Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company • Hacker News Board

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#151

Post by jcgrillo » Wed, Aug 13, 2025, 3:09 PM UTC

qcnguy wrote: post #148

jcgrillo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah this is some insanely out of touch nonsense.. I have no idea who she is but the idea that any of the current crop of models could replace a copy editor is laughable. Just ask it how many times the letter b appears in blueberry.

LLMs are good at copy editing. They recognize when words are misspelled or grammar is poor very easily, despite not being able to see individual letters. For understanding the guy's point it helps if you know anything about Heather Cox Richardson. Merely saying her copyeditors could be replaced by AI is a gross minimization, probably most of her own work could be too. HCRs newsletter is popular because she delivers m…

You should do it! I bet you could pitch a seed round for that business, might be your big break

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#152

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 13, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

pryelluw wrote: post #34

LarsDu88 wrote: post #18

One thing I want to point out about software is that its perpetually commoditized. Any piece of valuable software will get a free version after some amount of time. It happened to compilers, operating systems, and renderer. It's gradually happening to game engines. That's why the largest software companies are really just network effect monopolies. You only use it because other people use it or it relies on some sort…

Minecraft? Not at all. Please stop rewriting history. Minecraft definitely had a small dev team but it wasn’t a single persons effort and wasn’t close to being one. You don’t create a world changing video game by yourself.

[deleted]

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#153

Post by LarsDu88 » Wed, Aug 13, 2025, 10:23 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #99

LarsDu88 wrote: post #18

One thing I want to point out about software is that its perpetually commoditized. Any piece of valuable software will get a free version after some amount of time. It happened to compilers, operating systems, and renderer. It's gradually happening to game engines. That's why the largest software companies are really just network effect monopolies. You only use it because other people use it or it relies on some sort…

> Any piece of valuable software will get a free version after some amount of time Technically. The reality is much closer to "Any piece of valuable software will get a crappy free version after some amount of time, and multiple paid copies"

Most free versions of things are not as good as paid.

But it doesn't matter for many areas. Sometimes the free stuff will get better than the common paid one (linux and blender come to mind). Sometimes it takes time (Blender), but if the value is there commoditization will happen

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#154

Post by LarsDu88 » Wed, Aug 13, 2025, 10:25 PM UTC

ohdeargodno wrote: post #60

ngokevin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stardew Valley?

If you're going to forget that his girlfriend worked two jobs for 5 years to even support him being able to do that, yeah, he was "alone". Just like trust fund startup bros make it "alone" (with the 500k their parents gave them).

This still counts as alone in the same way we don't consider Steve Jobs parents renting out their garage or Bill Gates mom bringing him into IBM boardroom executive meetings at the age of 12

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#155

Post by hoppp » Wed, Aug 13, 2025, 11:56 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #143

hoppp wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lucky people. Most parents dont have 6 figures to give tho

Most as in > Nearly 60% of households in the U.S. have a net worth of $100,000 or more after accounting for debts, with 29.2% having a net worth of $500,000 or more. If you live your life thinking you could be great if you only had some 6 figure payout, you're delusional. Building something is hard. https://smartasset.com/data-studies/net-worth-states-2025

Im in Europe and I think its more rare here for parents to gift 6 figures to their kids.

Houses for sure, but cash? Not that common.

I am great at building without 6 figures, heck I build great things for free, why? Cuz its also my hobby.

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#156

Post by queenkjuul » Thu, Aug 14, 2025, 12:27 AM UTC

jcgrillo wrote: post #123

verzali wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She runs one of the biggest newsletters on Substack. Probably earning a millon dollars a month from it. But that's pretty far off a billion. AI editors also aren't great - they help if you can't afford anything else, but as soon as you make enough to hire a real person you probably should do that.

I'm not much of a writer myself, but what little I do know about writing suggests that a "not very good" editor is actually much worse than none at all. That is, arguing with an LLM about my writing is probably going to make my writing worse, not better.

Yeah an LLM editor seems like the fastest way she could stop making money on substack

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#157

Post by queenkjuul » Thu, Aug 14, 2025, 12:28 AM UTC

qcnguy wrote: post #148

jcgrillo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah this is some insanely out of touch nonsense.. I have no idea who she is but the idea that any of the current crop of models could replace a copy editor is laughable. Just ask it how many times the letter b appears in blueberry.

LLMs are good at copy editing. They recognize when words are misspelled or grammar is poor very easily, despite not being able to see individual letters. For understanding the guy's point it helps if you know anything about Heather Cox Richardson. Merely saying her copyeditors could be replaced by AI is a gross minimization, probably most of her own work could be too. HCRs newsletter is popular because she delivers m…

An LLM could not write them.

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#158

Post by queenkjuul » Thu, Aug 14, 2025, 12:34 AM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #36

choilive wrote: post #12

Do athletes count?

What you're talking about is entertainers. Athletes that make that kind of money are entertaining crowds. So the same could be said for famous actors, musicians, etc. But athletes that aren't also entertainers don't make that kind of money.

So, all professional athletes? They're still athletes, regardless.