Claim◆Article · 34 words
An LLM-powered agent should never be considered the DRI for a project, because accountability is a uniquely human capacity that machines lack.
Simon Willison · Simon Willison's Weblog
ClaimVideo · 27:46 — 28:59
The role of a recruiter is to be a confidence engine that helps hiring managers make good decisions, not a decision-making engine; the hiring manager and team should hold accountability for a hire since they feel the joy or pain of it.
Adam argues that recruiters don't make hiring decisions, so they shouldn't own hiring goals; recruiters should provide confidence and data, while hiring managers and teams, who live with the outcome, must hold accountability and stay deeply involved. ✦ AI generated
Adam Ward · Lenny's Podcast · 2026-08-09 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 27:46
I've yet to be in a company where recruiters are making hiring decisions. So these things are in conflict. Hiring managers or leaders or committees are making hiring decisions. And I feel like the recruiters goal is really about helping provide confidence to that hiring manager to make the right decision. They're a confidence engine. They're not a decision-making engine... And so no one should care more about a hire, no one gets the joy or the pain of a good and bad hire than that hiring manager and that team. So why then is a recruiter or recruiting organization holding that accountability when they are actually don't they don't have the decision-making let alone the benefits or or pain or cost of a good or bad hire.
verbatim transcript · starts at 27:46
Transcript · around this moment
27:33satisfaction or we might measure revenue and we hold those teams accountable. We also hold hiring managers and leaders and organizations accountable to hiring. And so keeping it top of mind but putting in the right systems around rewards and recognition and all those things around it will help people keep it as a priority. But if you aren't measuring it or they will hand that over or they will shirk that responsibility
27:59to somewhere else. >> Yeah, one of your big pet peeves is having the recruiters to sit not basically empowering the recruiters and hiring managers not being deeply involved in the process. >> Yeah, I think a lot of companies the recruiting owns the hiring goal. And I've yet to be in a company where recruiters are making hiring decisions. So these things are in conflict. Hiring managers or leaders or committees
28:25are making hiring decisions. And I feel like the recruiters goal is really about helping provide confidence to that hiring manager to make the right decision. They're a confidence engine. They're not a decision-making engine. And so I see a lot of companies where they um they lose the thread is when they essentially hand over the function of recruiting the act of recruiting to a function of recruiting. Right? And so no one should care more
28:57about a hire, no one gets the joy or the pain of a good and bad hire than that hiring manager and that team. So why then is a recruiter or recruiting organization holding that accountability when they are actually don't they don't have they don't have the decision-making let alone the benefits or or pain or cost of a good or bad hire. >> I want to come back to this uh it's like
29:19a different funnel but I'll call it a funnel. Would you still describe it as a funnel but the funnel of non-dooms or another term cuz it's still kind of a funnel? >> Yeah. Yeah, there could be they not all funnels are bad so yeah, they're all good. >> talent density. >> Yeah. >> So coming back to the how to discover the best people uh luckily there's this
Related moments
Context◆Article · 16 words
A computer can never be held accountable, and therefore a computer must never make a management decision, as stated in IBM's 1979 training materials.
IBM (1979 training slide, cited by Simon Willison) · Simon Willison's Weblog
Claim◆Video · 23:58 · 2m
AI-driven targeting has turned battlefield judgments from categorical, accountable decisions into opaque probabilistic scores (like a 73% chance someone is a Hamas terrorist), which normalizes accepting false positives and erases individual accountability for lethal mistakes.
Brad Carson · Machine Learning Street Talk