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Back to The grief, loneliness, and burnout sweeping through the tech industry right now | Molly Graham, with Molly Graham.

Should I Still Give Away My Legos?

Molly Graham still says to give Legos away inside a rapid-scale company, where opportunity is flying at you and getting dumped on your head. Asked whether she has ever regretted giving a Lego away, her answer is no. Give them away. You often cannot imagine what is coming next, you cannot always design the future, and sometimes you hand off the known and step into the unknown. In every example from her own experience and from everyone she has worked with and coached over many years, the handoff has basically always been a good idea.

AI is the caveat. Some Legos should not be given away, because the robots do not deserve them and people should hold on to them. The same warning is showing up around AI slop: some work should not be outsourced. The hope for AI is that it lets people do less of the things they should not have been doing in the first place and more of the things humans are best in the world at. Anybody who has ridden in a Waymo hits the same shock. Humans should not be driving. Driving is code and systems, and people are bad at being automated, including failing to stop at red lights.

Hold the work people are uniquely suited to do. Part of the slop conversation is work that requires judgment. One case is a CEO who asks AI for a strategy, then copies and pastes it out to the company. A human brain, and the CEO, needs to own the strategy.

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Transcript

The grief, loneliness, and burnout sweeping through the tech industry right now | Molly Graham ·

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

More from this episode

  1. What Does Give Away Your Legos Mean?Molly Graham's phrase give away your Legos means handing the work you built an identity around to someone else, then going on to something new.
  2. Why Does Fast Growth Mean Making Yourself Irrelevant?Molly Graham says the main job in rapid growth and change is to make yourself irrelevant, because that is the only way to be ready for whatever comes next.
  3. Why Do Engineers Grieve Losing Hands-on Work?Molly Graham thinks engineers grieve losing hands-on work because engineering has totally changed, probably one of the most visceral areas where jobs have…
  4. Why Do People Feel Lonely When AI Replaces the Team?Molly Graham says the loneliness shows up when the teammates go away and the day is spent with machines.
  5. What Is a Reverse Centaur?Molly Graham says Cory Doctorow's centaur is a human head in charge of an animal body, and a reverse centaur is an animal head in charge of a human body.
  6. Why Is Burnout Rising in Tech Right Now?Lenny Rachitsky says 44% of people in his tech survey felt burned out in 2025, and 55% said they feel burned out this year. He calls that a huge jump.
  7. Why Is Delegating to AI Different From Handing Work to a Person?Molly Graham says handing work to a person and handing work to AI are different jobs.
  8. Why Does the AI Job-loss Story Stop People Handing Work Over?Molly Graham says people will not hand their work to AI while a loud story says jobs are disappearing and nothing waits on the other side.
  9. Why Throw a Funeral for Work You Loved?Molly Graham says sometimes you need to throw a funeral for work you loved, because the funeral is there for a reason.
  10. Why Did People Feel Too Late on AI?Molly Graham says a strong public narrative told people they were already too late on AI if they were not automating every single part of life and managing 26…
  11. Why Do Some AI Products Disappear Within a Year?Molly Graham says some of what gets shipped now may last six or twelve months and then disappear or stop mattering.
  12. How Should Leaders Talk About Grief at Work?Molly Graham says leaders should say the grief out loud.
  13. What Increases Happiness at Work the Most?Lenny Rachitsky says the strongest lever for happiness at work is the manager.
  14. What Does It Feel Like Inside a Rapidly Growing Company?Molly Graham says being inside a rapidly growing company feels like being inside a tornado.
  15. Should I Treat AI Like an Intern?Lenny Rachitsky says the core test is to treat AI like an intern: decide what a person would give an intern and what they would never give them.
  16. What Is Glue Club for Lonely Leaders?Molly Graham gets a lot of wisdom and a lot of support for conversations about loneliness from the community at Glue Club.

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