Agency is Your Secret Edge

Andrej Karpathy’s recent X post about agency struck me. In the past I centered my decisions around optimizing for intelligence or demonstration of intelligence, as I believed that it was the most efficient way to move towards success. I still think one needs some base level of intelligence to achieve great things, but the marginal returns diminish fast. Agency, I believe, is a vastly underrated personal trait. It’s so underrated in my academic community that the sheer awareness of it can carry one a long way. Therefore, I want to break down what agency actually is and try to derive actionable advice from first principles.

• What is agency

  • One sentence:
    • Agency is one’s belief that they can, and the ability to, actively influence their environment.
  • Synonyms of agentic:
    • Proactive, autonomous, independent
  • Antonyms of agentic:
    • Dependent, submissive, passive
  • My understanding is that agency corresponds to the amount of “free will” one has - one’s belief that they are the main characters rather than NPCs. It’s not the same as confidence. Confidence is your opinion on yourself while agency is an intrinsic belief that drives your day-to-day actions.
  • I want to quote the definition from akarpathy’s x post:

  Agency, as a personality trait, refers to an individual’s capacity to take initiative, make decisions, and exert control over their actions and environment. It’s about being proactive rather than reactive—someone with high agency doesn’t just let life happen to them; they shape it. Think of it as a blend of self-efficacy, determination, and a sense of ownership over one’s path.

  People with strong agency tend to set goals and pursue them with confidence, even in the face of obstacles. They’re the type to say, “I’ll figure it out,” and then actually do it. On the flip side, someone low in agency might feel more like a passenger in their own life, waiting for external forces—like luck, other people, or circumstances—to dictate what happens next.

  It’s not quite the same as assertiveness or ambition, though it can overlap. Agency is quieter, more internal—it’s the belief that you can act, paired with the will to follow through. Psychologists often tie it to concepts like locus of control: high-agency folks lean toward an internal locus, feeling they steer their fate, while low-agency folks might lean external, seeing life as something that happens to them.

• Why agency is scarce

  • We’re educated to value intelligence over agency, so we underrate the importance of agency. If we don’t value it as much, we won’t deliberately seek to improve it. I think the US education does have some mentions of agency. But we are rarely given the chance to practice agency. We are taught to be good problem solvers, but we are seldom taught how to ask the next interesting question.
  • Our inherent laziness also contributes to this scarcity. It’s much easier to live reactively than proactively. We love to avoid confrontations and decision anxiety by letting the environment decide how we live.

• Why agency is highly rewarded in society

  • Competitive edge: given how scarce agency is, people with 10x agency are willing to do things other people aren’t - for example, cold emailing strangers, asking for a raise, switching careers… However, most of the highly rewarded jobs require high levels of agency. High-agency people are rewarded more by simple supply and demand.
  • Leadership also comes with agency. People love being told what to do so they don’t have to think about it.
  • Agentic people become a people magnet. I was fortunate to speak to Ali Partovi about this and he said being a smart people magnet is one of the best signals for a good entrepreneur. It might just be a byproduct of high agency. I’ve repeatedly seen this persona among people my age that I consider successful. Think about 5 friends who you think will make the most money in the future - what’s in common?
  • I believe agentic people are also more introspective. They are willing to change themselves and get rid of the limiting factors that cause them to stay where they are. They are more willing to proactively seek positive change and are thus more likely to move to a higher place.
  • This correlation between agency and success is consistent across centuries. I think it’s more consistent than any domain expertise. To be rigorous, I can’t rule out the survivorship bias, but I want to say high agency is a necessary condition for success (the common definition: money, influence, fame, etc.)

• Actionable advice

  • Adjust for your bias towards inaction. Every time you have to make a decision between action and inaction, add weight towards the proactive option.
  • Look for opportunities to practice agency. Take leadership positions, chime in to the decision-making process, and try to be the initiator in your friend group.
  • Make friends with highly agentic people. You will be pulled towards the time-weighted mean of the friends you hang out with.
  • Ask yourself what you would do if you have 10x agency.

These are the changes I want to see in myself. By sharing them here, maybe they’ll resonate with others working toward similar goals.

References

https://usefulfictions.substack.com/p/how-to-be-more-agentic

https://x.com/karpathy/status/1894099637218545984

https://map.simonsarris.com/p/the-most-precious-resource-is-agency