Ask HN: What stories do you know related to doing things that didn't scale?

3 pointstrulykp4 comments

Inspired by Paul Graham's phrase, I’m adding more to the open list on DoThingsThatDontScale.com, the home of hacks/stories of real founders who did “things that don’t scale” to power through their initial startup days.

What are some of the hacks you have heard or have personally experimented with? Thank you in advance!

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"Autonomous" robots kiwibots are acutally remote-controlled by contractors

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Kiwibots-win-fa...

"The Kiwibots do not figure out their own routes. Instead, people in Colombia, the home country of Chavez and his two co-founders, plot “waypoints” for the bots to follow, sending them instructions every five to 10 seconds on where to go." "Another cost saving is that human assistance means the robots don’t need pricey equipment such as lidar sensors to “see” around them."

wow, that is amazing. It reminds me of the "Wizard of Oz" reference commonly used in startups where AI is first tested by real people doing those tasks repeatedly to learn and improve.

I think that's the secret to a lot of startups. I worked with one where the whole AI promise was a huge file full of regular expressions.

Haha, can't say I am too shocked!

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