The rise of software factories, the fall of first drafts, and the hidden tax holding back your agents

This week on the Friday Deploy, Ben and Andrew debate the controversial rise of dark software factories, exploring whether centralizing agentic compute creates engineering nirvana or unmaintainable code rot. The hosts also discuss the importance of versioning your work to protect your original ideas from AI's tendency to average out creativity. Finally, they tackle the "orchestrator's tax," explaining why establishing cognitive locality matters far more than assigning cute personas to your sub-agents.
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Why Software Factories Fail
A guide to cloud software factories for engineering leaders
You just hired a million bad employees.
An AI that only sees the latest version will never protect your original idea
The Orchestrator's Tax
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