Every team that adopted Claude Code, Cursor, or Copilot to produce more code has the same problem: When output is free, offering volume stops being a viable strategy. In fact, teams accelerating their software development with AI may be giving up the very thing that makes their software valuable.

It’s time to remember what makes software valuable and why racing to produce a mountain of code and features leads to failure.

In Ovid’s tale, Midas, king of Phrygia, took in the missing satyr Silenus, whom Phrygian peasants had found drunk, granted him ten days of hospitality, and then returned him to Dionysus. In return, he was offered the reward of his choice: whatever he wished for. Famously, he wished that everything he touched would turn to gold.

Testing his new ability on an oak twig and then a stone, Midas was delighted. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who retold the myth for children in 1851, added a rose garden: His Midas turns every bloom to gold, still delighted, though his daughter Marygold mourns that the roses no longer smell sweet. In both versions, the celebration ends at the table, where food and drink turn to gold in his hands. That’s when Midas realized his reward was a bane, not a blessing, and asked to be rid of it.

Many leaders who force-fed AI to developers are now coming to a realization similar to that of Midas.

Though the process is gradual, many organizations and leaders who force-fed AI to developers are now reaching a similar conclusion.

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