I can't do anything but reject his claims when he presents Instagram as proof. It's crazy to think seriously that the value was created by the 13 employees + founder of an electronic glossy billboard. Influencers and advertisers indirectly treated as cattle. Goddammit Paul.
Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees
81–90 of 394 posts
Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees
#82Given the current market I'd say you have to achieve some basic success before hiring anyone, at least if you're bootstrapping. From my experience it's quite difficult to find early-stage employees that are both affordable and good enough to handle the breadth of technical tasks needed in the early phase of a business. So, yeah, automation can take away a lot of pain, and how far you can get really depends on how wel…
I automated my e-commerce business and turned that into a SaaS. Found customers organically and have become my own “customer” multiple times. Solo founders like me are on the rise and you’d be surprised how far a little automation can take a business.
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Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees
#83I’m creating a startup. I’m the first and only employee, and likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future. What would have taken an army of clerks in the past is now a (lot) of code. Whole departments are replaced by API’s that cost less than $100/month. It’s really incredible.
Could you give some examples? Congratulations on your success implementing this stuff
https://loodio.com - Hardware company - Solo founder - No employees and same here; I don't see the need for any in the forseeable future. Don't even need capital as my burn rate is ~$50/month except when I order new stock. Weird times.
Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees
#84https://twitter.com/IlariKaila/status/1600120645211201536 Ilari Kaila @IlariKaila · 1h Replying to @paulg Why did you delete this banger? | | | Paul Graham @paulg · 1h Replying to @IlariKaila I forgot that mentioning Marx attracts angry fools. Since I could make my point without mentioning him, I just reposted it without.
I always find this take that innovation wouldn’t happen in a non-capitalist society very strange, as if humanity hadn’t produced countless innovations before modern constructs like the corporation existed. I also think its incredulous to focus on one (admittedly, very) positive outcome of capitalism without acknowledging its externalities, like pollution, inequality, etc. I suppose pg believes the current system will…
It's not like a socialist country could invent things like a satellite, and be the society that figures out how to send a man into space, probes to the moon and other planets - oh yaa, a socialist country is the first country to figure out those things.
Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees
#85If we're going to devalue and degrade the labour of anybody who isn't "founder" because of its ability to be automated, then let's follow the thread to its logical conclusion and say that it's the only VCs who really "create value". Just as AI will be able to take the legwork out of turning a concept into code, coming up with these concepts might well be an even easier task to automate. Of course though, it takes a w…
Why not go all the way and replace the fallible, gullible, arrogant human VCs with much smarter AI VCs who can determine which AI generated companies are likely to succeed with higher fidelity?
I think the more social/political/financial power possessed by the individual threatened by AI, the more resistance there will be to them being disrupted by it. Like look at tech's smug responses to truckers concerned about self driving, and contrast that to the perspective this tweet has toward everybody in tech except for founders. He's literally just insulating a ruling class. This class dynamic is so deeply ironic coming from someone who literally said that "automation is inductive proof that Marx was wrong". It's the opposite!
Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Absolute suckers for giving out their work for free I guess.
You misunderstand their intentions. “I’ve already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding things out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it - those are the real things, the honors are unreal to me.” -Richard Feynman
Did Richard Feynman struggle to pay rent?
Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees
#87He is implying that founders can create a lot of value without employees, and that the claim that employees also create value is false. If that's true, then what about a social experiment: If you are a solo founder, you get all your profits for yourself. But if you have employees, you have to share your profits with your employees. If employees don't produce any value, easy, fire them all, you get everything. But if…
What's with that obsession about "billionaires"? If somebody can make a nice living with their business, isn't that good enough? Personally I think we are perfectly fine without billionaires.
Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees
#88[deleted]
Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees
#89He is implying that founders can create a lot of value without employees, and that the claim that employees also create value is false. If that's true, then what about a social experiment: If you are a solo founder, you get all your profits for yourself. But if you have employees, you have to share your profits with your employees. If employees don't produce any value, easy, fire them all, you get everything. But if…
Paying a wage = sharing your profits, just not on a % base, but a fixed amount. But in the end it's still: less profits for the founder, and more profit for the employee.
Are you familiar with "debt bondage"? Technically, the brick kiln workers of India and Pakistan are paid a wage [1]. Closer to home, Amazin warehouse workers probably wouldn't consider themselves as sharing in Amazon's profits. Let me summarize:
1. Debt is built into your existence (student, medical, housing, etc);
2. The system is designed to extract (exploit) value from labor; and
3. There is no value without labor.
[1]: https://www.antislavery.org/what-we-do/past-projects/india-d...
Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees
#90Well, it requires fewer more skilled employees. Employees some of whom could be founders themselves and compete with you. So despite the number of employees being lower, their opportunity cost is likely similar or higher, just more concentrated. Therefore what you’d have to pay them if they were negotiating rationally is similar to what you’d pay multiple people.
The limit here is an edge case, it’s like dividing by zero. Sure if you can automate everything the founder gets all the profit. If you only have 1 employee, however, that single employee is immeasurably valuable and has some incredible leverage on you (you’re screwed if they walk). There’s a net benefit to the employer to having a certain amount of redundancy.
So this whole argument (to me) toes the line of sophistry. It just gets a big eyeroll and me thinking Paul is out of touch.