Alex Lieberman

Alex Lieberman is a co-founder and managing partner of Tenex, an AI transformation and engineering firm. His work there centers on content distribution and a business model that ties engineering compensation to outcomes. He credits co-founder Arman Hezarkhani with engineering recruitment, while describing his own responsibility as building relevance through content.[1][2][3][4]

Lieberman's involvement followed an investment in Hezarkhani's earlier company, Parthian. In its November 19, 2025 episode account, Latent Space reported that Lieberman initially doubted Hezarkhani's claims of increased software output after a drastic team reduction, until Hezarkhani explained the effect of LLMs on engineering work.[1]

Lieberman presents outcome-based compensation as Tenex's distinctive innovation: paying engineers more like salespeople, with earnings linked to delivered work. The customer model is related but separate—subscription-style engineering squads charge for features delivered rather than hours logged. He argues that changing compensation has helped Tenex attract talent.[4][3]

Latent Space described Tenex's compensation units as story points representing completed, quality output. Its account also described technical strategists whose incentives depend on client retention and who review engineering plans before they reach clients. In November 2025, the company expected multiple engineers to earn more than $1 million in cash compensation from story points the following year; this was a projection, rather than an achieved earnings figure.[1]

Lieberman's distribution work extends beyond publishing. In What I Have Learned Building in AI, dated November 7, 2025, he described free AI roadmaps and organizational training as a way to deliver value before a sale, build trust, and let commercial opportunities emerge naturally.[3]

In The Case for Professional Centaurs, dated July 31, 2026, Lieberman said he had introduced hybrid roles at Tenex: engineers who create content, creators who build software, and product managers who teach or train. His rationale combines a belief that people want varied work with an argument about distribution: AI increases the abundance of output while attention remains finite. He advocates being “jack-of-some-trades” to help earn that attention.[6]

Lieberman's September 3, 2026 roadmap guidance starts with business goals and blockers. He recommends interviewing senior leadership, expanding to relevant executives or functional leaders, and using the resulting goals and gaps to shape surveys and data requests. A second interview round then examines specific opportunities through process mapping, organizational dynamics, and the technology stack.[7]

His recommendations include ROI estimates accounting for people, process, technology, and financial costs; decisions to start, stop, continue, or edit existing initiatives; and sequencing that favors likely success and high expected returns. The final step presents the roadmap to leadership for alignment. He treats discovery and organizational preparation as central to AI deployment, rather than assuming that adopting tools resolves the underlying blockers.[7]

Lieberman's enthusiasm for AI includes skepticism about its market. In his November 2025 essay, he wrote, “AI is both the innovation of our lifetime and a bubble.” He also described revising his view of engineers: work he had considered more scientific increasingly appeared deeply creative.[3]

Before Tenex, Lieberman co-founded Morning Brew and led the business media company as CEO from 2016 to 2021. That earlier media career provides context for his content and distribution responsibilities at Tenex. He also co-founded the content agency Storyarb, content software platform Distro, and marketing talent business growthpair.[3][2]

AI work was already part of that content-business activity by April 2, 2025, when he presented Distro on Founder's Journal. The episode introduced it as his new business and described it as an AI content strategist.[5]