Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 725 posts

Re: I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch

#331

Post by rglover »

DannyBee wrote: post #249

I get this is basically advice for young founders and entrepreneurs, but i would ignore that request and encourage 17 year olds to spend time trying to find a happy medium between work and life. Being a super rich and an unhappy workaholic, or a super-impressive engineer who wakes up one day at 45 and realizes they regret wasting half their life (I ran into way too many of these) is a much worse fate than "not being…

Thank you. They need human contact, not more "sit in a room alone and get stressed as fuck for little ROI" tech bullshit. Unless the kid has a genuine, self-motivated interest in learning these things (a great, positive thing that should be nurtured), they should file pg's advice under "ok boomer."

Re: I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch

#332

Post by paulryanrogers »

nextaccountic wrote: post #273
bmacho wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like looking at the early internet and then suggesting teenagers should write browsers as their projects instead of webpages.

If someone writes a browser in their teens, they will probably learn more about the web than if they were just writing web pages

They'll learn so much more that won't transfer to as many job opportunities. For ex, say more about C++ and less about cutting edge CSS (because modern browser tech is an ocean). I suppose they might luck into other adjacent or unrelated roles with the same skills.

Re: I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch

#333

Post by paulryanrogers »

enos_feedler wrote: post #293
serbuvlad wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you learnt to build a browser in 2000 you're probably doing well for yourself lol. Not a lot of demand, but also probably not a lot of supply.

For this example, if you built a browser in 2000 it would put you in a great position to launch android in 2008. I think this is pg’s point. You spend all this time learning the interesting bits and when an inflection comes along that makes a new product or service possible you could be the one to likely launch it

Each new bet will be expensive and depend less on technical merit than luck and having a backup so your family doesn't starve.

Re: I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch

#334

Post by paulryanrogers »

paulcole wrote: post #280
zorked wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an entire graveyward of browsers, almost all that didn't die are now forgotten.

If any were built by teenagers, I’d imagine those teenagers ended up with pretty good careers in technology?

For every wunderkind that has a long career there's also plenty who are overlooked or peak early.

Re: I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch

#335

Post by y-curious »

greenowl wrote: post #328

Yeah, no way. I'd move to the middle of nowhere and work multiple jobs on a farm and in construction. Learn how to grow food, and build things. Meet the farmer's daughter, and marry her. Then, buy my own land, grow my own food, and build my own things.

Slight problem with step “buy my own land”. Your working 2 blue collar jobs and paying rent are incompatible with this plan.

Re: I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch

#336

Post by brainless »

Why is it important to train LLMs or even fine-tune them? LLMs have proven their point, costs are crashing, and there are more of them than most companies need.

The real value is to unlock meaningful insights and directions from existing data that is there inside companies.

I live far outside any tech city, so maybe I do not understand. But working with LLMs full-time, building for clients and tons of own experiments, I see no value in building on LLMs.

Re: I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch

#339

Post by tedggh »

oersted wrote: post #13

There's this dilemma where in theory there's a ton of demand for engineers that can do real LLM machine-learning, but in practice there are very few available positions and entrepreneurship opportunities. The reality is that an incredibly small minority of companies in the world do any real training or optimisation. It's unnecessary and inefficient for most purposes unless you are fully dedicated to being an LLM comp…

I have always been pro fundamentals. It caused me trouble early in my career with bosses that didn’t understand why I would spend time trying to understand how something worked at a low level if I was a high level user. But then knowing the fundamentals gave me an edge as a designer and developer by understanding capabilities and limitations of the tools I was using. For example understanding how indexes work internally in a relational database. So I see the value in this type of work, not to land a job as a LLM researcher, but as an informed user of the tool.

Re: I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch

#340

Post by brainless »

greenowl wrote: post #328

Yeah, no way. I'd move to the middle of nowhere and work multiple jobs on a farm and in construction. Learn how to grow food, and build things. Meet the farmer's daughter, and marry her. Then, buy my own land, grow my own food, and build my own things.

I already do this. I live in a small village where there isn't even a wired Internet connection (wireless only). I work full-time with LLMs, on own product ideas and client projects (all LLM led).

I started investing in farms, have 50 pigs and 100+ chickens now. We are planning to grow to 100 pigs and 2000 chickens in a year. We will start growing Shiitake mushrooms in a few months too.

Post reply on HN