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Re: undefined

#21
Good question. Big companies participate in incrementalism. Many companies invent one big thing and ride it for decades. Few build new things and succeed. (e.g. Apple). Some try, e.g. Microsoft with Xbox, Meta with VR, but even then often it ends up being billions of lost profits. Innovation often come from small groups of persistent and intelligent people and their first few acquisitions as they succeed. e.g. Microsoft with DOS, Windows and Office. They're still riding it.

The last startup boom began in the mid-2000's (around when Y Combinator began, you can read all about it on Paul's blog), when cloud computing was still new and lowered the cost of creating online businesses. It was also in the wake of the tech bust - a lot of tech employees became unemployed.

My view is, when the layoffs complete, the dust settles and you have millions of tech workers who are willing to accept only equity, with a new technology they can rent for $200 a month from DeepSeek or Anthropic or OpenAI, we may see the green shoots of a new wave of disruption.

Re: undefined

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mainly am asking why those with attention (or VCs who can get it) are not introducing more noise, more content, and more clamoring - as you put it. I thought that was the whole idea? Lemon market - maybe - but it remains to be seen IMO. The market seems almost entirely unrealized. There are only a few major AI companies in the media, and it seems like innovation is largely directionless or stalled. I haven't really s…

'those with attention' is a unicorn. Look at Facebook + Google - they own attention. Yet a huge % of products they make are duds. It is much much harder than you think to get lots of people to use your product.

So you’re telling me there’s a chance :D

Man I’m sick of Faceboogle!

Isn’t anyone else yearning for some je ne sais quoi

Re: undefined

#23
post #21

Good question. Big companies participate in incrementalism. Many companies invent one big thing and ride it for decades. Few build new things and succeed. (e.g. Apple). Some try, e.g. Microsoft with Xbox, Meta with VR, but even then often it ends up being billions of lost profits. Innovation often come from small groups of persistent and intelligent people and their first few acquisitions as they succeed. e.g. Micros…

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Re: undefined

#24

AI doesn’t solve the real problems. It’s surface level pseudo productivity. The only new things or features I’ve really seen are related to AI. So it’s just AI adding AI to stuff. I’m still waiting for this big renaissance of innovation.

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If a startup can be throw together quickly with an LLM, where is the moat? Anything they make could be ripped off by a big player overnight.

If the cost to build drops, it stands to reason that the valuation drops as well, unless they can actually get traction in the market.

I’m not sure if you’ve watch the show Shark Tank, but Kevin brings this idea up a lot. If they have a generic product and no protection around it, it can be easier and cheaper to just spin up a clone with their own team than to take on the risk of an investment.

The market seems flooded with slop startups. I’ve seen many where people use AI to make a site to pitch the idea, but there isn’t even a product. It’s all smoke and mirrors. The industry is full of opportunistic charlatans right now. A good crash is needed to clear the field before real growth can happen.

Those who are building products with AI, probably aren’t advertising the fact. I’ve seen some stuff in the App Store tho I assume nothing of at first, then read the description and it was clearly written by AI, which makes me assume the whole thing was vibe coded. The stuff is out there, but it’s all so small and spread out, that all noise and no signal.

I could be way off, but that’s my read on the situation.

Re: undefined

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If a startup can be throw together quickly with an LLM, where is the moat? Anything they make could be ripped off by a big player overnight. If the cost to build drops, it stands to reason that the valuation drops as well, unless they can actually get traction in the market. I’m not sure if you’ve watch the show Shark Tank, but Kevin brings this idea up a lot. If they have a generic product and no protection around i…

I'm advocating for a mass hiring event and huge growth push, not throwing together MVPs with LLMs!

Big dck money. Big dck ROI -- The next great Batman film, a World of Warcraft 2, autonomous robots on the moon, one of those humanoid robots doing my laundry!

The cost to build has dropped considerably, yes, the barrier to entry has lowered, but the bar is raised and valuations have skyrocketed and set records with trillion+ dollar IPOs too. More capital flowing into individual companies than ever before, albeit a small set of companies.

The potential has gone up, 10-fold, 100-fold.

To me, the market is saturated with pickaxe vendors looking for scrap metal miners, that is, model wrappers hoping to be the next wave of SaaS serving a largely misunderstood - disenfranchised (laid off from their jobs, no hope for the future) - customer base (gen y/z developers) that isn't meeting overall sales expectations. Nobody likes AI. Nobody needs it. They're also being told "Hey, don't be developers anymore". It's very confusing messaging!

So you got Google accidentally dominating most of it anyway just by being in everyone's house and pocket. Deer in headlights they're like "Who me?" They weren't even trying. Gemini surprises everyone. Surpasses everyone. Haha. Don't worry, they're doing a lot worse now that they are trying.

I digress, beyond "AI", what is needed is clearly... The Application Layer

> Those who are building products with AI, probably aren’t advertising the fact.

Perfectly fine - and gets to the spirit of what I'm talking about. Forget AI, focus on the product (and customer).

Not vibe coded...

But vibe... moated...

Vibe... goated...

If you will

Re: undefined

#26
post #7

It's simple: AI can't really write software. AI is good in generating garbage code averaged from millions of repos. Here is an example of software that can scale with a single person assuming AI can write software: a web-based alternative to Photoshop built on wasm. Figma is analogous to that and it's worth $10Bn.

The world runs on garbage code from millions of repos. I agree with you that it doesn't replace a person, but it certainly makes code a lot cheaper. If code is cheaper than ever, and the earning potential is the same. Why aren't investors all over it? And I'll 1-up your Photoshop example with https://photopea.com Made by 1 person, I use it literally every day.

Photopea predates LLM coding by a lot. The fact that it was made by single developer is not particular, so was Figma.

The reality is, Photopea is unique because no one with LLMs can easily produce something similar. Also Photopea does not compare to Adobe offering similar to how Figma does. Not even close.

Re: undefined

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a startup can be throw together quickly with an LLM, where is the moat? Anything they make could be ripped off by a big player overnight. If the cost to build drops, it stands to reason that the valuation drops as well, unless they can actually get traction in the market. I’m not sure if you’ve watch the show Shark Tank, but Kevin brings this idea up a lot. If they have a generic product and no protection around i…

I'm advocating for a mass hiring event and huge growth push, not throwing together MVPs with LLMs! Big d ck money. Big d ck ROI -- The next great Batman film, a World of Warcraft 2, autonomous robots on the moon, one of those humanoid robots doing my laundry! The cost to build has dropped considerably, yes, the barrier to entry has lowered, but the bar is raised and valuations have skyrocketed and set records with tr…

This all assumes the code was the bottleneck. That rarely seems to be the case. I work in a large organization full of bureaucracy. Getting people to agree on what to build, and sorting out dependencies between team, and general communication doesn’t seem to be helped by AI, and those are the bottlenecks. I had the CIO tell my boss project X was the most important thing, just get it done. I ignored all the meetings, made every decision myself, and was done in 1-2 weeks (without AI). Then the bureaucracy entered. Over the next 2 years I was on daily meetings, architects would randomly show up and tell me this or that needed to be changed (always for the worse, imo). Hell, we spent 4+ months debating a list of ports to open. I wanted to throw myself out the window. I started out with a list of ports that were actually required, we could sub in an AI answer for that, and we still spent half a year tinkering. “We”… them, I just had to sit there and listen to it.

Will a great Batman film be written by AI? It seems like it would be a boring and predictable script without and soul, rehashing old themes that have all been done. And the script is only a minor piece of the puzzle. A lot of moving parts have to come together to make a great film. Does AI have taste? Good taste?

If AI can’t solve the bottlenecks, it’s not actually going to speed up delivery.

Re: undefined

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm advocating for a mass hiring event and huge growth push, not throwing together MVPs with LLMs! Big d ck money. Big d ck ROI -- The next great Batman film, a World of Warcraft 2, autonomous robots on the moon, one of those humanoid robots doing my laundry! The cost to build has dropped considerably, yes, the barrier to entry has lowered, but the bar is raised and valuations have skyrocketed and set records with tr…

This all assumes the code was the bottleneck. That rarely seems to be the case. I work in a large organization full of bureaucracy. Getting people to agree on what to build, and sorting out dependencies between team, and general communication doesn’t seem to be helped by AI, and those are the bottlenecks. I had the CIO tell my boss project X was the most important thing, just get it done. I ignored all the meetings,…

[flagged]

Re: undefined

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This all assumes the code was the bottleneck. That rarely seems to be the case. I work in a large organization full of bureaucracy. Getting people to agree on what to build, and sorting out dependencies between team, and general communication doesn’t seem to be helped by AI, and those are the bottlenecks. I had the CIO tell my boss project X was the most important thing, just get it done. I ignored all the meetings,…

[flagged]

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