Magic+ • Hacker News Board

Re: Magic+

#401

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 10:20 AM UTC

toddmorey wrote: post #303

rtpg wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but my expectation (as an investor) is that as the tech improves they will be able to bring down the price while maintaining or even improving the quality of the service Call me skeptical, but where exactly is the tech involved? Currently this is just text messages going to people + people doing the things. One possibility would be through AI (a bit of a weasel word most of the time, honestly), but Google and Apple…

There's a decent amount of innovation that can make the assistants more efficient, so you can improve profitability without driving down wages. But there's also something else: Since a high percentage of services will likely end in a transaction, there's a huge opportunity to become the Amazon-scale retailer of services. I find I don't even google products I want to buy anymore, I just immediately search Amazon. Amaz…

You can't scale a $100/hour service to the level of Amazon, there simply aren't that many people with that kind of money.

Re: Magic+

#402

Post by thecrazyone » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 10:32 AM UTC

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #353

Ok. I must seriously be missing something here. I'm usually the last person to complain about shilling, because even on the very rare occasions that I am confident that some sort of "astroturf" operation is going on I usually find it to be a somewhat valid or at least entertaining form of promotion and don't care that it is clearly just advertising. But seriously, this thread is absurd. I truly do not understand how…

Amen. I can't +1 you enough.

There's something odd here. This smells wrong.

Re: Magic+

#403

Post by Pitarou » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 10:34 AM UTC

If I understand correctly, all it takes is a few text messages from your client for you to incur huge bills on their behalf.

I presume you're aware that text messages are easy to fake. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_spoofing) What controls do you have in place to prevent fraud?

Re: Magic+

#404

Post by thecrazyone » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 10:37 AM UTC

reitoei wrote: post #390

_yosefk wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps someone sent a request to Magic+ along the lines of "I want Magic+ to become the number one item on HN"? It's legal, it's possible - and they're on it. It'd make a decent demo!

This is genius.

> This is genius. No it's magic+ :D

Re: Magic+

#405

Post by unfamiliar » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 10:44 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #166

paul wrote: post #106

A lot of skepticism here, which is understandable given the somewhat unbelievable scope of what they are promising. I'm a very active user of Magic+, so I'll give my perspective. (and of course I've been working with them from the beginning at YC, so you're also free to discard my opinion as biased) For me, Magic+ is basically the impossibly good personal assistant, kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man, or Emily in The De…

>but my expectation (as an investor) is that as the tech improves they will be able to bring down the price while maintaining or even improving the quality of the service Call me skeptical, but where exactly is the tech involved? Currently this is just text messages going to people + people doing the things. One possibility would be through AI (a bit of a weasel word most of the time, honestly), but Google and Apple…

One possibility is being able to classify requests much more accurately, so that they get sent directly to a specialised "magician" that can complete the task very efficiently.

Re: Magic+

#406

Post by thecrazyone » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 10:58 AM UTC

cmikec wrote: post #44

[deleted] wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Currently these reports are sent via email. We may have an app at some point in the future, but currently SMS and email are more than sufficient.

A screenshot would suffice, no?

Looks like you're dodging the question.

Re: Magic+

#407

Post by de_Selby » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 11:01 AM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #392

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so why is this so unbelievably interesting to everyone here? I mean, seriously, its been ten hours and this thing is still at the top of the page, and that is very long time for a HN story. For something that doesn't seem particularly innovative nor useful for a typical person, it has a huge amount of support here. Which is especially confusing because this indicates that somehow there is a massive number of pric…

As another commenter pointed out, HN has a lot of young people making $150k+ and this is just a way for them to "optimize" their time and be more "productive". In reality, this is just a way for them to pretend that they have the same luxuries as the actual rich who came from money. Services like this will last only as long as the bubble in the valley.

It sounds like it's targeted at people earning hell of a lot more than 150k.

Re: Magic+

#408

Post by gbersac » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 11:09 AM UTC

What if I ask magic+ to find me a competitor as effective as magic+ but for free (or lower price) ? Or to offer me free services ? Haha, I caught you !!!

Re: Magic+

#409

Post by tempestn » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 11:13 AM UTC

gbersac wrote: post #408

What if I ask magic+ to find me a competitor as effective as magic+ but for free (or lower price) ? Or to offer me free services ? Haha, I caught you !!!

They said they'll do anything if it's "legal and possible".

Re: Magic+

#410

Post by dennish00a » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 11:30 AM UTC

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #380

puranjay wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider this: if you use Magic for 40 hours a month, you end up wiht a bill of $4,000. That's the salary of a full-time assistant who would be on call only 8-12 hours a day. If you are the kind of guy who is rich enough for a personal assistant, I'm pretty sure $100/hour isn't unreasonable

What? A personal assistant is someone that you know, that you vet, that you can gauge the skills and reliability of, and that you can hold genuinely accountable. And you are comparing hiring this person on a full time basis to an ad hoc and in many cases inferior "assistant" who is only available for a fraction of that time with no guarantee or indication of quality ahead of time. And not just that, but only extremel…

Hiring good people and keeping them happy is enormously difficult, time consuming, and expensive. Finding the right person can easily take a month or more--and the process must be repeated each time you lose your employee. The better and more qualified the employee, the more likely he or she is to go on to better things. If you can find a good person for $48K yearly, then you will also need to pay benefits, bringing the cost closer to $72K. To keep your employee happy, he or she will need time off, probably during times that he or she would be most useful to you. Your assistant will need to sleep, too, perhaps during times that you may be awake and hungry. You will also need to pay your employee for many hours in which they are not engaged in helping you because you haven't asked for help.

In short, I cannot imagine having the kind of wealth that would be needed to hire and maintain a group of employees that could assist me around the clock--and would do all of this without imposing a significant additional burden on my life. But I and probably many others can imagine paying a few hundred dollars for assistance with burdensome tasks.