A college student reached $64k/mo in 6 months by being an AI first mover • Hacker News Board

Re: A college student reached $64k/mo in 6 months by being an AI first mover

#91

Post by tacheiordache » Wed, May 24, 2023, 8:28 PM UTC

becquerel wrote: post #38

atonse wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(genuinely asking) Is there another theoretical system that properly incentivizes people to compete with each other, innovate, and take risks to solve problems? I ask in the "build new solutions" space – we all know there are plenty of rent-seeking businesses that add no value but just take money from everyone. I'm not trying to defend any of that. I'm only asking in the case of "people doing new, innovative things a…

communism, because when everyone's basic needs are guaranteed they have the mental/physical bandwidth to be innovators, and without commodity fetishism, scientific advancements can be made for the sake of responding to human needs, rather than facilitating the creation of products

That's in theory only. In practice communism develops just like crony capitalism does.

Re: A college student reached $64k/mo in 6 months by being an AI first mover

#92

Post by kag0 » Thu, May 25, 2023, 1:22 AM UTC

atonse wrote: post #20

_gfwu wrote: post #13

>"It made it very clear that my goal of making $10k a month from a side project is not a crazy goal to have." Honestly that entire interview just reveals how much of that poor guys thinking is already infected by the virus called capitalism. Accumulating personal wealth shouldn't be the end goal here. It's short-sighted and perpetuates the very system that created inequality and injustice in the first place. Instead…

(genuinely asking) Is there another theoretical system that properly incentivizes people to compete with each other, innovate, and take risks to solve problems? I ask in the "build new solutions" space – we all know there are plenty of rent-seeking businesses that add no value but just take money from everyone. I'm not trying to defend any of that. I'm only asking in the case of "people doing new, innovative things a…

There are a lot, the most mainstream are going to fall under "socialism". But to give you a specific answer, check out "Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy". It's a debate between Robin Hahnel and Erik Olin Wright around their personal ideas.

More broadly speaking, any number of systems could compensate people for innovation and problem solving (note I don't think competition should be rewarded in its own right, and risk taking isn't necessary in many systems) by providing them an elevated quality of life. The main difference to our capitalist system today is that rather than trying to accumulate as much personal capital as possible, value created from innovation would only go to the individual as needed to incentivize them. The rest would go to improving the world and lives of the people around them. Of course this requires the individual have some agency in that improvement, which we find lacking in the Soviet Union or other failed communist states.

Re: A college student reached $64k/mo in 6 months by being an AI first mover

#93

Post by kirso » Thu, May 25, 2023, 1:54 AM UTC

koochi10 wrote: post #39

I know this crowd / silicon valley is accustom to these kinds of stories. But we should remember that this is a college kid, who saw an opportunity and took initiative to build a business. The comments here are WAY too critical. We should celebrate these kinds of stories, instead of nitpicking. Additionally these 'A.I apps are just gold rush' comments are too dismissive about the potential. It may be that there are s…

I think this is the biggest misconception that VC world has created, the notion that you need to innovate, have an original idea or build something new on top of a new technology trend.

If you look around you still have companies making millions with shitty SAP like ERP software from the 90s.

The problem is that when you live in your bubble, you don't tend to notice the problems other people have.

For a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Re: A college student reached $64k/mo in 6 months by being an AI first mover

#94

Post by kirso » Thu, May 25, 2023, 6:53 AM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #40

My first thought was: Good on him, that's solid revenue. My second thought was: This sounds like another idea that could easily be killed off by Google or similar companies, if they just add a "this is googlebert, your personalized analysis robot - just link your website/upload docs and ask away!" function. Or this kind of functionality simply becomes part of the batteries included package for ChatGPT etc.

Great, but let him fail on that learn and build something else or try to defend.

These kind of predictions are pointless IMO. Just look at how many products Google killed because there is no mass audience for it. Not even talking about Google+

Re: A college student reached $64k/mo in 6 months by being an AI first mover

#95

Post by tasuki » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:19 AM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #40

My first thought was: Good on him, that's solid revenue. My second thought was: This sounds like another idea that could easily be killed off by Google or similar companies, if they just add a "this is googlebert, your personalized analysis robot - just link your website/upload docs and ask away!" function. Or this kind of functionality simply becomes part of the batteries included package for ChatGPT etc.

> This sounds like another idea that could easily be killed off by Google or similar companies

Are there any ideas out there that could not be easily overtaken by Google or similar?

Re: A college student reached $64k/mo in 6 months by being an AI first mover

#96

Post by abxytg » Thu, May 25, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

cddotdotslash wrote: post #33

abxytg wrote: post #8

there is literally a "how to" in the open AI api docs for the exact use case. I need to be more shameless the next go around.

I’ve seen this argument repeatedly. The example is just that - an example. It doesn’t cover anything related to productionizing the application, dealing with user management, rate limits, cost controls, hosting the service, data persistence, documentation, billing, marketing, or any of the other 100 things you need to do to turn a simple script into a product that people are willing to pay for, trust with their data,…

theres no argument. They productionized a docs example, something I did consider too shameless to try. Wish I had tried. Kudos to this dev he is rolling in the cash.