark of agency. In interviews, this might reveal itself through stories: Did the person ever start their own project? Have they led improvements in their team? Do they demonstrate an internal locus of control by saying “I did X” rather than constantly blaming circumstances in their narratives? Buffet’s advice encapsulates it: hire for integrity, intelligence, and initiative. If any are missing, you’ll have problems - but notably, initiative (or energy) is right up there with brainpower in his triad [40].

Modern HR research backs this up. A column in Inc. magazine highlighted proactive personality as a top predictor of entrepreneurial success[41]. Employers have broadened their view of “talent” to include attributes like drive, resilience, and curiosity. These are harder to quantify than coding skills, but some companies use behavioral questions or small work trials to gauge them. For instance, a software firm might ask a candidate how they would approach an ambiguous problem with no clear solution - to see if they default to waiting for guidance or if they enthusiastically outline a plan of attack. Some firms specifically ask, “Tell me about a time you took initiative on a project.” The answer can be illuminating: high-agency individuals light up and have multiple examples, whereas others might struggle to think of one.

When building teams, it’s also crucial to create an environment that rewards agency. If you hire go-getters but then micromanage them or stifle them under rigid protocols, they will either leave or disengage. Companies like Amazon, Google, and others with innovation-driven cultures try to give employees ownership of their work. They set audacious goals and encourage teams to figure out the how. When someone comes with a new idea, the best managers don’t say “No, that’s not your responsibility”; instead they often say, “Great, how can we support you in pursuing that?” This doesn’t mean chaos - there’s a balance, and not every wild idea gets a green light - but it does mean recognizing and rewarding employees who show initiative. Even simple things like acknowledging a team member who solved a problem outside their official scope, or giving a promotion to someone who consistently “punches above their weight,” sends a message that agency is valued.

Companies that hire and cultivate for agency often have a competitive edge. They are more agile and innovative because their people are constantly driving improvements and spotting opportunities. In contrast, companies with a culture of pure compliance may have lots of talent on paper, but they tend to lag in adaptation - they miss chances, react slowly to problems, and suffer “it’s not my job” syndrome. It’s been observed that in many industries, the disruptors are not doing fundamentally different things; they’re just acting faster and more decisively on the same information everyone has. For example, countless entrepreneurs have built successful businesses not on a brand-new idea, but by being the first to execute an existing idea really well [12]. If your workforce is empowered with agency, you’re more likely to be that first executor rather than the follower.

In practical terms, managers should ask themselves (as Karpathy did): “Am I hiring for agency?” [39]. This might mean slightly reframing job descriptions to highlight autonomy and initiative, or adjusting interview techniques. It definitely means looking beyond the resume bullet points. An impressive degree or past employer is great, but dig into what the person actually did. Did they lead anything? Did they create something new? If a junior candidate, did they at least demonstrate initiative in school projects or personal endeavors? These are the stories that predict how they’ll behave when confronted with challenges in your company.

Finally, once on board, foster a culture that doesn’t punish smart risk-taking. If an employee takes initiative and it doesn’t work out, use it as a learning moment rather than scolding them for coloring outside the lines. Nothing kills agency faster than a few instances of getting your hand slapped for being proactive. Of course, boundaries and communication are needed (agency doesn’t mean acting in a vacuum), but generally, an organization that says “Yes, please try this” will harvest far more innovation than one that says “Did you get approval for that?”.

As one leadership coach put it, “A straightforward way to make employees more productive is to openly encourage them to produce.” [29] Instead of instilling fear of mistakes, instill permission to act. That’s how you hire and keep the kind of people who push your company forward.

Teaching initiative early

“We are taught to be good problem solvers, but we are seldom taught how to ask the next interesting question.” [21]

If agency is so crucial, shouldn’t we cultivate it from a young age? This is a question educators and parents are increasingly grappling with. The traditional education model, as discussed, often emphasizes compliance and convergent thinking - students learn to solve specific problems that have known answers. While foundational knowledge and discipline are important, this model neglects the open-ended, proactive side of learning. Educating for agency means encouraging students not just to answer questions, but to ask their own questions, pursue their curiosity, and take charge of projects. It’s about turning education from a passive consumption of information into an active exploration.

Some progressive schools and programs are already doing this. They introduce things like project-based learning, where instead of listening to lectures and taking multiple-choice tests, students might spend a semester addressing a real-world challenge (say, improving recycling in their community). In such projects, there isn’t a single “right answer” provided by the teacher - students have to define the problem, research possible solutions, try one, possibly fail, and try again. Along the way, they practice agency: making decisions, collaborating, and seeing the impact of their actions. Research shows that this kind of education increases engagement and builds skills like resilience and teamwork[34][42]. Students discover that learning isn’t just about pleasing the teacher; it’s something they drive themselves.

Another approach is giving students more choice and voice in their learning. For example, allowing them to choose a topic for a research paper or design their own experiment in science class. Even minor choices force a student to exercise agency - they must ask, “What do I want to explore? How will I go about it?” Some schools have adopted “20% time” for kids, akin to Google’s policy, where a portion of the week is for students to work on any project they’re passionate about. One student might build a simple app; another might paint a mural or start a small business selling 3D-printed toys. The key is, they set the goal and figure out how to achieve it (with teachers as mentors). This not only makes learning more fun, but it sends a powerful message: you have the power to create and do things that matter, even now.

Of course, reorienting education in this way faces challenges. Standardized tests and curricula leave little room for open-ended initiative in many systems. There’s also a risk factor - when students take charge, the outcomes are less predictable, which can worry administrators focused on metrics. But the stakes are high: if we continue to churn out students who excel at tests but freeze in the face of ambiguity, we do them a disservice. Life, especially in the 21st century, is full of ambiguous, novel problems. The sooner young people get comfortable with initiating and adapting, the better they’ll fare.

Parents can also play a role. Instead of micromanaging every activity, parents might let kids experience controlled amounts of independence. Something as simple as letting a child cook a meal (with supervision but not step-by-step instructions) or start a small garden can foster agency. They learn by doing, make mistakes, but also feel the pride of “I did this myself.” Encouraging a growth mindset at home - praising effort, creativity, and perseverance more than innate “smartness” - will help kids not fear failure so much. Failure, after all, is an inevitable companion of taking initiative. A child (or adult) who learns that failure is feedback, not something to be ashamed of, is more likely to take on challenges again.

Interestingly, there’s a movement in higher education and alternative education focusing on entrepreneurship and maker culture for exactly this reason. Hackathons, coding bootcamps, robotics competitions - these give young people a taste of self-driven creation. They often succeed where classroom lectures fail, in igniting passion. A student who might tune out in math class could come alive when building a robot for a competition, learning calculus on the fly because they need it to program the robot’s trajectory. The difference is context and agency: the math now is a tool they need for their project, not an abstract chore imposed by someone else.

The bottom line: to truly prepare the next generation, we need to teach initiative, not just knowledge. That means giving students opportunities to be agents - to have ideas, to act on them, to learn from the results. As one educator lamented, “Schools like teaching compliance… Initiative is very difficult to teach… but now the economy has rewritten the rules”[43]. In today’s world, creative problem-solvers and self-starters are in demand. While not every classroom will change overnight, awareness is growing. If you’re a student or a lifelong learner, you can also “educate yourself” for agency by seeking out experiences that push you to take charge - join a club, start a side project, volunteer in a leadership role. Education isn’t only what happens in school; it’s every experience that shapes your mindset. Make sure some of those experiences stretch your agency muscles.

By shifting education and upbringing in this direction, we’d not only produce more capable workers, but also more fulfilled individuals. There’s a certain confidence and empowerment that comes from knowing how to make things happen. Imagine generations of people who feel that way because their formative years taught them you can change things. That could have society-wide benefits: more entrepreneurship, more civic engagement, and frankly, more happiness. After all, feeling in control of one’s life is strongly tied to well-being [44]. Conversely, feeling like a pawn of external forces breeds anxiety and helplessness [45]. By educating for agency, we equip people with the antidote to helplessness - the mindset that, when faced with a challenge, I can do something about it.

How to become more proactive cultivating personal agency

“Are you acting as if you had 10× agency?” - Andrej Karpathy[46]

The good news about agency is that it’s not a fixed trait - it’s more like a skill or habit that you can develop. Regardless of your starting point, you can train yourself to be more proactive and self-directed. Karpathy’s provocative question, “What would you do if you had 10× more agency?”[46], is a great mental exercise. It forces you to imagine a bolder version of yourself and identify what that version would pursue. The gap between that and what you’re doing now is where you can start making changes. Here are some strategies to cultivate your personal agency:

• Practice bias toward action. Make it a rule that whenever you’re at a decision point - to act or not to act - you lean toward action (unless there’s a compelling reason not to). This might mean speaking up in a meeting rather than staying silent, or launching a minimal version of that app idea instead of just contemplating it. As one author put it, “When in doubt, err on the side of taking action. Your thoughts will follow your actions.” [47][48]. By consistently choosing action, you build confidence and counteract overthinking. Start small: send that email you’ve been hesitating on, try the new hobby you’ve been researching to death, or simply take a walk when deliberating endlessly on something - often a bit of movement is enough to break analysis paralysis and spur progress.

• Set your own challenges. Don’t wait for life to hand you goals. Give yourself a project or a problem to solve regularly. This could be at work (e.g., “In the next month, I will improve the team’s deployment process”) or completely personal (e.g., “I’ll organize a community clean-up day in my neighborhood”). By defining a goal and pursuing it proactively, you practice the cycle of agency: envision -> execute -> adjust. Importantly, choose something that stretches you beyond your comfort zone. If it’s too easy, you won’t experience growth. If it’s a bit daunting, that’s good - you’ll learn to figure things out. Whether you fully succeed or not is secondary; the act of proactively striving builds your initiative “muscle”.

• Embrace imperfection and failure as learning. A huge barrier to agency is fear of things not working out. Train yourself to see every outcome as valuable. If your initiative succeeds, great - you have a result. If it fails, treat it as an experiment that yielded new data. This mindset shift is critical. Remind yourself of stories like the invention of the light bulb (hundreds of failed filaments before one worked) or any coding project (debugging is essentially failing repeatedly until you find the bug). Each misstep is not an indictment of you; it’s a step forward in knowledge. By emotionally internalizing this, you remove a lot of the psychological friction that stops people from taking initiative. You become less afraid to be the one who tries something new, because you know even a flop moves you closer to a solution. As the saying goes, success is just failure that kept going.

• Surround yourself with agentic people. Attitudes are contagious. If your friends or colleagues are go-getters, you’ll pick up their habits and norms. You’ll feel challenged (in a good way) to keep pace. Conversely, if you’re around people who never take initiative and constantly play victim to circumstances, you might subconsciously sink into the same inertia. Seek out at least a few people in your circle who inspire you with their proactivity. This could mean joining a club of entrepreneurs, a maker space, or even an online community of creators. Let their stories and feedback energize you. Seeing peers succeed through initiative also provides positive reinforcement: it shows what’s possible and normalizes the act of putting oneself out there.

• Say “yes” (then figure it out). Within reason, start saying yes to opportunities that scare you a little. Got offered to lead a small project but feel underqualified? Say yes and learn on the fly. Friend invites you to participate in a hackathon and you’ve never done one? Say yes and give it a go. Often, we decline opportunities due to self-doubt or laziness, and that directly shrinks our agency. By forcing a yes, you commit yourself to action, and then your only choice is to grow into it. Many high-agency individuals credit moments when they leapt before they looked - they took a job abroad, agreed to speak at an event, accepted a role in a startup - and then adapted quickly. It’s a trial-by-fire way to expand your comfort zone. Of course, balance this with not overcommitting to things that truly don’t align with your goals or values. The point is to break the reflexive “No, I can’t” and replace it with “Yes, I’ll try”.

• Reflect and iterate. Agency doesn’t mean impulsivity. It’s about directed, intentional action. Take time periodically to reflect on what you’re doing and why. Are your actions aligned with what you actually want? High agency includes the ability to change course when needed. Set aside time (even 30 minutes a week) to review your projects and commitments. If you notice you’ve been passive in an area you care about, consciously decide on a next step and put it on your calendar. If you notice you took on too much and it’s backfiring, exercise agency by strategically pausing or dropping the less important pieces. The idea is that you run your schedule and priorities, they don’t run you. This kind of self-regulation is part of being the CEO of your own life. You can be both bold in action and prudent in direction by regularly assessing and learning from what you’ve done so far.

By consistently applying these practices, you’ll likely find that your sense of personal power grows. Things that used to seem intimidating become manageable. More people start to look to you as a leader or problem-solver (because you’ve shown you’ll step up). It’s a positive feedback loop: action breeds confidence, which breeds more action. You begin to trust your ability to figure things out, which is essentially what agency is about - trusting that you can handle whatever life throws at you by taking initiative and adapting.

A final thought experiment: consider the biggest goal or dream you have right now. If you were acting with 10× the agency, what would your first step be toward it today? It might be something small like making a phone call or researching resources; it might be bigger like forming a team or writing a proposal. Now challenge yourself: can you take that step? Even if 10× feels too much, try 2× or 3× your current agency. Often the limits we perceive are self-imposed. By pushing gently but consistently against them, you’ll find they expand. Your world gets bigger when you decide to be an agent of change rather than a pawn of circumstance. Every one of us has that choice, every day.

Conclusions: the power of combining intelligence with initiative

People with high agency do not wait for life to happen. They make it happen.

Understanding that taking initiative trumps raw intelligence is not about dismissing intelligence. It’s about recognizing that intellect alone, without action, accomplishes little. The people who make outsized contributions in any field tend to be those who pair their knowledge or talent with relentless execution. Think of intelligence as the potential energy - like a powerful engine. Agency is the transmission that actually turns the wheels. You might have a 600-horsepower sports car (a brilliant mind), but if it stays in the garage or idles in neutral, it doesn’t win races. Meanwhile, a humble hatchback driven in high gear can lap the track. In real terms, a moderately smart person who consistently acts will leave behind a genius who doesn’t.

The ideal scenario, of course, is to cultivate both intelligence and agency. There’s no question that a strong mind is an asset - it allows your actions to be more effective, your decisions better informed. But intelligence reaches its full value only when put to work. Conversely, agency benefits from knowledge and expertise to channel its efforts well. When you marry a learning mindset with a doing mindset, you become an unstoppable force. You’re not just busy; you’re strategic and adaptive. You’re not just clever; you’re impactful.

For those of us in engineering and technology, this balance is especially pertinent. We operate in domains that change rapidly and reward those who build and iterate. No matter how theoretically brilliant your ideas are, you must implement, test, and refine them in code or in product form to make a difference. That requires the bias for action. The tech world is littered with “could-have-beens” - ideas that were invented first by one group but capitalized on by another who executed faster or better. It’s also filled with examples of individuals with average credentials achieving phenomenal things by out-hustling and out-pivoting others. Meanwhile, some prodigies flame out because they can’t translate theory into practice or persist through setbacks.

The takeaway is empowering: you have control over your trajectory by choosing to take action. Unlike IQ (which is relatively set), agency is very much within your grasp to increase. Every day is an opportunity to take initiative in some small or large way. Over time, those choices compound. You won’t win every time - far from it. But as your agency grows, even your failures become stepping stones rather than stop signs.

Ask yourself regularly, as a gut check: Am I being a spectator in areas of life where I want to be a player? If so, what small step can I take to engage? It could be as simple as voicing an idea to your team, or as bold as starting that venture you’ve imagined. Err on the side of doing. The regrets people have later in life are often not from the actions that failed, but the actions not taken at all. By cultivating agency, you minimize those “what if I had tried” regrets.

In closing, remember that the future - your personal future and the broader world’s future - will be shaped by those who act, not just those who think. Our greatest challenges and opportunities demand brains, yes, but even more so they demand backbone and initiative. Whether it’s innovating new technologies, solving social issues, or just improving your own circumstances, ideas must meet implementation. So be smart, keep learning - but equally, be agentic. Be the person who raises their hand, who builds the prototype, who rallies the team, who steps forward.

Intelligence opens potential doors; agency is what propels you through them. With both in hand, you’ll find you can drive farther than you ever thought - perhaps even 10× farther. The race doesn’t go to the one who merely could run the fastest; it goes to the one who actually runs.