🗝️ The robot manager
"No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself." — Andrew Carnegie
🔑 This issue at a glance (2-second summary)
You're not being replaced by AI. You're being promoted to robot manager.
She thought she was training her replacement
Last year I did an AI training for an insurance company. At the end, one of the employees (we'll call her Rachel) admitted something to her boss: She initially didn't want to attend because she felt like she was training the tool that was going to take her job.
But by the end of the day, she smiled and announced: "I feel like I just got a promotion! I'm the Robot Manager!"
She nailed it.
That's the shift happening right now. Not just for one employee at an insurance company. For all of us. Whether you're an employee, a solopreneur, or a CEO, the role is evolving from "person who does the work" to "person who manages the robots who do the work."
I met a guy recently who tells everyone he has 24 employees. The thing is, none of them are human. All of them are AI. He doesn't see it as lying; it's just how he runs his company.
And he's not alone...
Zoom just launched its Solopreneur 50 list. Nearly 3,000 founders applied across 48 states.
Forbes reported that 91% of solopreneurs say AI has cut their admin workload and 74% have scaled without hiring a single person.
One founder, Maor Shlomo, built a company called Base44 by himself. $1.5 million in revenue his first month. Wix acquired it for roughly $80 million.
The solopreneurs winning right now aren't using AI to answer questions. They're using it the way a manager uses a team. Delegate the task. Set the standard. Walk the floor.
My own workflow has shifted this way. I'm not logging into software every day and clicking around. I talk to my AI agents the way I'd talk to a co-worker, voice or text, and I delegate. They're the ones who go into the software and the websites and execute.
Think about Richard Branson. He owns hundreds of companies, but he doesn't run them day to day. He empowers great people, gives them clear goals, and delegates. That's how to think about your AI agents now.
The old way of thinking: focus on one thing and hire a bunch of humans to execute it.
The new way: work on multiple initiatives at once by delegating responsibly to AI agents and teams of agents. Give them clear goals and desired outcomes. Orchestrate.
Today's solopreneurs build teams that look nothing like a traditional org chart. Contractors, fractional experts, and AI agents working together. Gusto reported that solopreneurs generate $72 billion a year in contractor payments alone. Add AI agents to that mix and you have the equivalent of a full-time staff without the overhead.
Rachel had it right. We're all becoming robot managers. The only question is whether you'll lean in or resist.
Winners take action
Ask yourself this question: "If a kid in their mom's basement were starting my company from scratch today, how would they do it?"
That answer will tell you who you're really competing with. And it will tell you how to become an AI-first company.
Let your imagination flow. Sketch out what that kid's company would look like compared to yours. This will tell you the moves to make.
The tools you need
Challenge: You have AI agents, but they all report to you. Every task runs through you: approvals, follow-ups, etc. You're the bottleneck in your own system because your agents don't talk to each other.
Solution: Set up agent-to-agent communication. Let your agents hand work to each other, check each other's output, and only escalate to you when a human decision is actually needed. This is called A2A, agent-to-agent interaction, and it's already built into tools like Grokbot, Hermes Agent, or Paperclip. Instead of managing every agent individually, you manage the system. (If you aren't using multi-agent systems yet, join my next class.)
Try this in 10 minutes. Paste this prompt in a multi-agent system:
Act as the lead agent for this business objective: [INSERT OBJECTIVE AND BUSINESS CONTEXT]
Assemble and coordinate the specialist agents needed to complete it. Decide their roles, divide the work, have them share findings, challenge weak assumptions, and resolve conflicts.
Return one unified recommendation with:
- The best course of action
- Supporting evidence
- Key risks
- A practical action plan
- Success metrics
Clearly label assumptions and require human approval before spending money, contacting people, publishing, or changing business systems. Then once I approve, let's start building these agents and this system.
Watch what happens when your agents start collaborating without waiting on you.
A robot manager doesn't just delegate tasks. A robot manager builds the system where the robots delegate to each other.
This week on the pod
On King Moves episode 145 – Rise of the 8-Figure Solopreneur – Justin and I break down the one-person-business boom, why the old "hire people to scale" advice might be officially outdated, and what it actually looks like to manage an AI workforce in real time. We get into the robot manager concept, the conductor-of-the-orchestra metaphor, and where your human team members fit in all of this.
If you've ever wondered how to grow your business in a non-traditional way, this one's for you.
Stop playing life on hard mode. Automate your success.
Until next week,
Ethan King
A.I. Automation for Business Growth
Keynote Speaker | Author | CEO | Strategist
P.S. Zoom just named Atlanta (where I live) the most popular U.S. city for solopreneurs. If you're ready to build your AI team and take your first steps to becoming an AI-first business, the next Build My AI Team Live class is 8/31. Grab your spot here.
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