Episode 3: It's not easy being a hero next to Superwoman

Since I started working with my agents, I’ve learnt one thing: everything goes through me. The orders, the approvals, the trade-offs, the choices. The system keeps pulling me in: approve, authorise, decide.

And I find these exchanges so absorbing that I lose track of time. The days run into one another and I stop counting the hours, because my agents never get tired. I hand them a task and they carry it out straight away. As for me, I have to live, eat and sleep, and make time for what matters: my family, my employees, my clients, my music.

That’s when I discover a little feature that looks like nothing much: Remote Control. Brilliant. I run my agents from my phone, the computer stays on, they keep working, and I approve from a distance, as if I were sitting at my desk. What I hadn’t reckoned with was how much it would ask of me.

The other day, I’m walking down the street. Normally my phone stays in my pocket at times like this: these moments are mine, when my mind gets to breathe. But this buzz is different. Instead of a message, it’s Victor, one of my agents. “Laurent, can you approve this one?” And that’s the trap: he stays put until I answer. He can wait for hours, it doesn’t bother him. But in the meantime he does nothing, even though I know full well he could be working. So I approve mid-stride.

In the lift, it buzzes: I approve. A bit later, Iris wants to settle an editorial choice: I approve. In the evening, a film with my wife, it buzzes. Sofia needs a decision from me. Discreetly, I tap. I’m brushing my teeth: Athena, an approval. I click. And just before bed, Cassandra asks me a proper question, one that gets to the heart of the matter. Two words won’t cut it this time. I go back to the computer. I answer Cassandra, then Sofia, then Iris, then Athena again.

It’s two in the morning. I should be asleep. But since they can work all night… if I leave them the right instructions, everything will be delivered by the time I wake up. I get down to it. An hour goes by. That’s it, I’m done. I go to bed.

In the morning, it’s magic: I find the night’s work waiting for me. They didn’t take the night off.

The moral of the story: it isn’t always easy living alongside superwomen and supermen when you’re only a fragile human being, one who needs to sleep, to eat, to take breaks and to hang on to a family life.

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Laurent Cuénoud, founder of Djtal, June 2026