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AI is ushering in a “tiny team” era

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Re: AI is ushering in a “tiny team” era

#151

Post by csa »

delusional wrote: post #57
spacemadness wrote: post #45

I think we’re going to have to deal with the stories of shareholders wetting themselves over more layoffs more than we’re going to see higher quality software produced. Everyone is claiming huge productivity gains but generally software quality and new products being created seem at best unchanged. Where is all this new amazing software? It’s time to stop all the talk and show something. I don’t care that your SQL qu…

This has been an industry wide problem at silicon valley for years now. For all their talks of changing the world, what we've gotten the last decade has been taxi and hotel apps. Nothing truly revolutionizing.

> what we've gotten the last decade has been taxi and hotel apps. Nothing truly revolutionizing.

I’m not sure where you are from, but this is not my perspective from Northern California.

1. Apps in general, and Uber in particular, have very much revolutionized the part-time work landscape via gig work. There are plenty of criticisms of gig work if/when people try to do it full time, but as a replacement for part time work, it’s incredible. I always try to strike up a conversation with my uber drivers about what they like about driving, and I have gotten quite a few “make my own schedule” and “earn/save for special things” (e.g., vacations, hobby items, etc.). Many young people I know love the flexibility of the gig apps for part-time work, as the pay is essentially market rate or better for their skill set, and they get to set their own schedule.

2. AirBnB has revolutionized housing. It’s easier for folks to realize the middle class dream of buying an house and renting it out fractionally (by the room). I’ve met several people who have spun up a a few of these. Related, mid-term rentals (e.g., weeks or months rather than days or years) are much easier to arrange now than they were 20 years ago. AirBnBs have also created some market efficiency by pricing properties competitively. Note that I think that many of these changes are actually bad (e.g., it’s tougher to buy a house where I am), but it’s revolutionary nonetheless.

Re: AI is ushering in a “tiny team” era

#152

Post by A1kmm »

ryandrake wrote: post #7

It seems like a more and more recurring shareholder wet dream that companies could one day just be AI employees for digital things + robotic employees for physical things + maybe a human CEO "orchestrating" everything. No more icky employees siphoning off what should rightfully be profit for the owners. It's like this is some kind of moral imperative that business is always kind of low-key working towards. Are you ri…

To side-track on your soup company analogy...

For almost all businesses these days, distribution (getting customers to know about your product and have access to it) is much harder than actually creating the product.

There are gatekeepers to getting audience - whether it is is supermarkets, search engines, big players in the ad tech industry, well established websites, and traditional media. And they all see profitability of businesses benefiting from them for distribution as money left on the table.

Re: AI is ushering in a “tiny team” era

#153

Post by MoonGhost »

eloisant wrote: post #143
WXLCKNO wrote: post #8

I'm working on a bunch of different projects trying out new stuff all the time for the past six months. Every time I do something I add another layer of AI automation/enhancement to my personal dev setup with the goal of trying to see how much I can extend my own ability to produce while delivering high quality projects. I definitely wouldn't say I'm 10x of what I could do before across the board but a solid 2-3x ave…

That's not really new, the small teams in the 2000's with web frameworks like Rails were able to do as a team of 5 what needed a 50 people team in the 90's. Or even as a week-end solo project. What happened it that it because the new norm, and the window were you could charge the work of 50 people for a team of 5 was short. Some teams cut the prices to gain marketshare and we were back to usual revenue per employee.…

That's what Amazon is doing. They simply increase the output norm and promise mass layoffs again. MS promises too, I'm not sure about details, but likely they don't cut the projects. Which means use of some sort of copilot is expected now.

The question is what happens to developers. Will they quit the industry or move to smaller companies?

Re: AI is ushering in a “tiny team” era

#154

Post by bluefirebrand »

handfuloflight wrote: post #120
bluefirebrand wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be absolutely asinine to bombard your teammates like this and it would be a massive sign that you're not cut out for the work if you had to

I wasn't suggesting we literally bombard teammates. The whole point is that with LLMs, you can explore ideas as deeply as you want without tiring them out or burning social capital. You're conflating this with poor judgment about what to ask humans and when. Taking 'bombard' literally is itself pretty asinine when the real point is about using AI to get thoroughly informed before human collaboration. And if using AI…

My point was that

> You really haven't, since they can't just generate tokens at the rate and consistency of an LLM

Is wrong. It's not because they can't generate tokens at the rate and consistency of an LLM

It's because trying to offload your work onto your coworkers this way would make you a huge jerk

Re: AI is ushering in a “tiny team” era

#155

Post by MoonGhost »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #27
WXLCKNO wrote: post #8

I'm working on a bunch of different projects trying out new stuff all the time for the past six months. Every time I do something I add another layer of AI automation/enhancement to my personal dev setup with the goal of trying to see how much I can extend my own ability to produce while delivering high quality projects. I definitely wouldn't say I'm 10x of what I could do before across the board but a solid 2-3x ave…

Definitely agree small teams are the way to go. The bigger the company the more cognitive dissonance is imposed on the employees. I need to work where everyone is forced to engage with reality and those that don’t are fired.

The thing is the luck as usually on the side of bigger battalions. Smaller teams don't have the rich and width of bigger companies. All in all we need the full spectrum from single person startup to mega corporations.

Re: AI is ushering in a “tiny team” era

#156

Post by csa »

ryandrake wrote: post #7

It seems like a more and more recurring shareholder wet dream that companies could one day just be AI employees for digital things + robotic employees for physical things + maybe a human CEO "orchestrating" everything. No more icky employees siphoning off what should rightfully be profit for the owners. It's like this is some kind of moral imperative that business is always kind of low-key working towards. Are you ri…

> Are you rich and want to own something like a soup company?

This already exists.

> Just lease a fully-automated factory and a bunch of AI workers,

The current solution is not “fully automated”, but it can be fairly hands off for the owner.

> and you're instantly shipping and making money!

… but this is the hard part. Just because you can make soup doesn’t mean anyone will buy it.

Marketing and distribution are very real challenges in markets like this, and the players in those markets will put tremendous pressure on the owner via their costs such that the owner doesn’t make money unless they commit to producing a relatively high level of volume.

Source: My family members who have retail food product lines.

Re: AI is ushering in a “tiny team” era

#157

Post by rootsofallevil »

haiku2077 wrote: post #96
RaftPeople wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make an ETL to clean up this dirty database Can you provide concrete details? When I do projects in this realm, it requires significant discussion with the business to understand how reality is modeled in the database and data, and that info is required before any notion of "clean up" can be defined.

Yeah, you still do all of that domain research and requirements gathering and system design as your meatbag job. But now instead of writing the ETL code yourself by hand you can get 80-90% of the way there in a minute or two with AI assistance.

> you can get 80-90% of the way there in a minute or two with AI assistance.

That just leaves the other 80-90% to do manually ;)

Re: AI is ushering in a “tiny team” era

#158

Post by _w1tm »

wyre wrote: post #105
baxtr wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok wow this is actually frightening. I talked to a friend recently who is a plastic surgeon. He told me about a young pretty girl came in recently with super clear ideas what she wanted to fixed. Turns out she uploaded her pictures to an LLM and it gave her recommendations. My friend told her she didn’t need any treatment at this stage but she kept insisting that the LLM had told her this and that. I’m worried that t…

I was talking with Claude last night about making tempura, and it suggested if the oil is too hot I should add ice…

That’s silly, ice isn’t cold enough. Carbon ice might work better.

Re: AI is ushering in a “tiny team” era

#159

Post by [deleted] »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #154
handfuloflight wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't suggesting we literally bombard teammates. The whole point is that with LLMs, you can explore ideas as deeply as you want without tiring them out or burning social capital. You're conflating this with poor judgment about what to ask humans and when. Taking 'bombard' literally is itself pretty asinine when the real point is about using AI to get thoroughly informed before human collaboration. And if using AI…

My point was that > You really haven't, since they can't just generate tokens at the rate and consistency of an LLM Is wrong. It's not because they can't generate tokens at the rate and consistency of an LLM It's because trying to offload your work onto your coworkers this way would make you a huge jerk

[deleted]

Re: AI is ushering in a “tiny team” era

#160

Post by handfuloflight »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #154
handfuloflight wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't suggesting we literally bombard teammates. The whole point is that with LLMs, you can explore ideas as deeply as you want without tiring them out or burning social capital. You're conflating this with poor judgment about what to ask humans and when. Taking 'bombard' literally is itself pretty asinine when the real point is about using AI to get thoroughly informed before human collaboration. And if using AI…

My point was that > You really haven't, since they can't just generate tokens at the rate and consistency of an LLM Is wrong. It's not because they can't generate tokens at the rate and consistency of an LLM It's because trying to offload your work onto your coworkers this way would make you a huge jerk

Exactly. You're literally making my point while trying to argue against me.

Whether it's because humans can't handle the pace or because it would make you a jerk to try: either way, you just agreed that humans can't/shouldn't handle unlimited questioning. That's precisely why LLMs are valuable for deep exploratory thinking, so when we engage teammates, we're bringing higher-quality, focused questions instead of raw exploration.

And you're also missing that even IF someone were patient enough to take every question you brought them, they still couldn't keep up with the pace and consistency of an LLM. My original point was about what teammates are 'willing to take', which naturally includes both courtesy limits AND capability limits.

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