Sounds like you are VC back. It is likely your VCs pressuring the CEO.
Ask HN: My CEO wants to go hard on AI. What do I do?
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Re: Ask HN: My CEO wants to go hard on AI. What do I do?
#12Your CEO is correct that ~80% of VC funding is currently focused on AI. So you have only 2 options basically. You either don't raise VC funding (which means hitting break even, rule of 40% performance). Or, you go all in on AI
If it's not an AI story for your business you need exceptional metrics. Like growing from 8M to 24M in a year for a C round.
Re: Ask HN: My CEO wants to go hard on AI. What do I do?
#13Your CEO is correct that ~80% of VC funding is currently focused on AI. So you have only 2 options basically. You either don't raise VC funding (which means hitting break even, rule of 40% performance). Or, you go all in on AI If it's not an AI story for your business you need exceptional metrics. Like growing from 8M to 24M in a year for a C round.
My bad, 71% to be exact: https://x.com/jasonlk/status/1913286165408735255?t=IC_fuRNG9...
Re: Ask HN: My CEO wants to go hard on AI. What do I do?
#14Its normal. Too see it look at the financials. Don't look at the tech alone. Otherwise analysis is incomplete.
"useful, in-demand product features" have to generate revenue greater than cost. If its too low or execs think there are better ways to grow the firm then these decision happen all the time.
Re: Ask HN: My CEO wants to go hard on AI. What do I do?
#15Trends come and go: What's important is that your CEO isn't underinvesting in the product.
I once was in a company during the "everyone is going to replace their laptops with tablets next year era." The CEO pushed heavily for mobile, and underinvested in the actual product.
A year later, all of our customers were still using their laptops. We were sold to a private equity firm, the CEO was pushed out, and (almost) everyone who worked on the failed mobile product was out of a job.
In your case, I'd try to decide if your CEO is just following a fad. If so, next year they will follow a different fad. Are you critical to your business? If so, you'll be critical to your business with or without AI. If not, figure out how to make yourself critical to your business without being vulnerable to this year's fad...
(...And perhaps ask ChatGPT for advice. If you can't beat it, join it.)
Re: Ask HN: My CEO wants to go hard on AI. What do I do?
#16I would keep a more open mind and think about how you can contribute to the CEOs vision.
As a lead dev, how can you incorporate AI into you and your team’s workflow? If you don’t agree with a tech CEO pushing for the latest tech adoption I would do some soul searching.
Re: Ask HN: My CEO wants to go hard on AI. What do I do?
#17Unless you own the business, you work for your investors.
If investors only want AI, then you will either be forced to do that (whatever it means), do something else but make it look to them like AI, convince them they're wrong, or quit.
Things are a little more nuanced if your existing investors side with you but all new investors are AI-driven. Then you don't have to quit, but you do have to run the business without new outside capital. This may or may not be possible. If not, you still have to quit.
Re: Ask HN: My CEO wants to go hard on AI. What do I do?
#18Who will be responsible for figuring out what AI features to build? I think it is reasonable to look into it, seriously, with the point of view of "can we disrupt ourselves before being disrupted." This doesn't mean putting a significant engineering team behind this, but, to put a significant effort in figuring out what is it you could build, and what an ROI on that would be.
You've two outcomes from this, either you do find a disruptive AI angle and move a sufficiently-large part of your team to it, or you don't, but figure out a minimal effort that would satisfy the "investor positioning angle". The third option, to do nothing or aggressively push back against AI and the CEO's desire, would potentially yield to no Series C or a down-round, which is something that you, your CEO, and your customers would not like.
Re: Ask HN: My CEO wants to go hard on AI. What do I do?
#19I believe real value lies in solving customer problems - not just investor problems. This technology has significant upside when applied thoughtfully. That said, without proper validation, prematurely sidelining proven solutions to chase AI initiatives—especially without clear problem definitions - can be risky. It sets the stage for a bubble that may not withstand tougher times.
imho, I would like to think tough times are ahead of us - that in my mind, neutralizes my 'tech optimism'.
Re: Ask HN: My CEO wants to go hard on AI. What do I do?
#20Trends come and go: What's important is that your CEO isn't underinvesting in the product. I once was in a company during the "everyone is going to replace their laptops with tablets next year era." The CEO pushed heavily for mobile, and underinvested in the actual product. A year later, all of our customers were still using their laptops. We were sold to a private equity firm, the CEO was pushed out, and (almost) ev…
I imagine there are a lot of stories like that from the "everything needs to be a mobile app" era.
So many companies invested vast engineering resources in building out iOS/Android apps only to later find that their users only interact with their tool once every few weeks, which wasn't often enough for them to earn a place in that relatively tiny list of a few dozen apps that any one individual actually uses.
For many users with cheaper phones asking them to install your app is asking them to pick which of their photos they're going to delete to make space for it!