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After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

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Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#51

Post by sooperserieous »

jychang wrote: post #4
sincerely wrote: post #2

>Rather than becoming defensive, Masad and his team owned the problem. In fact, says Masad, within two days, they rolled out an automatic safety system that separates a user’s “practice” database from their “real” one. The way Masad describes it, it’s a little like having two versions of a website’s filing cabinet — the AI agent can experiment freely in a development database, but the production database, which is th…

You don't write for your median reader, you write for the vast majority of your readers. That's a basic concept of writing. Journalism should be accessible, so even if you know what a database is and how to deploy it in different envs, you shouldn't write assuming that. If a large portion of your readers don't know what you're saying, you've failed as a writer. If your readership includes high school students, you wr…

> Be like Richard Feynman

Oh the things he did to filing cabinets, especially "secure" ones...

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#52

Post by recursivecaveat »

sincerely wrote: post #2

>Rather than becoming defensive, Masad and his team owned the problem. In fact, says Masad, within two days, they rolled out an automatic safety system that separates a user’s “practice” database from their “real” one. The way Masad describes it, it’s a little like having two versions of a website’s filing cabinet — the AI agent can experiment freely in a development database, but the production database, which is th…

It's kind of a beautiful turn of phrase, in that the filing cabinet is entirely superfluous, you can use almost any noun. "it’s a little like having two versions of a website’s sub sandwich — the AI agent can experiment freely with a development sandwich, but the production sandwich, which is the real thing that users interact with, is completely walled off".

"When you click a button on our website, a request is sent across the internet to our servers, it's a little like if a sockeye salmon was sent across the internet to our servers."

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#53

Post by jlundberg »

hu3 wrote: post #49
rsp1984 wrote: post #23

Let's not forget this gem here [1]. Tells you everything you need to know about the company and its leadership. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424195

Sad to see https://riju.codes offline. Cant resolve DNS. Last push to main was 2 months ago so there's hope: https://github.com/radian-software/riju

Seeing it as offline could be related to this:

”Please note that Riju is only available on IPv6-enabled networks due to the higher financial cost of supporting legacy protocols.”

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#54

Post by majormajor »

brazukadev wrote: post #46
reactordev wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s true of everything we use. Someone made that fork you use. That plate. The shoes you wear. Same for an app. You don’t deserve anything. If you make something, and release it into the world, you have a responsibility. Not a reward. A reward may come. People may pay you for your services or your novelty but in no way shape or form are you deserving of it. Deserving of something is a 3rd person observation. Y…

> But that’s true of everything we use. Someone made that fork you use I paid a fair price for my forks and plates and shoes, I don't need to be grateful for that. Using a platform for free and then complaining that now they focus on making money is not the same. > Deserving of something is a 3rd person observation. You can not demand that you deserve anything. I'm not OP nor Replit owner.

>I paid a fair price for my forks and plates and shoes, I don't need to be grateful for that. Using a platform for free and then complaining that now they focus on making money is not the same.

They were focused on making money back then too. Nobody's complaining that they were trying to make money!

If someone is grateful that the old product existed at the time, because it helped them, it's completely understandable and valid that they'd be sad that it no longer exists to help other people. What there is now has a hundred almost-the-same alternatives[0]; it sounds like what they used to be was unique.

[0] the article quotes a claim about “the first agent-based coding experience in the world” "last fall" but that seems to ignore not-as-successful earlier things like AutoGPT that had code agent projects by early 2024 if not before, with initial "agent" behavior in 2023.

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#55

Post by system2 »

I don't understand the appeal of Replit. Claude and other agents do what they do for much cheaper and efficiently. Is it for newcomers who don't know anything about software development, nd Replit fills the gap with basic user instructions and structure? Why is it even a thing while real agents are there?

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#56

Post by fredfsh »

> But the technical achievement wasn’t translating into revenue growth, and by last year, with the company at 130 employees and burning through cash, Masad said he had to make a painful decision. “I looked at our burn, and I looked at our progress on our revenue chart, and it just didn’t make any sense. The business wasn’t viable.” Replit cut its headcount by 50%, bringing it down to around 60 to 70 people at its lowest point.

> Plus, Replit has another unusual advantage for a startup: a $350 million war chest. Despite raising $100 million in 2023, the company “hadn’t touched” those funds by the time it raised this latest round, Masad told me. The company is capital efficient by design, though Masad joked that as an entrepreneur who grew up watching his refugee father struggle, “one thing I need to learn is to be less frugal and start spending money.”

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#57

Post by kubb »

ctkhn wrote: post #38

If OpenAI and Anthropic's models are good enough at coding to make coding agents useful for non-technical employees Replit is targeting, why can't either of those companies use their AI to build a wrapper around their product as good or better than Replit? Has this guy never taken n -> infinity in a problem before?

The funding round is all that matters. Now he can pay himself 15 million per year plus a severance package and he’s made it.

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#58

Post by VBprogrammer »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #48

Is miss repl.it for what it used to be, just a quick way to play with a bit of code.

We used to use it for coding interviews during COVID. It never struck me as anything special and I'm not convinced saddling it with AI improvements it's prospects. In fact it might make them worse given it's general applicability to learning which will surely be surpressed by the worries of an AI takeover.

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#59

Post by JimmyAustin »

Perenti wrote: post #15

I've seen bots promoting Replit on Steam forums of indie games. If this is the way they are marketing their product, I don't see it as having a future. What I've seen in the Dwarf Fortress forums alone makes me want to avoid the company with a 10' pole.

Hey, Replit employee here. I'm pretty sure this isn't us (definitely isn't our marketing team's MO AFAIK). Can you email me some examples at james @ replit dot com so I can look into this?

Re: After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

#60

Post by hmokiguess »

jlundberg wrote: post #53
hu3 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad to see https://riju.codes offline. Cant resolve DNS. Last push to main was 2 months ago so there's hope: https://github.com/radian-software/riju

Seeing it as offline could be related to this: ”Please note that Riju is only available on IPv6-enabled networks due to the higher financial cost of supporting legacy protocols.”

Definitely that, I read this on a mobile 5G connection and was able to access it just fine
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