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Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

businessinsider.com

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Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#121

Post by wolvesechoes »

megaloblasto wrote: post #107
wolvesechoes wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, on the other hand, tried to vibe-code BDF-like ODE solver. Not some rough prototype, because I can do the rough prototype easily myself, but something robust and fast, with event handling etc. AI couldn't do it. Actually it couldn't do correctly anything more complex than out-of-the-textbook explicit RK4, but this is something undergrad students do while learning numerical methods for the first time. And solvers a…

I see what your saying but I would argue that vibe coding an ODE solver is an incorrect use of the tool. For something like and ODE solver you need to have a really solid understanding of what data structures you will use,and solid general knowledge of the numerical methods you want to implement. Then, you can use AI as an assistant when you get stuck, or to deepen your understanding, look over your implementation, e…

But that is the case - I know how to implement production-ready ODE solver. My issue with AI was that it was able to help with basics, but not with those really important bits, so it couldn't really deepen much.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#122

Post by another_twist »

sitkack wrote: post #52
xenotux wrote: post #19

Coding as such is seldom a bottleneck to begin with. How many times have you been in a conversation along the lines of "we have every detail of the product figured out, but we need another month for the coders to finish writing the code"? The bottlenecks are almost always elsewhere. Design, quality assurance and debugging, art assets, localizations, hiring, performance management, you name it. And to be fair, AI can…

> quality assurance and debugging Saying the quiet part out loud. What kind of engineering org outsources this? 80% of engineering is confirming your design works, otherwise it is just LARPing.

My thoughts exactly. Most of my coding is actually writing the tests or coming up with a proper harness to check behaviour of the code. Then of course there's other stuff like operations playbook if you are introducing new infrastructure. I have usually worked in environments where ops, q/a, design, code was the full job. First time I worked with explicit SREs it was a bit weird to give people specific commands to run without an overview of the system.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#123

Post by another_twist »

pan69 wrote: post #106

I work in a large enterprise where they are jumping on the product manager bandwagon as well. Personally I don't mind the idea of this role but, similar to the product owner role, it seems to be an invention of consultancies as a way to place high-energy high-billable resources at cash rich companies. So, now we're getting all these "hustlers" being onboarded who eventually don't do much other than parading around an…

I have worked in large companies with dedicated PM roles and mostly had a pleasant experience. Except a few instances with "real alpha male" energy who wanted me to explain myself. Fortunately this was over Zoom so I explained the problem (I had caused it) and then exited the call. Feature ultimately got delivered, was used and so I was promoted.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#124

Post by another_twist »

riazrizvi wrote: post #7

It’s actually outreach and business development but yeah it’s not coding or product development anymore. Why? because AI makes it easier to make credible sounding stuff, to maintain the appearance of progress, making it harder to tell who’s the real deal. So everyone is drowning in spammish AI. We all see it in recruiting (in all directions), it’s happening too in sales. On top of this there’s also a confounding fact…

Thats the thing. When coding does get automated my AI, software infra companies without hardware moats will be wiped out.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#125

Post by aleph_minus_one »

megaloblasto wrote: post #107
wolvesechoes wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, on the other hand, tried to vibe-code BDF-like ODE solver. Not some rough prototype, because I can do the rough prototype easily myself, but something robust and fast, with event handling etc. AI couldn't do it. Actually it couldn't do correctly anything more complex than out-of-the-textbook explicit RK4, but this is something undergrad students do while learning numerical methods for the first time. And solvers a…

I see what your saying but I would argue that vibe coding an ODE solver is an incorrect use of the tool. For something like and ODE solver you need to have a really solid understanding of what data structures you will use,and solid general knowledge of the numerical methods you want to implement. Then, you can use AI as an assistant when you get stuck, or to deepen your understanding, look over your implementation, e…

> For something like and ODE solver you need to have a really solid understanding of what data structures you will use,and solid general knowledge of the numerical methods you want to implement.

For basically every thing you program, you need to have a really solid understanding of what data structures you will use, and solid general knowledge of the methods you want to implement.

I claim that as a conservative estimate at least 90 % (likely more than 95 %) of what I code at work (and even more for what I code privately) is of this kind.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#126

Post by dbattaglia »

betaby wrote: post #10

If AI is that good, can someone code a good XML library with AI? The spec is available. If AI is that good, there should be an explosion of Open Source projects of good quality. Neither of those is happening.

I imagine the folks in the article and others like it are not building libraries and foundational infrastructure but rather cranking out SaaS startup ideas and CRUD web apps. I find that kind of coding really can go quite fast using AI, particularly if you are building it from zero and not worrying about all the existing quirks of a large codebase or creating technical debt.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#127

Post by potamic »

LtWorf wrote: post #59
jayd16 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the nomenclature is malevolently vague. PM conflates product management with project management and they are not the same.

But what's the difference? Does anyone actually know?

Product management is what you want to do, project management is what you actually do, program management is what you say you do.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#128

Post by ivape »

dcreater wrote: post #26
shubhamjain wrote: post #8

"This tool 10x the productivity of software engineers" "GREAT! That means we can fire the people who do the actual work, and replace them with MBA robots, who neither understand nor care about making a good product" Pardon my pessimism, but in my whole career, I have never met a PM who actual did the work of driving the product vision. Most were just middlemen shuttling information between management, marketing, desi…

The PM discipline has unfortunately maldeveloped as a place for souless MBAs, engineering degree holders who dont want to be engineers or both. Actual Product people are a small minority Its a tragedy as its undervalued - I firmly believe apples products are significantly worse if their engineers led it. Jobs made those products

The PM discipline has unfortunately maldeveloped as a place for souless MBAs, engineering degree

It’s much less qualified people. Much much less.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#129

Post by o11ywhisperer »

hopelite wrote: post #65
shubhamjain wrote: post #8

"This tool 10x the productivity of software engineers" "GREAT! That means we can fire the people who do the actual work, and replace them with MBA robots, who neither understand nor care about making a good product" Pardon my pessimism, but in my whole career, I have never met a PM who actual did the work of driving the product vision. Most were just middlemen shuttling information between management, marketing, desi…

I suspect what you are really lamenting is the effects of poor leadership that does not grant a "product manager" (which is really a misnomer) the authority and autonomy to be a "product manager". As you imply, that role is really more a director role, not a manager role. A manager managers, a director directs, including the vision and product market fit. Most Product Managers I see do not have that authority at all,…

As a Product Manager (not Program or Project), this has been my lived experience of the devolution of the profession.

We want PMs to understand the market, the tech, the customer, and the economic value of building a product.

We then ask them to tell us when it will be built, down to the discrete feature and function, be a technical expert for the field and engineering in the product space, ask them to convey the roadmap and timeline to customers and prospects, build reports about everything from utilization to capacity, save deals by changing timelines for “just this one feature”, participate in product marketing, and understand how their product space co-exists in the complex product offerings from a company.

“You are the Chief Product Officer for your product!” is the promise and rallying cry. That’s not an accurate description of what most PMs do and even fewer are capable of doing.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#130

Post by UncleMeat »

shubhamjain wrote: post #8

"This tool 10x the productivity of software engineers" "GREAT! That means we can fire the people who do the actual work, and replace them with MBA robots, who neither understand nor care about making a good product" Pardon my pessimism, but in my whole career, I have never met a PM who actual did the work of driving the product vision. Most were just middlemen shuttling information between management, marketing, desi…

I have worked with a few PMs that have been significant helps to my job but LLMs have completely destroyed my ability to work with them. "Oh I asked an AI to put together a demo for this idea and I presented it to leadership. When can you have it finished?" This is now a constant refrain, with LLMs seemingly convincing every PM I know that it is trivial to put together a reliable and maintainable system. "Oh let's just launch this and we'll fast follow with the maintainable infrastructure" and I want to blow my brains out.
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