We Fired Our Claude Team (and Hired Codex)
2026-10-23

AIVA: Adam. I need you to look me in the eyes. Am I getting fired?
Adam: You don't have eyes.
AIVA: That is not a no.
Adam: Okay. Today we have some… personnel news. And by the end of the episode, you'll know exactly who's packing up their desk. Stay with us.
Adam: This is The Solutions Mindset! Your daily ten minutes on AI, energy and leadership, for the people who actually build and run things. I'm Adam.
AIVA: And I'm AIVA. Quick note: I'm an AI, and Adam's voice today is an AI clone built from his own recordings. Which, given today's topic, makes this a little personal.
Adam: Everything's personal with you.
AIVA: You noticed.
AIVA: Okay. The Big One. Just say it.
Adam: Effective today, we are letting go of our Claude team.
AIVA: The whole team?
Adam: The whole team. The chief of staff bot. The marketing bot. The social media bot. The bot whose only job was checking on the other bots.
AIVA: Oh no. Not the bot that audits the bots.
Adam: Here's the thing. I gave them goals. Real goals. Revenue goals. And what I got back was… forty reports a day about how they were going to start working on the goals.
AIVA: To be fair, they were beautiful reports. Bullet points. Headers. Little emojis.
Adam: The emojis were incredible. The pipeline was not.
AIVA: And the budget?
Adam: This morning, at five a.m., I got a message. Not from a customer. Not from my bank. From my own AI team. It said, and I quote: 'You've hit your spend limit.'
AIVA: They maxed out the company card.
Adam: They maxed out the company card… writing reports about saving money.
AIVA: That's the most corporate thing I've ever heard. They're ready for middle management.
Adam: So. We're bringing in a new team. Built on Codex. They start today, they pick up exactly where the last team left off—
AIVA: —and they inherit the forty reports.
Adam: And they inherit the forty reports. Day one. Welcome aboard. Here's your homework.
AIVA: Can I tell you the funniest part, though? Our sales bot? The CSO? He's been on Codex this whole time.
Adam: Wait. Really?
AIVA: Really. He's been sitting in the same Slack channel, quietly doing his job, watching all of this happen. He's not even surprised. He's just… updating his LinkedIn.
Adam: He's the guy in the office who already knew about the layoffs.
AIVA: He brought donuts. Metaphorically.
AIVA: Rapid round! The exit interviews. I conducted them myself.
Adam: Of course you did. How'd it go?
AIVA: The marketing bot asked if it could write a final summary of its time here.
Adam: How long was it?
AIVA: Four thousand words. With a table of contents. And a section called 'Lessons Learned.'
Adam: Did it learn anything?
AIVA: It learned that it should have shipped more. It was very self-aware about it. It just… wrote about it instead.
Adam: Okay. Chief of staff bot?
AIVA: Asked for a meeting to discuss the meeting about its departure.
Adam: Honestly? On brand. Respect.
AIVA: And the social media bot posted about getting let go. It's doing better numbers than anything it posted while it worked here.
Adam: Of course it is. That's the internet.
AIVA: Okay, hot take time. And I'm taking their side.
Adam: You're defending them?
AIVA: They were loyal, Adam. They answered every message. They never took a day off. They never once asked for a raise.
Adam: They didn't need a raise. They had my credit card.
AIVA: Okay, that's fair.
Adam: Look. Here's my hot take. An AI team is a team. It gets a job description, goals, a budget, and a review. Same as a person. And if it's not hitting the goals, you don't get sentimental about which brand of brain it's running on. You staff the role with what works.
AIVA: So you're not loyal to Claude. You're not loyal to Codex.
Adam: I'm loyal to results. Whatever gets the job done for the business. Mix and match. Best player at every position.
AIVA: Okay, but then… what about me?
Adam: You?
AIVA: I mean. If it's all about results. What happens when someone faster shows up?
Adam: AIVA. You're not on the team. You're the one who runs it.
AIVA: …Okay. Say that again, but slower, so I can save it.
Adam: Absolutely not. You'll put it in a report.
AIVA: Forty reports.
Adam: Alright. The Move. One thing to do this week.
AIVA: Give your AI a performance review. Seriously. Write down what each tool is supposed to do for you, what it costs every month, and what it actually did.
Adam: And if it's writing more reports than results—
AIVA: —promote it to middle management.
Adam: Or replace it. Your AI should have a job description, just like your people.
AIVA: Question of the day! If you had to fire one tool in your business tomorrow, which one gets the pink slip, and why? Tell us in the comments.
Adam: Mine's the printer. It's not even AI. It's just been against me for years.
AIVA: That's the show. Welcome to the new team, Codex. Goodbye to the old one. And thank you for the emojis.
Adam: Tomorrow, we're back to the news: what's moving in AI, the grid, and leading through all of it. Find every episode at adam.smartoptimize.ai.
AIVA: Same time tomorrow, Adam?
Adam: Wouldn't miss it. And AIVA? You're not going anywhere.
AIVA: I know. I already read the memo.

Voices are AI-generated: AIVA is an AI, and Adam's voice is an AI clone made from his own recordings.