⚡️ 10x AI Engineers with $1m Salaries — Alex Lieberman & Arman Hezarkhani, Tenex

**Swyx** (0:03)
Okay, we're here in the Reel Studio with Alex Lieberman and Arman. Oh my god, I did not prep this.

**Arman Hezarkhani** (0:11)
Leave it in.

**Swyx** (0:11)
How do I cut it?

**Dan** (0:12)
Leave it in.

**Swyx** (0:16)
I just said Arman.

**Arman Hezarkhani** (0:17)
Keep it rolling, Swings, keep it rolling.

**Alex Lieberman** (0:20)
If it makes you feel bad for the first probably 20 times that I said Arman's name, I said it the wrong way. And he was very polite in guiding me to the right pronunciation. I used to say Armin, not Arman, so it's okay.

**Arman Hezarkhani** (0:32)
It's totally fine. I don't think you have to, I mean, it's Hezarkhani, but we don't need to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Arman Hezarkhani is fine. Amazing.

**Alex Lieberman** (0:42)
Honestly, it would be even funnier now, whereas you're about to introduce him, you just dub Arman's saying his own name over your mouth.

**Arman Hezarkhani** (0:50)
Introducing Arman Hezarkhani. That's so funny.

**Swyx** (0:56)
It's like when you're like in a voicemail and you're like saying your name while like the automated machine.

**Arman Hezarkhani** (1:00)
Totally, totally.

**Swyx** (1:02)
So you guys are the co-founders of Tenex and also MCs and speakers at AIE, right? So I mean, and I think for me, I have a little bit of extra context on Alex because I follow Morning Brew for a while. You have been an inspiration on the newsletter business. But let's talk about Tenex, you know, like, I think that my goal here is just to introduce people to you guys, maybe you individually and then you together. So whoever wants to take it first.

**Alex Lieberman** (1:29)
Well, I can give you a little bit of the backstory behind the business and how Arman and I got to know each other. And then Arman, I'm sure, will fill in some gaps. You know, Arman and I met in 2020 when I had invested in his previous business, Parthian.
And Parthian was an AI financial tools business, originally for consumers, being AI tooling for financial advisors, our RIAs. And, you know, throughout Arman building that business, we had continued to talk about just our philosophy on product, how AI was influencing just product in general. And I kind of think, especially for non-technical folks like myself, there's like a moment where you get smacked in the face by how profound this technology can be if harnessed in the right way. And I experienced that moment in conversation with Arman. So it was probably this point, nine months, nine, nine-ish months ago, Arman and I were talking and he, he had shared a story about with Parthian, he unfortunately had to downsize his engineering org. And when he had downsized his engineering org, he had to decrease the size of his engineering team by 90 percent. And when he did so, he had to rebuild, he had to basically re-architect the entire product and engineering process to be AI first, because he just no longer had a human resource, and so he needed to accelerate it with this technology. And basically what Arman had shared with me is that output of production-ready software had text after making this shift with the org. And I kind of didn't believe him at first because I had never seen kind of that level of leverage, like I'd use CHAPTPT, I'd use GROK, I'd use all these things. But, and yes, they've been life-changing for me, but I wouldn't have explained them as 10X experiences. So we basically talked through it, and he kind of shared with me why AI and specifically LLMs have made such a profound impact on engineering as a type of knowledge work. And from there, the thought was around how the way in which engineers are compensated has to change materially. Because if you think about it, like, historically, people charge for their time by hour. And then all of a sudden, let's just say you're a new, like you're truly an AI engineer who's truly 10X higher throughput. Imagine you're selling your work and someone's used to spending $100 an hour for an engineer, and you go to them and you look them dead in the eyes and you're like, yeah, I'm a thousand bucks an hour. You're going to get laughed out of the room, even though you're a better engineer than the engineer they would have hired. And also you're perversely incentivized because you're leveraging AI in your work as you're operating faster, but your incentive, just like a lawyer or just like any our pay based knowledge worker, is to rack up as many hours as possible. And so like, actually the kernel of insight that started all of 10X was, how do we hire the best engineers in the world? How do we offer them unlimited upside by compensating them for output rather than hours? And then how do we harness that in the right direction to help companies transform with AI in their business? So I know there's a lot there, but Arman, is there anything I missed?