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Vista Equity writes off PluralSight value, after $3.5B buyout

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Re: Vista Equity writes off PluralSight value, after $3.5B buyout

#41

Post by throwanem »

acchow wrote: post #38
tivert wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do see though how AI is a huge threat to them. Using Claude 3 for coding and being able to ask questions about my specific issues and getting tailored responses every time to my exact issue (vs watching a general video and applying that knowledge through trial and error) has made me much more productive and also greatly reduced my reliance on using sites like Pluralsight to get up to speed/debug/etc. That seems l…

Learning/Coding with Claude 3/GPT4 is not like following turn-by-turn directions. It's like having a city guide next to you that knows everything about every street and the history of every building.

How often does it tell you things you're glad to know but wouldn't have thought or known to ask about?

Re: Vista Equity writes off PluralSight value, after $3.5B buyout

#42

Post by skywhopper »

eterm wrote: post #34

I don't know if it's my own career development, but it felt like the quality of Pluralsight has also taken a nosedive. I had a bit of career break during the pandemic, so went from being a fairly regular consumer of pluralsight in 2018/9 to only coming back to it fairly recently. Whereas previously it felt like I could find interesting guides at my level, when I tried to look for similar things now, nothing felt quit…

Essentially no company bought out by private equity manages to remain high-quality. The entire point is to milk the revenue stream dry while overleveraging on debt to provide investors with a large short-term payout. They do this by slashing costs to the bone, laying off too many people, and betting that the remaining husk will coast long enough to make the target return before they sell off what’s left to second-stage vultures.

So, while it’s sad, the only surprising outcome would have been if quality stayed the same.

Re: Vista Equity writes off PluralSight value, after $3.5B buyout

#43

Post by 1270018080 »

eterm wrote: post #34

I don't know if it's my own career development, but it felt like the quality of Pluralsight has also taken a nosedive. I had a bit of career break during the pandemic, so went from being a fairly regular consumer of pluralsight in 2018/9 to only coming back to it fairly recently. Whereas previously it felt like I could find interesting guides at my level, when I tried to look for similar things now, nothing felt quit…

A product isn't going to improve under private equity ownership

Re: Vista Equity writes off PluralSight value, after $3.5B buyout

#44

Post by abeyer »

eterm wrote: post #34

I don't know if it's my own career development, but it felt like the quality of Pluralsight has also taken a nosedive. I had a bit of career break during the pandemic, so went from being a fairly regular consumer of pluralsight in 2018/9 to only coming back to it fairly recently. Whereas previously it felt like I could find interesting guides at my level, when I tried to look for similar things now, nothing felt quit…

Agreed -- we had a team account at work for a while, but then they both took away a huge portion of the back catalog (something like 60% of my queue disappeared) and then immediately after wanted to increase our pricing enormously... we passed.

Re: Vista Equity writes off PluralSight value, after $3.5B buyout

#45

Post by 1270018080 »

acchow wrote: post #38
tivert wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do see though how AI is a huge threat to them. Using Claude 3 for coding and being able to ask questions about my specific issues and getting tailored responses every time to my exact issue (vs watching a general video and applying that knowledge through trial and error) has made me much more productive and also greatly reduced my reliance on using sites like Pluralsight to get up to speed/debug/etc. That seems l…

Learning/Coding with Claude 3/GPT4 is not like following turn-by-turn directions. It's like having a city guide next to you that knows everything about every street and the history of every building.

More like a city guide hallucinating streets and the history of every building and hoping no one questions it.

Re: Vista Equity writes off PluralSight value, after $3.5B buyout

#46

Post by lenerdenator »

blackhawkC17 wrote: post #7
treme wrote: post #4

1B+ write-off's all deserve a full post-mortem. It's crazy to imagine such amount of value disappear into void.

I consider it the beauty of capitalism. People are equally free to create huge value or destroy huge value.

Rarely is value created or destroyed. It's transferred, as it is here.

There are a few big exceptions to this. Discovering a new deposit of mineral wealth and the microcomputer revolution drastically speeding up business tasks are examples.

Re: Vista Equity writes off PluralSight value, after $3.5B buyout

#47

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

throwanem wrote: post #41
acchow wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning/Coding with Claude 3/GPT4 is not like following turn-by-turn directions. It's like having a city guide next to you that knows everything about every street and the history of every building.

How often does it tell you things you're glad to know but wouldn't have thought or known to ask about?

Very often, when I ask 'how do I do x' and had no idea how to do it in the first place.

I know what your trying to say, but if you ask how to do your problem, instead of something like how do I use a for loop to do it, you'll be given a solution.

Re: Vista Equity writes off PluralSight value, after $3.5B buyout

#48

Post by elicksaur »

ado__dev wrote: post #2

I've been a Pluralsight subscriber for probably over a decade now. Their content is awesome for getting up to speed quickly or just learning about a technology without too much fluff. I do see though how AI is a huge threat to them. Using Claude 3 for coding and being able to ask questions about my specific issues and getting tailored responses every time to my exact issue (vs watching a general video and applying th…

How regularly do you work in a new domain where studying on pluralsight has been helpful? Genuinely curious; I’ve used it when I started my current job, but haven’t thought to reach for it since.

Re: Vista Equity writes off PluralSight value, after $3.5B buyout

#49

Post by throwanem »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #47
throwanem wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often does it tell you things you're glad to know but wouldn't have thought or known to ask about?

Very often, when I ask 'how do I do x' and had no idea how to do it in the first place. I know what your trying to say, but if you ask how to do your problem, instead of something like how do I use a for loop to do it, you'll be given a solution.

Yeah, I've definitely seen it come up with API methods and the like, that I'd never have known to look for in docs. That's not quite what I have in mind here, though, but more how well LLMs tend to replicate the ancillary context that is available when reviewing documentation. My experience has been that they tend more narrowly task-focused than I do, although it occurs to me I don't think I've tried prompts around "suggest some solutions for the following..."

In general, I still find it frequently surprising just how much subtle differences in formulating a question can yield significant differences in response.

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