AI Agents Are Killing the Engineering Pyramid — Here's What Replaces It

When electric motors were invented, factories didn't become dramatically more productive overnight. The biggest gains came years later, after people redesigned factories around the new technology. Databricks co-founder and Chief Architect Reynold Xin believes AI is creating a similar shift in software. In this conversation with YC Managing Partner Diana Hu, he explains how AI agents are reshaping engineering organizations, why startups have an advantage in building AI-native products, and why the next generation of infrastructure needs to be lightweight, scalable, and built for agentic workloads from day one. https://www.databricks.com Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs