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How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator
131–140 of 237 posts
Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator
#132> Going through YC’s startup directory reveals that of the 170 startups in the most recent summer batch 154 are AI startups. The author calculates this by searching for the term "AI" in the name and description of each startup's YC page. But presence of the term "AI" doesn't make a startup an "AI startup," so to speak. For example, I picked one startup at random, Topological, which is "developing physics-based founda…
Sort of like how so many people having nothing to do with "AI/ML" on Linkedin put "AI/ML" in their Headline. I always wondered if that even works, do people get found/recruited/hired more for having that?
It's a fool's game to go looking for signal/value on LI. It's an echo chamber of group delusion & fake it till you make it. Use it when you need a new job and avoid like measles the rest of the time.
Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
LLMs are good at prototyping something that is similar to something that already exists and is open sourced. It may be that there are such projects which can be monetized or need better marketing. Innovative it is not, however.
I don't understand this position. LLMs are good at prototyping using data across _all_ similar projects that exist. It is not a 1-1 copy. Most frontend is a dozen components. Most backend again is a handful of architectures when it comes to DB/business logic, CRUD. It goes to say that if you can guide the LLM to build something innovative you can think of, it will put those components together in a reasonable way - g…
Exactly. One could build the new video platform with revolutionary customer facing features. The tech stack will likely be the same. Some frontend, some backend maybe some calls to an endpoint that happens to be an LLM.
Startups that typically end up in incubators etc are not about new fundamental systems (languages, frameworks, theoretical methodologies etc), but rather about new products.
Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
i disagree. if your product or business model are tied to the use of AI so much that you put AI in your description, then you are an AI company.
By that metric, every single software company is now an AI company. I can't think of a SINGLE company (except ours maybe, only because we haven't updated our website yet, not because we don't want to) that doesn't vomit AI terms _everywhere_ in their product messaging. I don't know whether consumers/buyers are demanding that, or what. But it seems everywhere and in every discipline. It's in research grant application…
I agree with the GP and you - every company IS desperate to be an AI company today. They've been told three things: 1. this time it's different, 2. AI is disrupting everything, 3. if you don't disrupt yourself someone else will.
# 1 has been said repeatedly before every previous AI winter.
#2 is a lie from people trying to sell you something and the FOMOs parroting the same line.
#3 someone is going to disrupt you regardless, and it's impossible to disrupt yourself (unless you're prepared to stop doing everything that made you successful in the first place)
Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator
#135YC remains a great source of creative inspiration for me. However, I tend to skip most AI-related content on HN, as the topic does more harm than good to me in my daily life. Some people around me delegate more and more decisions to the chat, and that frightens. Especially if you are somehow dependent on them or your work gets evaluated by some creepy AI-driven bossware. We should admit that AI, particularly LLMs, is…
Not sure about destroying everything. Def benefitting few at the great, great expense of the many. But trickle down benefits are a thing. And I see no way to avoid the future; the genie’s out the bottle.
Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator
#136Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
"AI startups." Only around 10% of them will succeed at best. If a massive crash happens then it would be 2% at best.
So like internet startups in the 90s. Like .com in the late 90s. Like social media startups in the late 2000s/2010s. It's all cycles. Every bubble is talked about on HN (and similar sites) because that's the purpose of sites like this.
maybe a big difference is those hype cycles were net-positive for developers. This is the first one in a while that has VCs and upper management salivating with the idea of cutting all the devs lose. Who do YOU think this is likely to replace first, technical developers or administrators?
Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator
#138"How paid subscriptions ate the spread of information" I can't subscribe to another site and seems the archive link is not working for me either. Would love to read it though because while YCombinator just follows where they see the money being, AI has really seen the majority of investment recently. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/industry/investing Just doing a search for "AI" its clear there is a preference.…
pretty entitled take. why use the phrasing about subscriptions preventing spread of information instead of something like "stingy readers preventing authors from eating"
Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator
#139Bubble or not, AI is eating everything , not just YC. In particular, I've noticed the topic of AI is eating up corporate meetings, turning them into a kind of human slop.
AI (or specifically LLM-related) seems to have sucked so much oxygen out of the room that it's harder to focus on other things. I moved on about 18 months ago and I'd like to work as an analyst again on some other things but AI seems to pretty much dominate the conversation. I'm not disinterested in AI but it seems to simultaneously be the topic with the most interest and the most noise.
I've been exhausted by this for at least a year, so much so that (for a big part) I left my good job in August. The past 7 weeks have been amazing!
Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator
#140[deleted]