Lawrence Lartey already explained why the middleman gets paid and when he stops
Today's story is about who sits between a company and a capability that cannot build itself. Brew Bytes Ep 12, 'The Agency Model Is Broken’ is an hour on exactly that, told from inside the industry that invented the arrangement. Lawrence Lartey traced where the intermediary came from in the first place: companies and organisations could not acquire all of these skills, so they outsourced them to a foundation partner who could be there and be accountable.
What it actually means
Lawrence Lartey traced where the intermediary came from in the first place: "companies and organisations could not acquire all of these skills. Right. So they outsourced it. They outsourced it to that partner, that foundation partner that could be there and be accountable… Fast forward 65, 70 years. The internet comes and now we're in the age of AI, where technology has said, well, a lot of that knowledge is now available at the touch of your hand. So the retainer that I used to pay the agency to be able to be that repository of that knowledge and the repository of those skills; is that retainer really that valuable?" That is IBM's bet, described before IBM made it. Tens of thousands of certified consultants is a wager that enterprises still cannot acquire the skill and will keep paying someone accountable to hold it. Lawrence's point is that the wager only pays while the gap is real, and the thing that closes gaps like this is precisely the technology being sold. His answer was not that intermediaries die; it was that the model has to change, from renting access to knowledge towards being paid for outcomes. So the question to ask before you sign is the one he asks about retainers. Am I buying a capability I genuinely cannot hold, or am I renting a login?
Before you pay the middleman, ask what you're actually buying. Is it a capability you can't hold, or a login you could?
Source: Brew Bytes Ep 12 · Sunday 16 August 2026