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Do Not Build SaaS

dontbuildsaas.com

21–28 of 28 posts

Re: Do Not Build SaaS

#21
post #13

The author forgets that people need to eat and only a small slice of deep tech ever becomes real. It seems to me that this is written from a place of privilege, where a FAANG job isn't true progress for your bloodline. Strivers are amazing human beings. It's okay to be a striver that works at Google. It's okay to build logging tools. We'll need those things in the future, too. We all learn our lessons in different or…

Last I checked you need ag tech to eat /s

Joking aside, it’s true that some folks have lives that require 350k liquid comp. If that’s you, staying at a cushy role in FAANG might be the right call. But for tons of brilliant people that’s not the case.

Re: Do Not Build SaaS

#22
If we already have UBI(universal basic income), brilliant people may be more willing to develop free software and change the world. I don't know why we haven't. Industrialization, education and welfare should solve every problem.

Re: Do Not Build SaaS

#24
post #13

The author forgets that people need to eat and only a small slice of deep tech ever becomes real. It seems to me that this is written from a place of privilege, where a FAANG job isn't true progress for your bloodline. Strivers are amazing human beings. It's okay to be a striver that works at Google. It's okay to build logging tools. We'll need those things in the future, too. We all learn our lessons in different or…

Last I checked you need ag tech to eat /s Joking aside, it’s true that some folks have lives that require 350k liquid comp. If that’s you, staying at a cushy role in FAANG might be the right call. But for tons of brilliant people that’s not the case.

Few of those people really require 350k. That's a lot of charitable donation or medical treatments for family. Simply living a life that spends that much on a big house in an exclusive area and travelling extensively for vacation is more of a want than a need.

Re: Do Not Build SaaS

#25

If we could have solved the really big problems that remain with SaaS apps, we probably would have already. We're really good at building them. Most of the really big problems the world is facing require really hard solutions. Often this involves commercializing core research (like the foundation model companies) or building in atoms and not just bits. The sheer amount of talent and money going into SaaS feels like a…

What we're not good at is overcoming humans. We could have a much better present that needs less fixing if people simply behaved differently, economically, socially, politically. It would be great if these breathless screeds could encourage figuring out how to have tech benefit humanity.

Re: Do Not Build SaaS

#27
The sad part is most of biotech stuff peddled ends up nowhere or quickly eaten up by big pharma. They do it for the money too. Somehow FAANG is worse?

This is just propaganda trivializing programming. Unfortunately all other professions put themselves on a pedestal whereas programmers constantly are self deprecating their profession.

Re: Do Not Build SaaS

#28

"Don't Build SaaS!" -- Created with Google Docs, including meta tags targeting Twitter, and loading Google Analytics.

The good ol’ “you hate capitalism but use an iPhone” response. It’s not a good one.

I'm sorry, but it isn't the same thing at all. This is a 1:1 situation -- advocating against SaaS while actively using it, despite readily available options.

All three things I listed have free (as in beer and speech) alternatives that don't employ the SaaS model.

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