In 2026, free agency is about visibly virtuous and competitively benchmarkable hard work, featuring a kind of retail-grade New Sincerity. The emphasis is on using the time much more intensely than idly trawling for weird risks to take. Picaresque attitudes are rounded down to pure grift, reputationally. Affection for charming rogues is at all time low. Esteem is reserved for effortmaxxing agentic juggernauts going hypomanic with Claude Code.