mitchellh@mitchellh6h ago

The "whiteboard defense:" I should be able to pull you aside at any moment and ask you to explain any customer-facing system you've shipped. You should be able to clearly explain how it works and defend the decisions you made. This is my benchmark for responsible AI usage. I don't expect line-level familiarity with the code. I don't care if you remember the exact function name or implementation detail. You may not even know it. I don't care. But if I ask "why did you do X instead of Y?", "what happens if this actor behaves maliciously?", "what data structure did you use here and why?", or "where does this fail?" you should be able to answer confidently. For PoCs, demos, experiments, whatever: I don't care. Generate 100% of it and understand none of it. Speed over quality every time in those specific scenarios. But if you're shipping customer-facing work, you can't be shipping things you don't understand at a high level.