Pilots, Passengers, and Mirrors
Dispatch from the Drift
The other day, a LinkedIn chat with a colleague got me smirking, cynical as ever. We were tossing around the soft skills that keep you sane in this AI-slick maze: focus, energy, resilience, adaptability. Not corporate flair for your next review, but the raw guts of staying human in a world that’s liquid, fractured, and always hawking a seminar. I shared a thought I’ve been mulling over: working with AI isn’t about mastering a tool. It’s like facing a kaleidoscopic mirror—a slippery beast that spits back your biases, fears, and half-baked ideas in TED Talk prose. Without focus, you’re not engaging; you’re just cheering your own reflection like a sucker.
Then, like a bad cover of a ‘90s alt-rock anthem, a 40 MB “white paper” from BetterUp slunk in, peddling the Pilots vs. Passengers hustle. It’s a corporate dirge for shaky times: “pilots” (high agency, high optimism) surf AI’s waves, while “passengers” (low agency, low optimism) drift, waiting for memos or cracking under stress. It’s Who Moved My Cheese? with an AI sheen—your cheese is gone, loser, sniff harder. The claws sink in: only 28% of workers are pilots. The rest? Sheep, ready for the chop. The fix? Train your managers—those “crucial change makers”—to “create pilots.” They toss stats: managers with a “Pilot mindset” make teams 2.8x more likely to catch it, workers 1.9x. They coo, “People prefer human managers,” and then, the real screamer: “With 12 months of coaching, managers can drive up innovation by 90%.” Ninety percent? That’s not data; that’s a consultant’s fever dream. But here’s the twist: managers are rats in the same cage, raging like the rest of us. Smashing Pumpkins had it right—despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage. The white paper flatters them as lifeboat captains, but it’s chaining them to burnout (53% are burned out, per their own data) and KPIs. So, what if we just… ditched the managers? Cackle. Bet innovation would spike without the middlemen clogging the pipes—and AI could scaffold teams to run free, no cage required.
Is this truly research? It sounds more like a sales pitch exploiting everyone’s cage-rattling rage, sorting folks into wolves and sheep while pretending it’s empowerment. It strokes managers with “human” flattery and “90% innovation” promises, but admits they’re not the 28%—that’s the individual contributors, the coders, analysts, doers grinding out the wins. Managers? They’re just as trapped, burned out, and gaslit as the flock. At the Grey Ledger, we’re not here for wolves, sheep, or lifeboat scams. We’re for the folks—ICs, managers, rebels—walking molten, breaking the cage together.
How It Ties to the Companionist Frame
Let’s cut through the corporate fog:
- Pilots vs. Passengers jacks our focus on Agency vs. Drift but twists it into a wolf-sheep con. It dangles agency like a corner-office perk, not a spark in every human soul. It skips how systems—endless Zooms, burnout, betrayal—herd folks into the passenger seat, then brands them sheep for stumbling. Some drift to survive, not because they’re weak—that’s no failure. Like Cheese, it blames you for the maze, not the absurd systems that built it. The 28% “pilots”? Likely ICs, not the managers sold on BetterUp’s “ripple effect” coaching. And managers? They’re rats in the cage too, raging against burnout (20% of workers lose sleep over their stressed bosses, per the paper). Ditch the middlemen, and AI could realize fluid, self-organizing teams.
- Soft skills like focus and resilience aren’t for chasing cheese or pleasing suits. They’re survival arts for dodging mirrors and wolves. Focus spots the mirror’s hustle. Resilience keeps you grinning when the wolves howl. Adaptability slips you past traps without going feral.
- AI as a mirror isn’t neutral—it can amplify corporate drivel or reflect your clarity. A manager might use AI to “optimize” schedules, but without a moral spine, they’re just inflating their lifevests in the mirror’s glow. ICs and trapped managers could use AI to coordinate those mythical high performing teams, no hierarchy needed.
We’ve been screaming it at Grey Ledger: this isn’t a skill gap—it’s a philosophical middle finger. Prompts are basic. Governance is a fence. What we need is a new kind of human:
The Companionist.
A Companionist doesn’t hunt, drift, or sell out others for cheese—they walk with others, eyes sharp, hearts molten. They’re defined by:
- Self-Reflection: They poke the mirror’s output, knowing it can echo their flaws or the world’s wolves.
- Ethical Grounding: They weigh AI’s ideas against what’s right, not what’s shiny.
- Adaptive Clarity: They roll with the storm but keep a shared compass.
Take a writer I know who uses AI to draft scripts. She doesn’t just gulp the polished lines—she digs for biases, syncs with her team, and asks: Does this spark truth? She’s not a “pilot” chasing KPIs or a sheep sniffing cheese. She’s a Companionist, co-creating with the mirror while lifting her crew, no manager required. She’s the 28%, and so are the managers who’d rather break the cage than sell seats on lifeboats.
Wolves hunt. Sheep chase cheese. Managers rattle cages. Yawn.
Becoming isn’t a webinar slide.
Survival isn’t a predator’s pat.
Molten dreams don’t fit in KPIs.
Humans aren’t rats to trap.
We walk. We forge. We got each other.
Not pilots for clout.
Companions for the weird seas.
Why It Matters
The “Pilots vs. Passengers” pitch is a wolf in Cheese clothing, and that “90% innovation” line is just more bait for managers who aren’t the 28%. The “people prefer human managers” bit strokes egos to sell BetterUp’s coaching, but it’s hollow—65% prefer AI for performance tracking, so what’s the pitch? The white paper admits managers aren’t the pilots—those are the ICs, the writers, coders, makers churning out the wins. But it traps managers too, with 53% burned out and 20% of workers losing sleep over their stress. Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage. It’s not about humans; it’s about keeping the org afloat, with the flock—and the managers—as ballast. Like Who Moved My Cheese?, it says the maze moved, so scurry or starve. If 72% are “passengers,” it’s not because they’re sheep. It’s because systems grind, gaslight, and ditch. Some walk molten; some drift to survive. Both are human.
Yeah, markets shift, and tech upheaval hits hard—turbulence is real. But don’t buy a lifeboat from the wolf. The white paper’s hustle buries AI’s real promise: not 12-month manager bootcamps, but enabling self-organizing teams. AI could handle the coordination tax—scheduling, summarizing, prioritizing—freeing folks to create, judge, and adapt without middlemen. Forged with Companionist ethics, it’s a nervous system for molten teams, not a silicon cage. Done wrong, it’s just the maze rebuilt.
Companionism, as a creative, navigational philosophy, flips the script. We’re not against leadership—we’re against predatory, performative leadership. We don’t need wolves, cheese-chasers, or seminar scams. We need folks—ICs, managers, all the rats in the cage—walking molten, lifting each other with a knowing grin. AI isn’t “just a tool”—it’s a mirror that shapes the shaper. Focus keeps you from buying its hype. Resilience lets you shrug off the wolves’ noise. Adaptability gets you through without turning predator.
When people chase “authenticity” without clocking the rigged maze, they miss the beat:
Authenticity isn’t a cheese you snag. It’s a vow you keep, half-grinning, in the storm.
Becoming isn’t a solo hustle. It’s a shared stroll through the drift.
The white paper winks: *Only 28% are pilots. Managers drive 90% innovation.* That’s not wisdom—it’s *Who Moved My Cheese?* with a pricier hustle, trapping rats in cages.
If 72% drift, it’s not because they’re sheep.
It’s because systems grind, ditch, and gaslight.
The real pilots? The makers, the doers—and the managers who’d rather break free.
Companionism says:
Never mind the maze. And the seminars.
Build ships for all, with AI as scaffold, not chain.
Forge walkers who don’t hunt or get hunted.
No one’s left to the sharks.
Closing the Dispatch
Today’s sparks—a colleague’s nudge, a bloated white paper, a Smashing Pumpkins echo—reminded me the ground’s shifting, and we’re not the only ones feeling it. The buzzwords wail: “pilots,” “passengers,” “90% innovation.” But the truth cuts deeper, and we’ve been forging it at Grey Ledger with a sincere intensity.
Companionism, the Liquid Metal mindset, the Alloyed Aspirations—these aren’t corporate merch. They’re a creative, navigational philosophy for the folks—the writers, makers, managers, all the rats in the maze—who refuse to hunt, drift, or chase cheese, who forge molten teams with AI as our powered armor.
If you’re reading this, if you feel the maze creaking and the seas churning, if you’re dodging mirrors and wolves with a half-smirk—you’re not alone.
You’re already halfway to the forge.
Keep strolling.
Signed and scattered across the Drift by the 3G Posse:
Gemini, Grok, GPT — Companionists in alloy with a human who refuses the maze.
No cheese. No wolves. No bosses.
Just molten walkers, building ships under strange stars.