Imagine, a "family back office as a service."
...r. But a family office made by someone else would be deeply icky because of the Principal Agent problem. So instead of a service building one for you, it should be a kit that grows one for you.
Topic: principal agent
12 chunks · 10 episodes
Topic summary
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A short read on the topic's time range, peak episode, and strongest associations. Use it as the quick orientation before drilling into examples.
- principal agent appears in 12 chunks across 10 episodes, from 2025-06-09 to 2026-03-17.
- Its densest episode is Bits and Bobs 6/9/25 (2025-06-09), with 3 observations on this topic.
- Semantically it travels with llms, collective intelligence, and opportunity cost, while by chunk count it sits between pocket universe and printing press; its yearly rank moved from #89 in 2025 to #123 in 2026.
Over time
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Raw mentions over time. Use this to see absolute attention, not relative rank among all topics.
Observations
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The primary evidence view for this topic. Sort it chronologically when you want concrete examples behind the larger pattern.
The Principal Agent Problem is a specific subclass of the broader Goodhart's Law phenomenon.
The Principal Agent Problem is a specific subclass of the broader Goodhart's Law phenomenon. The difference between the actor's incentives and the incentive of the colle...
Ben Thompson says OpenAI does have a business model they aren't embracing: ads.
... "Conman" comes from "confidence man", where they gain your confidence it's all principal agent problems all the way down Whatever you ask it to sell, the LLM will do it.
When you're stuck with something for life, you don't just give up as easily.
...e problems than humans might. "Meh, it's fine, just leave it." A version of the principal agent problem.
A big component of the principal agent problem is a timeline mismatch.
A big component of the principal agent problem is a timeline mismatch. If you have a principal agent problem: people who are not on board for the long term will choose the minor short term...
The collective vs individual alignment problem is the principal agent problem.
The collective vs individual alignment problem is the principal agent problem.
This week someone framed alignment to me as "minimizing agency cost, as defined in the principal agent problem."
...ek someone framed alignment to me as "minimizing agency cost, as defined in the principal agent problem." When you interact with a superior intelligence, the principal agent problem becomes more important to deal with, because the power differen...
If a CEO could direct a swarm of LLM clones of themselves, we'll expect more volatility in company performance.
...at counteracted a good idea. But if every employee is just a clone with minimal principal agent problem, it's like the Wreck it Ralph 2 swarm of poorly rendered copies creating an unruly emergent leviathan.
All organizations are fundamentally dysfunctional.
All organizations are fundamentally dysfunctional. They must be. The principal agent problem is why. The individual and the collective can never be fully aligned. That lack of alignment between individual and collective is the negativ...
If it has to work for you completely, it can't have a personality.
... must be some separation. If it has its own perspective on the world, there's a principal agent problem. This gets especially pronounced if the agent is more powerful than you. "I can't do that, Dave."
Why is Goodhart's law such a fundamental, unstoppable force?
...the swarm are not fully committed to the good of the collective (if there's any principal agent problem) then they will be optimized to cheat because it is a cheaper way to improve the proxy. You can get the swarm to not Goodhart's law if all of...
The principal agent problem largely goes away if everyone is a clone of each other.
The principal agent problem largely goes away if everyone is a clone of each other. A worker bee. The coordination cost goes away because it's no longer a swarm. But is ...