Agentlike

Traditional-style talent agents are part of the trend, but so are Web sites, career counselors, and recruiters like Ms. MacPhee, whose most assiduously cultivated relationships these days are not with her corporate clients but with her "players," like Mr. Muradia, on whom she lavishes agentlike services.

“There is an important element in public life in Hungary which is not transparent and not open — and that is the Soros network, with its mafia-style operation and its agentlike organizations,” Mr. Orban said on state radio this month, referring to the philanthropic Open Society Foundations financed by Mr. Soros.

Even today, Sutskever remains haunted by the agentlike behavior of those that they built to play Dota 2, a multiplayer game of fantasy warfare.