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Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

businessinsider.com

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Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#61

Post by lr4444lr »

shubhamjain wrote: post #8

"This tool 10x the productivity of software engineers" "GREAT! That means we can fire the people who do the actual work, and replace them with MBA robots, who neither understand nor care about making a good product" Pardon my pessimism, but in my whole career, I have never met a PM who actual did the work of driving the product vision. Most were just middlemen shuttling information between management, marketing, desi…

I am sorry you've had only negative experiences. Most of mine with PMs were negative as well, but a good one is a dragon slayer and bottleneck unclogger. They feel not like your manager, but like your servant, listening to exactly what you need, relaying messages accurately from other teams of what they need from you, and with the big picture perspective required for you not just to fulfill the task, but do it in a long-term strategically productive way.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#62

Post by llbbdd »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #18
megaloblasto wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people are seeing huge gains in coding productivity with AI. If you're not one of those people it might be useful to evaluate why you aren't experiencing any benefits, instead of claiming that there are none.

> If you're not one of those people it might be useful to evaluate why you aren't experiencing any benefits, instead of claiming that there are none. It might be that the gp is smart enough to code without a crutch.

https://xkcd.com/378/

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#63

Post by LtWorf »

gregorygoc wrote: post #42
bonsai_bar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta love that SWE arrogance.

What is so arrogant in expressing first-hand experiences?

New account with negative karma… probably just created to post similar "hot takes"

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#64

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

megaloblasto wrote: post #33
J_McQuade wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people are seeing huge gains in coding productivity with AI. I don't want to speak for the person you replied to, but I think that their main point is... are they? I see lots of articles about huge increases in productivity, but I think it's fair to argue that we've yet to see the huge increases in useful products that would surely (we hope) result from that if it were true.

I'm speaking just to coding productivity. I think AI does very little for business development or creativity type issues. People should realize that denying that AI can boost productivity in coding makes it look like they don't know how to use it, or believe in some conspiracy that no one is actually benefitting and it's all market hype from tech bros.

I believe in some conspiracy that no one is actually benefitting. I don't want to blame marketing, it's genuinely very cool that I can give Cursor a description of what I'm trying to do and get a result that's like 80% correct. But I've repeatedly found that going from 80% to 100% takes just as much time and effort as it would have to do it myself from the start.

I've shadowed people who believe AI is helping them, and it seems to me that some of them don't notice how much effort they're spending while others don't bother to correct the 80% version once tests are passing.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#65

Post by hopelite »

shubhamjain wrote: post #8

"This tool 10x the productivity of software engineers" "GREAT! That means we can fire the people who do the actual work, and replace them with MBA robots, who neither understand nor care about making a good product" Pardon my pessimism, but in my whole career, I have never met a PM who actual did the work of driving the product vision. Most were just middlemen shuttling information between management, marketing, desi…

I suspect what you are really lamenting is the effects of poor leadership that does not grant a "product manager" (which is really a misnomer) the authority and autonomy to be a "product manager".

As you imply, that role is really more a director role, not a manager role. A manager managers, a director directs, including the vision and product market fit. Most Product Managers I see do not have that authority at all, and at best are constantly having to convince "leadership" like some door-to-door salesman, rather than simply updating leadership in an advise and consent format.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#66

Post by hopelite »

sillywabbit wrote: post #37
bonsai_bar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta love that SWE arrogance.

As opposed to the person who watched Star Trek and thought scribbling down something they saw on that counted as having vision.

Children! Children! Stop fighting. We can all get along.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#67

Post by bgwalter »

sitkack wrote: post #57
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #15

Andrew Ng has had a really sad career trajectory to a point where it's hard to take him seriously anymore. When I started in ML the very first course I took was actually Andrew Ng's course and it was amazingly good. But the past few years whenever he pops up, it always seems to be him repeating the talking points of some AI company that's paying him money. It's like seeing your hero turn into a complete sellout, shov…

You haven't made any quantitative statements. Low effort personal attack. Who is paying him here? From your comment, you can't even tell the topic, let alone the actual idea he is putting forth.

He has a startup "AI" Fund:

https://www.businessinsider.com/andrew-ng-vibe-coding-unfort...

So, at least his investors that he convinces are paying him. I do not know if he has other engagements in that area like speaker's fees etc.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#68

Post by bryanrasmussen »

shubhamjain wrote: post #8

"This tool 10x the productivity of software engineers" "GREAT! That means we can fire the people who do the actual work, and replace them with MBA robots, who neither understand nor care about making a good product" Pardon my pessimism, but in my whole career, I have never met a PM who actual did the work of driving the product vision. Most were just middlemen shuttling information between management, marketing, desi…

> Most were just middlemen shuttling information between management, marketing, design, and engineering.

well, in my experience as a developer integration between different systems with different views about how things should work is often the most challenging part of the job, so what you describe sounds like it would be difficult.

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#69

Post by zkry »

megaloblasto wrote: post #13
betaby wrote: post #10

If AI is that good, can someone code a good XML library with AI? The spec is available. If AI is that good, there should be an explosion of Open Source projects of good quality. Neither of those is happening.

Many people are seeing huge gains in coding productivity with AI. If you're not one of those people it might be useful to evaluate why you aren't experiencing any benefits, instead of claiming that there are none.

I don't think this line of reasoning holds. The only thing people should look at are peer reviewed studies, lots of them ideally, and with no conflict of interest. Who's getting productivity gains? What kinds of work are they doing? What doesn't work so well? All of these questions should be investigated by studies. People feeling productivity gains doesn't imply the gains exist.

Otherwise it sounds like "many people have had their lives changed by {insert philosophical/religious movement}, so if you're not finding it true you should look into what's wrong with you."

Re: Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

#70

Post by jlarocco »

damon_c wrote: post #31
betaby wrote: post #10

If AI is that good, can someone code a good XML library with AI? The spec is available. If AI is that good, there should be an explosion of Open Source projects of good quality. Neither of those is happening.

One thing that has changed for me personally is that these days if I’m parsing XML, I might just tell AI to write a parser that can handle these 5 XML files. It might load up a library or it might just roll its own, but one thing that is not going to happen is that I’m not building some beautiful well engineered XML parser which I then open source. I wonder if that is what’s going on?

I don't buy this line of pro-AI reasoning. It sounds like more work with less reliable results than just writing the code myself.

First of all, nobody is writing and open sourcing their own XML parser in 2025, so that's hyperbole.

Second, the boilerplate to use most XML libraries can be copy/pasted out of their docs. So where is AI saving you time here? The prompting and other BS is a waste of time and just looks silly, and you still have to read and understand the code. At best it seems like breaking even.

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