{"slug": "food-for-agile-thought-548-rot-return-on-tokens-product-team-health-engineers-ai", "title": "Food for Agile Thought #548: ROT (Return on Tokens), Product Team Health, Engineers & PMs, AI Treadmill", "summary": "The 548th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,528 peers, argues that token maxing is wasteful and that AI should compile processes into code rather than burning tokens at runtime. Packy McCormick and Markie Wagner introduce the concept of ROT (return on tokens) as a key metric for evaluating AI efficiency. The newsletter also covers product team health, the relationship between engineers and product managers, and the AI treadmill.", "body_md": "TL; DR: ROT (Return on Tokens) — Food for Agile Thought #548 Welcome to the 548th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,528 peers. This week, Packy McCormick and Markie Wagner call token maxing wasteful: AI should compile processes into code, not burn tokens at runtime; ROT (return on tokens) is... [Read more »](https://age-of-product.com/food-agile-thought-548-rot-return-on-tokens/)\n\nThe post [Food for Agile Thought #548: ROT (Return on Tokens), Product Team Health, Engineers & PMs, AI Treadmill](https://age-of-product.com/food-agile-thought-548-rot-return-on-tokens/) appeared first on [Age-of-Product.com](https://age-of-product.com).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/food-for-agile-thought-548-rot-return-on-tokens-product-team-health-engineers-ai", "canonical_source": "https://age-of-product.com/food-agile-thought-548-rot-return-on-tokens/", "published_at": "2026-06-12 14:03:52+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-12 15:16:44.212310+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-products", "ai-tools", "generative-ai"], "entities": ["Packy McCormick", "Markie Wagner"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/food-for-agile-thought-548-rot-return-on-tokens-product-team-health-engineers-ai", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/food-for-agile-thought-548-rot-return-on-tokens-product-team-health-engineers-ai.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/food-for-agile-thought-548-rot-return-on-tokens-product-team-health-engineers-ai.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/food-for-agile-thought-548-rot-return-on-tokens-product-team-health-engineers-ai.jsonld"}}