Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management • Hacker News Board

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#151

Post by crazygringo » Mon, Sep 01, 2025, 7:42 PM UTC

kj4211cash wrote: post #145

crazygringo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inconsistent? It's just my experience at different companies. The backlog comes from the PM, as user needs are established. The requirements come from a mix of PM and UX. Obviously developers plan how to write the code. That's part of coding. Not part of product requirements.

I'd hate to work at a place where the backlog comes from the PM and the requirements come from a mix of PM and UX. Do you really think your PMs know that much more than your Engineers, Data Scientists, Ops/Business, etc.? This just sounds like something the type of PMs most of us hate, the type who insist on being the main character, would say.

I'm genuinely confused by your comment.

Yes, PM's are absolutely supposed to know that much more about what the customers need. That's their job. They're constantly talking to customers; engineers are generally doing that only occasionally, if ever. They're not trying to be the "main character", but their entire job is to be the point person for integrating all the stakeholders' needs and making prioritization decisions. It's organizational needs, not ego-driven.

Sometimes products are simple and straightforward enough where you don't really need a dedicated PM, but then the lead engineer often just winds up informally taking on the same responsibility, and at some point there's enough success and complexity that it needs to become a full-time dedicated position.

I'm really curious how you've arrived at the perspective that engineers and data scientists know as much about customer needs as a PM, that they learned via channels outside of the PM? I've certainly never worked anywhere where that was the case.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#152

Post by jayd16 » Tue, Sep 02, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

jzelinskie wrote: post #105

LtWorf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what's the difference? Does anyone actually know?

I've written a reference because I've had this conversation so many times, haha https://jzelinskie.com/posts/p-what/

There's even more. In games, we also use the term 'Producer' which manages the production, ie they're mostly a project manager. The design team is the product design role. Even here, the producers can and will dabble in design discussions in so far as is needed to meet timelines.

The nice thing is no one gets inflated with a manager title they think makes them the boss of every department. You get engineering lead, production lead etc.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#153

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 02, 2025, 10:50 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #150

nitwit005 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly as I suggested, you've tossed non-coding activities into the coding category. Planning is not writing code. Imagine an architect who never writes a line of code. Under your accounting, they're doing coding, because it's the planning for code.

You seem to be having a different conversation. The root comment was about coding vs "design, quality assurance and debugging, art assets, localizations", etc. Not coding vs planning coding. It's the same way the art department both plans the art and draws it.

[deleted]

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#154

Post by nitwit005 » Tue, Sep 02, 2025, 11:01 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #150

nitwit005 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly as I suggested, you've tossed non-coding activities into the coding category. Planning is not writing code. Imagine an architect who never writes a line of code. Under your accounting, they're doing coding, because it's the planning for code.

You seem to be having a different conversation. The root comment was about coding vs "design, quality assurance and debugging, art assets, localizations", etc. Not coding vs planning coding. It's the same way the art department both plans the art and draws it.

The root conversation began with:

> Coding as such is seldom a bottleneck to begin with. How many times have you been in a conversation along the lines of "we have every detail of the product figured out, but we need another month for the coders to finish writing the code"?

And you quoted "how many times" contradicting it.

Yes, the art department plans the art and draws it, but an AI tool for generating art could only help with the actual drawing. The possible productivity improvement directly relates to the portion spend actually making art.

Your department or job-role style view of things doesn't make sense for this conversation.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#155

Post by riazrizvi » Mon, Sep 08, 2025, 9:27 PM UTC

another_twist wrote: post #124

riazrizvi wrote: post #7

It’s actually outreach and business development but yeah it’s not coding or product development anymore. Why? because AI makes it easier to make credible sounding stuff, to maintain the appearance of progress, making it harder to tell who’s the real deal. So everyone is drowning in spammish AI. We all see it in recruiting (in all directions), it’s happening too in sales. On top of this there’s also a confounding fact…

Thats the thing. When coding does get automated my AI, software infra companies without hardware moats will be wiped out.

LLMs are trained to write out sequences of words by mapping previous writing. So it’s recycling prior statements. There is no process/tech/innovation to train a system to engage in the world and figure out how things work.

So AI is not yet coming for good writers, performers, journalists, programmers. It’s only lifting up the bottom rungs and giving them the ability to recycle, in the way that all the bad writers, performers, programmers do. That’s why it’s so tiring to consume - it’s the automation of hacks (in the writer, journalist sense).

It also has the side-effect of preventing AI users from improving their skills. At least prolific hacks eventually got good in the past. Instead with vibe coding, your skills atrophy, with prolonged use it turns you back into a hack. So no. Coding is not going to get automated. We’re at the point where a critical mass of people are beginning to see that AI is falling short of the promise.