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Bain tests software takeover targets by vibecoding AI replicas

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Re: Bain tests software takeover targets by vibecoding AI replicas

#31

Post by budsniffer952 »

moregrist wrote: post #28
danesparza wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software consulting has been around for a very long time. Decades. It has always been overpriced and had huge margins. I think what management consultants are really afraid of is being replaced. By AI.

> It has always been overpriced and had huge margins. This is the engineer’s take on things. I am entirely sympathetic to it. I also think it missed a lot of what management values in consulting. At its best, you can offload a lot of things unrelated to your business to people who are experts. At its worst, you’ve offloaded the blame to a group of over-worked twenty-something’s with impressive degrees who have no ide…

Ah yes, the old trope of "consultants are only there to take the blame". Sure.

Having done a stint in consulting, most internal software teams are useless, that's why these companies hire outsiders. They are sick of having to deal with stubborn teams who think they know everything, and refuse to change. You can see that mentality in these threads.

Re: Bain tests software takeover targets by vibecoding AI replicas

#32

Post by budsniffer952 »

rectang wrote: post #22
rich_sasha wrote: post #4

Is the future of software really vibe coded by management consultants..?

"Make my web app secure."

In case you've had your head in the sand for the past 6 months, AI is finding vulnerabilities in all kinds of software written by humans.

So, yes, asking an AI to secure your app is going to be much better than what the average dev churns out.

Re: Bain tests software takeover targets by vibecoding AI replicas

#33

Post by budsniffer952 »

claytongulick wrote: post #20
peder wrote: post #9

I mean, this is just basic smart investing today. Software is now very easily replicable, and you wouldn't want to invest in software that has absolutely no moat. At a minimum, this gives Bain more leverage when negotiating with these companies.

> Software is now very easily replicable How? Do you mean by AI? I haven't seen any evidence of this. It was always possible to get code generated at large volumes for low cost (offshore/outsource market) but we didn't see this upend or replace many (if any) software companies. In my experience it had the opposite effect - companies that replaced talented internal teams ended up suffering. LLM generated code is simil…

Imagine saying with a straight face "we've always had code generation tools like LLMs".

Re: Bain tests software takeover targets by vibecoding AI replicas

#34

Post by RIMR »

xnx wrote: post #18

Very good idea. For every company that is valuable because of software + knowledge + service + loyal customers there are a dozen that only exist because of weak competition and inertia. Easy to imagine there are a lot of software products that could be cloned and out-competed by taking 15% profit margin instead of 50%.

So a dedicated team of engineers creates a functional product, and you plagiarize it so you can have all the profit for yourself?

Only a "good idea" if you're a thief with no original ideas.

Re: Bain tests software takeover targets by vibecoding AI replicas

#35

Post by [deleted] »

rich_sasha wrote: post #12
alistairSH wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic CRUD apps? Sure, why not. Anything substantially new will still require an engineer in the loop. Specifically, if a new design pattern, archtecture, etc is required. AI can only build on its training material - it can't yet have original thoughts.

I can still think of many reasons why not.

[deleted]

Re: Bain tests software takeover targets by vibecoding AI replicas

#36

Post by citizenpaul »

hackingonempty wrote: post #19

This is like saying Twitter isn't worth much because every web framework tutorial produces a "Twitter clone."

IDK. The internet is full of examples of platform max exodus's. This may actually be a killer idea that will finally challenge the tech oligarchy power. I think we are in for a turbulent future. The FANNG/MANGO companies have essentially never had any real challenge to their dominace. We are about to enter an era where they will be challenged for the first time. I don't think they will be nice about it and we will see their true non altruistic colors. Especially Google and Apple which have lost their halos but are still considered "good actors" by many.

Re: Bain tests software takeover targets by vibecoding AI replicas

#38

Post by woah »

moregrist wrote: post #28
danesparza wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software consulting has been around for a very long time. Decades. It has always been overpriced and had huge margins. I think what management consultants are really afraid of is being replaced. By AI.

> It has always been overpriced and had huge margins. This is the engineer’s take on things. I am entirely sympathetic to it. I also think it missed a lot of what management values in consulting. At its best, you can offload a lot of things unrelated to your business to people who are experts. At its worst, you’ve offloaded the blame to a group of over-worked twenty-something’s with impressive degrees who have no ide…

I did some software consulting years ago. Were we overpriced? Probably. But I also saw why we were brought in:

- A TDD loop where the Indian QA team played the role of the tests. The engineers would yeet some broken code at the end of the day, the poor QA testers would click through all the broken interfaces, and then the engineers would fix it the next day.

- A release process that was so slow and hellish that everyone just went to the DBA to have him add a stored procedure to implement their feature. He could get it in for you the next day.

- A frontend framework discussed in hushed tones, being built by a mysterious monk-like engineer, which was going to be the client's big secret weapon. In reality it was a terrible version of React built on top of jQuery.

- A core in-group of backend devs (most of these guys had advanced degrees for some reason), who would stay late every Friday, going through heroics to do a release of the client's email-templating app. There would be then be lots of back-slapping and congratulations the next Monday for these geniuses who were keeping the business afloat.

- "when in doubt, set timeout". They didn't know about callbacks

Usually consultants are brought in when upper management can tell that there is something very wrong and they can't fix it within the chain of command of their full-time staff.

Re: Bain tests software takeover targets by vibecoding AI replicas

#39

Post by paul7986 »

hackingonempty wrote: post #19

This is like saying Twitter isn't worth much because every web framework tutorial produces a "Twitter clone."

I CALL FOR ANTIARCHY AGAINST AI!

ALL PROGRAMMERS and VIBE CODERS use AI against itself ... vibe code systems that forces AI to pay all of humans for our content! Without our content AI is irrelevant! Why are we giving our content/souls to it freely now so it thrives and we do not??

Re: Bain tests software takeover targets by vibecoding AI replicas

#40

Post by claytongulick »

budsniffer952 wrote: post #33
claytongulick wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software is now very easily replicable How? Do you mean by AI? I haven't seen any evidence of this. It was always possible to get code generated at large volumes for low cost (offshore/outsource market) but we didn't see this upend or replace many (if any) software companies. In my experience it had the opposite effect - companies that replaced talented internal teams ended up suffering. LLM generated code is simil…

Imagine saying with a straight face "we've always had code generation tools like LLMs".

Yes, we have, though that wasn't my point - I was comparing LLMs to offshore development.

But since you bring it up, those of us that have been around a while have used many code generation tools that took care of tedious work like model creation, forms, validation, class creation, CRUD, component creation, project skeletons, starter templates, visual design tools that generate code, etc... etc... basically most of the stuff that LLMs are good at. Simple things that are tedious and don't require much thought - the sorts of things that statistical pattern matchers like LLMs are good at.

The rest of it, the stuff that requires thoughtful architecture and reasoning is where LLMs fall flat and mostly end up costing time. The research supports this.

So yep, my face is indeed quite straight.

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