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After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

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Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#141

Post by tracerbulletx »

JDazzle wrote: post #134

It's strange that their buzzwords are "to democratize programming"... isn't that already done very well with all the online free tools, documentation, tutorials, learning paths, etc? Both AI and traditional programming paths share the same initial huge obstacle which is full access to a computer and the internet? I'm not sure how AI is democratizing programming

Pretty much every company that says that eventually ends up spending 100% of the time catering to and trying to sign enterprises, and actively disdains supporting individual customers.

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#142

Post by forgingahead »

Retric wrote: post #131
forgingahead wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilariously naive comment - "if you have money you should spend it on salaries". This is not a charity, it's a transaction, the salary is paid in exchange for revenue generating activities or supporting activities in a viable business. If the business is only doing 2.7mill in ARR, then it's entirely valid for the whole lot to get laid off.

It’s not about being a charity, the entire point of startups is to trade capital for time to market. If the CEO doesn’t know what to do with 130 people they don’t know what to do with 70.

What are you talking about? How does it follow that "if they don't know what to do with 130, they also don't know what to do with 70"? This is literally capital allocation, the decision was that the people laid off couldn't be deployed effectively within this particular org. But maybe they would be effective elsewhere. Don't take this stuff personally, else the working world will always be difficult.

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#143

Post by ahf8Aithaex7Nai »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #75
fredfsh wrote: post #56

> But the technical achievement wasn’t translating into revenue growth, and by last year, with the company at 130 employees and burning through cash, Masad said he had to make a painful decision. “I looked at our burn, and I looked at our progress on our revenue chart, and it just didn’t make any sense. The business wasn’t viable.” Replit cut its headcount by 50%, bringing it down to around 60 to 70 people at its low…

Its a business, not a charity. Just because they have money doesnt mean they should spend on people who arent contributing to the bottom line.

This has nothing to do with charity. Every employee can contribute to the bottom line. It is the company's responsibility to organize and empower its employees in such a way that added value is created. If this is not achieved, the employees have still given up their time and must be compensated for it.

You are welcome to optimize your processes so that you no longer need any employees. But society will still consist of people who need money. And if you don't pass on the surplus you have accumulated in the form of salaries, they will get what they need from you by other means.

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#144

Post by ahf8Aithaex7Nai »

almostgotcaught wrote: post #101
SadTrombone wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What information do you have that they weren't contributing to the bottom line?

What information do you have that they were contributing to the bottom line?

The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim (even if implicitly), not with the person questioning the claim.

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#145

Post by ctkhn »

sillyfluke wrote: post #44
ctkhn wrote: post #38

If OpenAI and Anthropic's models are good enough at coding to make coding agents useful for non-technical employees Replit is targeting, why can't either of those companies use their AI to build a wrapper around their product as good or better than Replit? Has this guy never taken n -> infinity in a problem before?

OpenAI taking an interest wouldn't be so bad for Replit. Since YC boasts that being incestuous is an upside of YC, ie selling your product to other YC companies, it is possible that OpenAI does the decent thing an outright buys Replit. It is rather likely that Altman and Masad have some sort of relationship going back to their YC days.

Why would OpenAI buy Replit? My point is, if Sam's model is so great and advanced, it should be able to autonomously code a replacement. Or Cursor, or any of the others.

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#146

Post by vanviegen »

shash wrote: post #117
vanviegen wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, let's forbid startups! /s

Yeah, the point here is nuanced, but let's do an argumentum ad absurdum instead /s Probably the _best_ advice I got from the entire startup community is, "don't scale without PMF". The saving grace here is that they didn't scale beyond 140 people, so the damage is limited. And they didn't double down on something that would have dropped the whole thing down. But as a founder, I'd consider it a failure of planning on…

That's not an argumentum ad absurdum. The whole point of a startup is to try to build a business based on a as-of-yet unproven business model, which usually involves hiring people.

If you need that many people to (dis)prove viability.. I don't know. Hard to judge from the outside, though easy to judge in hindsight.

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