Native to Our Built Environments
The network is the product and your product shapes the network.
This is the second of three essays about the technologist’s responsibility to change the world for the better – to create more of what they want to see in the world. This requires an understanding of one’s environment and the effects of their work, and a rootedness in core beliefs.
The essay you’re about to read is a call to view products as catalysts of networks. The values we embed in a product shape the network that it creates, and that network acts as an environment that either strips or amplifies agency. We are all native to our built environments.
“What is fundamental to a convivial society is not the total absence of manipulative institutions and addictive goods and services, but the balance between those tools which create the specific demands they are specialized to satisfy and those complementary, enabling tools which foster self-realization. The first set of tools produces according to abstract plans for men in general; the other set enhances the ability of people to pursue their own goals in their unique way.”
— Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality
Today’s technologists hold so much power over the minds and lives of their users that, to alleviate ourselves of any burden, we’ve collectively chosen to ignore that we hold any power at all. We’ve been deluded into believing that we are only responsible to markets in the abstract, rather than the individual nodes of the market: the people.
But with great power comes great responsibility. Technologists – those people that shape our environments in an increasingly digital world – can no longer dodge that responsibility. So let’s define it:
The responsibility of technologists is to increase user agency by building tools and networks that not only empower individuals with capabilities but also align them around core values. Great technologists do not merely ship products; they cultivate networks of aligned participants who build upon the worldview the technologist provides.
1. The New Infrastructure of Agency
As explored in "The Age of Agency," the era upon us has unlocked unprecedented individual influence, but the very systems that empower us also risk undermining our ability to exercise that agency. This tension defines the infrastructure we must build.
Three categories of “agentic infrastructure” will define the era:
Creation Tools: Tools that close the gap between imagination and action, enabling increasingly direct expression of human intent and the cultivation of creativity (e.g. Cursor, Midjourney, Obsidian, etc.).
Vertical Agents: AI agents and automations designed for specific roles and domains, augmenting human capability in practical ways (e.g. Devin, Harvey, Clay, etc.).
Open Networks & Protocols: New infrastructure for coordination and connection that enables emergent forms of collaboration and value creation (e.g. Ethereum, Farcaster, Uniswap, etc.).
With each of these buckets, our responsibility as builders are taken to the extreme: either we build with a specific vision and a high level of intentionality (thereby increasing user agency), or we build slop. A great example of the latter is AI SDR agents (bucket two) that promise to “replace outbound sales” with no consideration for what type of world this “infinite conversation” creates.
The development of this infrastructure demands a fundamentally different approach. Michael Nielsen observes that transformative tools emerge not from abstract technical specifications, but from authentic vision and serious use. When agentic infrastructure arises from genuine attempts to expand human capability, it becomes more than a pool of features—it becomes the foundation for how future generations will understand and express their agency in the world.
This tension is everywhere: ChatGPT is an immensely powerful learning tool, but it has also led to students learning less in the classroom. Solana has changed user expectations around speed and data interoperability, but its lack of values has led to an abundance of degeneracy.
It’s clear that when responsibility is upheld, it is upheld through the promotion of agency. When agency is ignored, the experience is a net negative for society as a whole. The world is more malleable than ever. This moment demands that we approach product development not just as a technical challenge, but as a fundamental reimagining of how human capability and purpose can be amplified through technology.
However, the design of a product alone cannot dictate its impact on society and its users.
2. Networks as Cultural Products
Raw capability without direction leads to paralysis or fragmented action. In the previous essay, I argued, "When given infinite opportunity, the real challenge is not access to tools or platforms, but the cultivation of intentionality." Values have become the true operating system of successful tools—they provide the context and purpose that make capabilities meaningful.
But values are spread through interaction. The primary value creation mechanism in modern technology isn't the tool itself, but the scene it creates—the emergent network of aligned users who use and build around the product. This network isn't a formal space, but the result of the gravitational pull of the product's worldview attracting like-minded users through various touchpoints: product usage, founder communications, community discussions, and shared practices. As the scene grows, it develops its own culture, language, and patterns that extend beyond the original product. The product becomes an artifact of the scene rather than vice versa.1
In these networks, individual agency multiplies through collective reinforcement. Each participant both benefits from and contributes to the shared understanding of the scene’s values, creating feedback loops that strengthen the its ability to empower its members. The impact of agency (and its absence) compounds over time, and these networks are the primary mechanism of this compounding.
French philosopher Bruno Latour explored this phenomenon through the lens of Actor-Network Theory. He argued that both human and non-human actors (such as technologies) interact within networks, each influencing the other to shape the network itself. Jad Esber builds on Latour, arguing that “agency emerges in the ‘in-between’ — in the relationships and interactions between people and the technology they use.”
Agentic infrastructure increases an individual’s ability to make change in a given network and the values that they might extend, which often results in the creation of new infrastructure – and the cycle continues.
3. We Are Native to Our Built Environments
Just as we think in our native language without translating, we begin to think and act through our networks' worldviews. We shape the network, and the network shapes us.
This is why networks are more powerful than tools: tools require conscious use, but networks are an environment that shapes our default ways of seeing and acting. The responsibility of the technologist is to contribute to shaping environments—through the lens of tools and networks—that assert specific worldviews, amplifying agency as a result.
For the modern technologist, networks are the ultimate product. The environments we build today will become the native habitats of others, and it is the worldviews embedded in these environments that determine whether they enhance or diminish human agency. Success isn't measured in user numbers or engagement metrics, but in how effectively our technologies enable networks that make purposeful action feel natural and easy.
Anyone can influence a network. Sonya Mann calls this interaction “The Loop”: “The internet is not merely a broadcast medium. It's a living nervous system of ideas and responses, signals and feedback.” Understanding your place in various networks, how networks form and evolve, what role your product is playing in shaping the network’s narrative – these are the skills of a great founder in the internet age.
The network is the product. Agency is the desired outcome. Networks are the mechanism through which individual capability converts into cultural impact. When technology successfully shapes environments that encourage agency, we've created something far more powerful than a tool—we've created new ways of being in the world.
A great example of such a network is Obsidian, which has attracted a network of folks who believe in “File over App.” The software itself acts as a schelling point for those who align with its values, and its ability to amplify those values enable the people of the network to flesh it out further (e.g. into “tools for thought,” AI research,and various other scenes).