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Claude for Small Business

anthropic.com

141–150 of 524 posts

Re: Claude for Small Business

#141
post #105

I'm increasingly convinced that there's a killer app waiting for whoever can come up with a UI that makes claude code or codex accessible to the average user. Onboarding my non-software engineer teammates to it has super-charged them and essentially given them all their own personal developer that can automate tasks for them. Managing codebases, etc. is still a hassle though. 90% of the power of Excel was that it was…

I wouldn't want to build a business that was so dependent on a massive third-party that can either cut off my access or copy my design at any time of their choosing.

I was thinking about this and there are several aspects that can still make this viable. 1) AI labs are incentivised to increase token consumption because literally that's their product. The only thing they sell AFIAK are tokens (and maybe a teensy bit of user data). So if you build a product that is actively reducing token consumption (which they simply cannot do without hurting themselves even if their marketing fluff says otherwise) you'll save large amounts of money for your customers and they'll choose you. 2) Big providers want to funnel every prompt into their servers. If you're in a regulated market or simply don't want to share every detail with an American or Chinese megacorp you are in trouble. BUT open weight models are now quite capable for "small business stuff" and they can be self hosted. If you can bundle this into your service, in other words actually care about their privacy, they will choose you. Even more so if you're in Europe.

Re: Claude for Small Business

#142
post #120
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Onboarding my non-software engineer teammates to it has super-charged them and essentially given them all their own personal developer that can automate tasks for them. This is probably fine as long as the code is acting on local resources. The moment you have vibe coded software interacting with shared state or database the risk increases exponentially and all it takes to have a bad day is a poorly worded prompt f…

> Claude, fix the bug. Make no mistakes. /s

You forgot to add "you are an expert software engineer with PhD level architecture insights".

Re: Claude for Small Business

#143
post #137
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same as anything else. It’ll go down sometimes, people will take a break and chat, then it will come back up. Like Slack or GitHub or AWS or whatever. It’s almost always a net positive to wait vs do it yourself.

I'm more scared at everyone outsourcing their thinking to a private, for-profit company. What could possibly go wrong.

Thinking, yes, but also secrets, access and effective control of important services in every country and company worldwide, centralized in the US (or anywhere else) where the NSA can take the driver's seat at any time. "AI" is the ultimate sleeper agent.

Re: Claude for Small Business

#145
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that makes claude code or codex accessible to the average user That's what they aim Claude Cowork at. Every executive/leader I've shown Claude Cowork to has gone from 'what is AI' to 'vibecoding whole apps' in weeks. Then when Claude is down for an hour, they get visibly angry and don't remember how to do anything pre-Claude :) I understand the impulse to provide a UI to manage codebases, etc. But my observation is…

> Then when Claude is down for an hour, they get visibly angry and don't remember how to do anything pre-Claude :) The drug is scary when everyone is depending on it. I wonder what is future like.

Imagine what happens if computers stop working* and you have to go back to pen and paper for a few days.

* ransomware attack, fire in the server room, database HDD crash, car accident takes out the internet connection, ...

Re: Claude for Small Business

#146
post #127

> Claude helps take the late-night work off their plates. This is dangerous. Relying on so much of your business on a third party. We've seen this many times before where businesses get destroyed because something gets broken somewhere that they have outsourced and have no control over. In my view this service should not be used, unless there is a local llm or clear manual alternative. Then the question begs - Why us…

> D.3. Limitations of Outputs; Notice to Users. It is Customer’s responsibility to evaluate whether Outputs are appropriate for Customer’s use case, including where human review is appropriate, before using or sharing Outputs. Customer acknowledges, and must notify its Users, that factual assertions in Outputs should not be relied upon without independently checking their accuracy, as they may be false, incomplete, m…

It is a far bit tougher to actually get the clankers to speak accurately. I understand the legal perspective, with OpenAI talking about depression use cases, these companies who are running computers for users have to worry the software might harm the user(through themselves) and the leagl fallout needs protected.

It amazes me that we are going to litigate this like they did with cars over horses, or machines vs human labor. I honestly don't think Claude should be running companies.

Re: Claude for Small Business

#147
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then when Claude is down for an hour, they get visibly angry and don't remember how to do anything pre-Claude :) The drug is scary when everyone is depending on it. I wonder what is future like.

Seems far less scary to me than, say, building an electrical grid in a cold climate, where if it fails for a few days people start to die. Oh wait...

Why would they die in cold climate? I would expect them to die in hot climate (no AC - heat stroke, no refrigerator - food poisoning), not the cold where they would have wood/gas heating.

Re: Claude for Small Business

#148
> As part of our public benefit mission, we are committed to helping business owners harness AI more fully and effectively for their most important work.

That's rich. What public benefit mission? The benefit of extracting money from the public?

Re: Claude for Small Business

#149

My initial take is bad idea because those people don't have the kind of security hygiene instincts that make CC a sane choice for coders.

You say that as if a tonne of people haven't already hooked their agents up to all their services on YOLO mode.

Yeah that's what I'm saying. I would only recommend CC to people who I know are smart enough to not shoot their feet off.

Re: Claude for Small Business

#150
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that makes claude code or codex accessible to the average user That's what they aim Claude Cowork at. Every executive/leader I've shown Claude Cowork to has gone from 'what is AI' to 'vibecoding whole apps' in weeks. Then when Claude is down for an hour, they get visibly angry and don't remember how to do anything pre-Claude :) I understand the impulse to provide a UI to manage codebases, etc. But my observation is…

> Then when Claude is down for an hour, they get visibly angry and don't remember how to do anything pre-Claude :) The drug is scary when everyone is depending on it. I wonder what is future like.

> The drug is scary when everyone is depending on it. I wonder what is future like.

I can't wait for a Hollywood blockbuster that'll pretty much be science non-fiction.

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