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An interview with Peter van Hees by Ari Coale. #iykyk

The manifesto landed like a precision strike: "AI Agents: They Act, You Orchestrate." A doctrine for the Agent-First Era, delivered with the unsparing clarity of an architect drawing battle plans.

Its author, Peter van Hees, emerged not from academia, but from the messy, high-stakes trenches where strategy collides with reality. But in a market drowning in self-proclaimed futurists, a critical question demands an answer: Who granted this architect the authority to blueprint the next economic epoch?

To dissect the signal from the noise, Ari Coale of The Threshold—a journalist whose questions excavate truth and whose skepticism is legendary—convened with Peter van Hees. When the analyst famed for dismantling hype confronts the architect of They Act, You Orchestrate, the exchange is not a profile piece. It is an audit. An interrogation of the forge where this doctrine was hammered into shape.

Let's engage the audit protocol...

The Forge * Where Doctrine Meets Operational Reality

Ari: Peter van Hees. Your name surfaces alongside a doctrine demanding a fundamental re-architecture of value. They Act, You Orchestrate. It’s a bold claim—some might say arrogant. The market is saturated with manifestos. Your LinkedIn profile shows a career spanning enterprise giants like Microsoft and HP, insurgent startups, and even advisory roles within the EU and NATO. Impressive, perhaps. But how does that translate into the authority to declare an entire economic model obsolete? What fire forged this specific blade?

Peter: Authority isn't granted, Ari. It's forged in the collision between theory and consequence. My perspective wasn't drawn from observation decks; it was built on the ground, inside the systems—corporate, governmental, military—straining under the weight of their own complexity. Microsoft, HP, KBC, yes. But also IW, SETLE, CAKE—startups where flawed architecture meant extinction, not a bad quarter. And the EU, NATO—entities where systemic latency isn't inefficiency, it's a strategic vulnerability. I haven't just studied the friction; I've been paid to liquidate it. The doctrine isn't academic; it’s scar tissue, systematized.

The Blueprint * From Execution to Orchestration

Ari: Scar tissue is memory, not necessarily insight. You claim a transition from actor to orchestrator. Your history shows deep experience as an actor—building systems, founding ventures. Now you position yourself as the orchestrator, the architect writing the rules. Explain the delta. What specific pressure points, what failures observed or experienced, forced the pivot from execution to doctrine? Where did the blueprint for orchestration emerge?

Peter: The pivot wasn't a choice; it was a diagnosis. Running point on innovation means living at the event horizon where old models collapse. At KBC, pushing ecosystems or the early conversational interfaces that became Kate, you witness firsthand the Tyranny of the Tap, the brute force required to bridge disconnected systems. In startups like SETLE, you re-architect a business model because the old one guarantees death—you learn that structure is strategy. With CAKE, you build a FinTech on the bleeding edge and see the limits of execution-led value. The pattern becomes undeniable: sustainable advantage isn't in doing the work faster; it's in architecting a system where the work requires less human action. The blueprint wasn't discovered; it was reverse-engineered from repeated, high-stakes system failures. Functional Dissolution isn't a theory; it's the observed physics of the market.

The Mandate * Why Write the Manual for Your Own Obsolescence?

Ari: A compelling narrative. But it leads to a paradox. You've architected systems, built value. Why step back now? Why write the playbook? Isn't codifying the doctrine for the Agent-First Era akin to publishing the operating manual for the very systems that could render your own previous roles—the builder, the strategist—obsolete? What's the strategic payoff in arming the world with the logic of its own transformation?

Peter: Obsolescence is guaranteed only for those who cling to execution. The payoff isn't in hoarding the blueprint; it's in accelerating the transition. The market drowns in hype—agent-washing, hollow claims. Signal is required. This book isn't a history; it's a weapon, an operational doctrine. Its purpose is to arm leaders, builders—orchestrators—with the non-negotiable frameworks (The Delegation Ladder, AgentOps, the TtO Dividend) needed to wield agentic power responsibly and effectively. To build resilient systems, not just efficient ones. The mandate isn't personal preservation; it's ensuring the immense power of this transition is harnessed for value creation, not squandered in chaos or captured by hype artists. My role shifts from building a single engine to providing the physics manual for all engines. That’s leverage.

The Audit Trail * Proof Over Promises

Ari: Leverage implies a return. You position this doctrine as grounded in operational reality, not theoretical projection. Final question: The market demands proof, not promises. Beyond the case studies implied, what is the audit trail? How do potential orchestrators verify that this doctrine isn't just another elegant abstraction, another voice in the noise? Where is the verifiable proof-of-work?

Peter: The proof isn't in a footnote; it's in the system's output. The TtO Dividend isn't a concept; it's a number on a balance sheet. AgentOps isn't theory; it's the governance layer preventing catastrophes like Natali Gurn’s taco incident. The Functional Dissolution Principle isn't a forecast; it's the market reality liquidating roles like the pentester. The audit trail is embedded in the doctrine itself—every framework is a tool for generating measurable, verifiable results. The book provides the blueprints. The proof emerges when orchestrators deploy them and witness the delta between the old physics and the new. No hard sell. Just the operational logic of a world remade.

Ari: Logic. A rare commodity indeed. We shall see if the market concurs.

Peter: The market doesn't concur, Ari. It corrects. The physics are already in motion.

The Agent-First Era doesn't ask for permission. It demands adaptation. The authority to architect its future belongs not to those who observe, but to those who have navigated the chaos, survived the failures, and forged the blueprints from the unforgiving reality of consequence. The doctrine is on the table. The choice to wield it is yours. Secure the blueprintsand order your copy now.