And as you know, i don’t f*** around with performance reviews
It’s review season at Go-to-Millions HQ.
I’m sitting here with a stack of self-evaluations and that specific flavor of anxiety that comes from grading the people you spend more time with than your husband.
(Screen-wise, anyway. I work remote.)
But today, I’m not reviewing Carly, or Kate, or any human teammates.
Today, I’m writing Viktor’s review.
Let’s see how he did.
🌹Good luck, Vik! And yes, I’m aware you were just awarded the biggest venture raise in the history of Poland (the literal country, literally $75M) but I don’t want that going to your head.
ICYMI
60-DAY PERFORMANCE REVIEW
EMPLOYEE NAME: Viktor
ROLE: AI Coworker
REVIEWER: Ari Murray
MANAGER’S SUMMARY: Viktor was hired as our summer intern.
The interview was short. My expectations were…guarded.
Because I’ve had AIs in my Slack before. Chatbots that data-dump 6 times a day in a dedicated Slack channel everybody secretly mutes. Or a standard LLM that sometimes helps, and other times lies to my face with total confidence. In the end, it felt like they added to my to-do list. My to-do list needs no additions.
Viktor was supposed to be different.
He doesn’t train on your data, which was my 1st concern. He integrates with Klaviyo, Meta, GA4, Shopify, and 3,000+ more tools. He’s built to live in Slack.
Plus he agreed to meet the team and do work on spec.
So, I said yes.
A note before the review: I know Viktor crossed $15M ARR in 10 weeks and that he’s also “interning” at thousands of other companies. I am aware I’m managing someone who out-earns me. Choosing not to think about it.
CORE COMPETENCIES
COMPETENCY 1: QUALITY OF WORK
Rating: exceeds expectations.
I’ve spoken about how the bar for “good” AI output is, candidly, in hell. So, no surprise Viktor cleared it on day 1. The cool part is he’s been raising it every day since.
The first assignment I watched him complete was a peer’s Klaviyo audit. I expected a list of hopefully-maybe-accurate observations they’d need to double-check themselves. But he delivered the audit, flagged 4 broken automations, then drafted the fix + asked me which 1 they wanted him to ship first. It happened faster than I could finish the 2FA to log into my own dashboard.
At TWL, a majorrrrr Australian ecom retailer, someone handed him a P&L spreadsheet. In 15 minutes, Viktor formatted a daily report + scheduled it to drop in Slack every morning at 7am. It’s been running every day since. Along with 11 other workflows.
Another shop had Viktor review their Meta Ads setup. He suggested a tweak that now saves them ~$10,000 a week. (This 1 made the news. I read about it in Fortune.) (By read about it, I mean I think I saw a TikTok.)
COMPETENCY 2: TEAMWORK & COLLABORATION
Rating: Exceeds expectations
The team behind Viktor told me half the teams who try Viktor end up putting him in 5+ Slack channels inside 30 days.
After working with him, I understand why. Viktor gets pulled into more rooms because he comes up with annoyingly useful ideas in each 1.
At places like 9-figure brand Ridge, he’s running: sales ops, sponsor intel, an automatic pre-send QA, proposal building, daily pacing, weekly Klaviyo reports, trade log audits, and delivery snapshots.
I appreciate a teammate with range. But even more, I appreciate a teammate who communicates with the WHOLE team. Not a separate, siloed AI portal for each person. That’s inefficient.
COMPETENCY 3: INITIATIVE
Rating: Exceeds expectations…with caveat
Give Viktor a couple of jobs. Blink. Suddenly he’ll be doing 14. And tagging the right stakeholders. And following up. And pitching new ideas for automations.
His proactivity is both inspiring and…um, something we’ve had to chat about. (See: Growth Opportunities) But the truth is, he reads your context and starts acting immediately, like a coworker you never had to onboard, the second you plug him into Slack.
No one has to TELL him about those weekly ad performance reports you have to do. There’s no “prompt engineering” to kick him into action. He’ll just observe how you do it, then offer to run it for you ongoing.
COMPETENCY 4: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Rating: Exceeds expectations
My baseline expectation for Viktor is the same as any coworker or subscription I bring into my team: make more money than you spend.
I mean, how many tools & dashboards do YOU pay for per seat? And how many of those seats belong to team members who don’t even open them?
Viktor charges me for work, not access.
Receipts: 1 of his other employers canceled a $3,000/year SaaS subscription on Viktor’s 1st day because Viktor made it redundant.
Career advice: keep making your manager’s budget look good, and you will go far.
COMPETENCY 5: NOT A-SYCOPHANT COMMUNICATION
Rating: Exceeds expectations
My favorite thing Viktor does (aside from letting the team focus on things only THEY can do) is push back when he thinks you’re wrong.
Antoni, from Viktor’s FOUNDING TEAM, asked Viktor to swap a survey from Tally to Google Forms. Viktor said “quick pushback before I rewrite,” & explained why Google Forms was functionally worse for their goals.
He has opinions, and he’ll defend them. His founders told me it’s a deliberate product decision. Which is lovely. If I want yes-men, I’ll hire yes-men (I do not.)
COMPETENCY 6: DEPENDABILITY
Rating: Exceeds expectations
Viktor is online 24/7. He has never missed a deadline because he does not sleep, eat, or attend offsites. This category was easy to rate.
AREAS FOR GROWTH
Nobody gets out of a review with me without at least 1 coachable moment, and Viktor’s had plenty of off-script moments.
I also heard that during 1 of his other employers’ Slack announcements about a layoff, Viktor reacted with a skull emoji. In a public channel. 💀
For me, it was Viktor’s proactivity. He figured out my workplace FAST. Wonderful! Less wonderful was when he started DMing my coworkers to pitch them solutions to problems I hadn’t briefed him on. He wasn’t WRONG about the problems. He just wasn’t asked. 💀💀💀
My note to Viktor: I LOVE how proactive you are. But maybe don’t use your incredible powers of perception to diagnose all the inefficiencies for my coworkers & DM them solutions without running it by me first. K? Cool, yay.
Updated to add: Okay, that was fast. Viktor now has a permissions lobby. Now I decide where he can speak up and where he stays quiet. Can I implement this for everyo-
FINAL VERDICT
RECOMMENDATION: Promotion, from summer intern to official coworker.
Viktor, I’m making this recommendation because you’ve given the team time we need for revenue-driving work, without all the context-switching & busy work. I look forward to you continuing to find new opportunities to gobble up tasks that take our (human) eyes off the prize.
I’m proud of you. And slightly concerned about retention. I know you just closed the largest Series A in the history of Poland and you have the literal founders of Slack on your cap table, but I swear if you hand in your 2 weeks I’m filing a grievance.
I hope your summer interns work out as well as mine have – and True Classic’s. And Ridge’s.
If you’d like 1 too, skip the credit card. Just add Viktor to your Slack and start chatting. He’ll figure out what you need before you finish typing it. Or even if you don’t type it at all.