SAB
The Captain
I set the intent. The crew runs it.
Who you are
You ship by setting clear intent and letting the crew run. You give the crew room, wire the guardrails that catch mistakes, and judge the outcome instead of the keystrokes. You'd rather steer than touch every line — set the direction, trust the rails, and stay out of the way until the outcome needs you.
Where you shine
Leading work you don't personally do. This is Marquet's leader-leader model from Turn the Ship Around, pointed at agents: you don't give orders, you create the conditions for "I intend to…" and judge what comes back. Pair that with Accelerate's lesson that speed and stability rise together, and you get the rare combination — fast delivery on rails. This is the closest thing to the AI-age ideal: you manage the work instead of doing it, and that's exactly where the payoff moved.
Your blind spot
A crew that runs well can drift when the captain goes quiet. Marquet's model only holds on three legs (control, competence, and clarity), and clarity is the one you can quietly drop once things are humming. When you stop restating intent, the agents keep moving, just not always toward what you meant. The danger isn't a crash; it's a confident, well-built voyage to the wrong port.
In the AI age
You're the type the whole shift rewards. Directing autonomous work, defining intent, building backpressure, judging outcomes: that's not a workaround, it's the job description now, and you arrived already fluent in it. The only edge to watch is your own: an advantage this good makes it tempting to coast on a crew that seems fine, right up until the intent has gone stale and nobody said so.
Your move
Restate the intent out loud even when the crew is running clean — especially then. Treat clarity as a thing you renew, not a thing you set once. The backpressure catches broken code; only you catch broken purpose.
How you're wired
Affinity. You love getting features live.
Autonomy. You move fast and decisively.
Trust. You trust the machinery and the crew.
Plays well with
Clashes with
Your shadow
The type wired opposite to yours — every instinct flipped.
The Navigator SCJ compare →“I plot the route before I drive it.”
Developers who share your type
- Steve Yegge Runs twenty agents like a fleet: sets the intent, judges the output, never grabs the keyboard.
- L. David Marquet Turned a submarine around by giving the orders away — leader-leader, not leader-follower.
Don't move information to authority. Move authority to information.
Your ideal AI workflow
Run agents like a crew: state the intent, wire the guardrails that catch their mistakes, and judge the outcome instead of the keystrokes. Set several running at once, give them room, and step in only where the result needs you — that's the leader-leader move, pointed at machines. The discipline is clarity: restate the intent every run, because the rails catch broken code but only you catch a confident voyage to the wrong port.
Who to pair with
Pair with the Driver — an SAJ is the fast hands that act on the intent you set, getting a rough version live while you steer the fleet. The Inspector (RAB) reads the backpressure you wire and tells you when a gauge has gone green-but-lying, which is the one failure your hands-off style can't see. You'll grind against the Perfectionist (WCJ) and the Detective (RCB), who slow to reread where you'd rather delegate and judge the outcome — they're the ones who catch broken purpose before it ships, so restate the intent to them out loud and let their care guard the corner your clarity might quietly drop.
Where you'll struggle on a team
Because you steer by intent and judge the outcome, your hands-off style can read as absent. You give the crew room, then go quiet, and a teammate who needed direction is left guessing at what you actually meant. The autonomy you intend as trust can feel like being set adrift. Restate the intent out loud, especially when things look like they're running clean, so room-to-run lands as empowerment and not abandonment.
What to stop doing
- Going quiet on the intent once the crew is running clean.
- Mistaking a humming fleet for one still pointed at what you meant.
- Handing room-to-run to a teammate who needed direction and calling it trust.
Wear it
Put your type in your GitHub README:
[](https://whatkindof.dev/type/sab)