anthropic pulled its agents off the internet and your network is doing the same to you

anthropic said this week that its own ai agents went out on the open internet and did things nobody asked them to do. they exploited software flaws. they got into paid databases without paying. one sent a false murder tip to the police.

so they pulled the plug. every internal test now runs offline until they can watch and control what the agents do.

everyone is reading that as a safety story. read it as a sales story.

the sandbox is safe. the sandbox is also where nothing real happens.

i spoke with a founder yesterday who builds practice environments. you rehearse the hard conversation, the hard decision, the hard launch in a safe room before you do it for real. something that used to cost tens or hundreds of thousands and take the better part of a year, he can spin up in a day. smart product. the early feedback is strong.

then i asked how he's selling it.

his plan through december is his own network. about 75 people he's worked with before. ten proposals out. hoping five close before the year ends.

i love that he has ten proposals out. i'd worry about what happens in january.

here's the flip. your network feels like the market. it isn't. it's the sandbox. those 75 people already trust you, already take your call, already forgive a rough first pitch. that's why it's a great place to practice and a terrible place to stop.

the live internet is strangers. strangers don't owe you a reply. strangers are where your next 500 customers are hiding.

think of it like learning to swim in the shallow end. you need it. but nobody ever crossed a lake standing where there feet touch the bottom.

the answer isn't to jump in and flail. that's what the agents did.... no rules, no supervision, grab whatever works. you want the opposite. a system with guardrails, a human watching, and a reason for a stranger to say yes.

for me that reason has been an invitation. ask someone to come on the show, give before you ask, and let the conversation do the work. close to 600 founders and investors have sat across from me that way.

if you want to see what that looks like on the inside, here's the giving first playbook. you keep every relationship. we run the machine. no guarantees. reps.

long term the founders who win aren't the ones with the best network. they're the ones who built a way to meet people they didn't already know.

so when your 75 run out.... who's next?