This is the time for bold predictions, you’ve just told us we’re in a crucible moment yet you end the article passively….
- Small companies using AI are going to kick the sh*t out of large companies that are slow to adapt.
- LLMs will penetrate more areas of our lives. Closer to the STTNG computer. They will be agents in the real life sense and possibly in the physical world as well (robots).
- ASICs will eat nVidia's lunch.
- We will see an explosion of software and we will also see more jobs for people who are able to maintain all this software (using AI tools). There is going to be a lot more custom software for very specific purposes.
Big companies are sales machines and their products have been terrible for ages. Microsoft enjoys the top spot in software sales only due to their sales staff pushing impossible deals every year.
With this moat reduced I think you'll find this approach doesn't work any more. The smaller companies will also hire the good sales people away.
Microsoft survived (and even, for a little while, dominated) after missing the web. Netscape didn't eat its lunch.
Then Google broke out on a completely different front.
Now there's billions of dollars of investment in "AI", hoping to break out like the next Google... while competing directly with Google.
(This is why we should be more ambitious about constraining large companies and billionaires.)
Netscape didn't attack Microsoft's business software, operating systems or other pieces of their offerings.
Google also didn't seriously attack Microsoft's business.
And neither had the capability to build large software very fast.
Google is both a software company and an infrastructure company as is Microsoft today. Their software is going to become more of a commodity but their data centers still have value (even perhaps more value since all this new software needs a place to run). It's true that if you're in the business of hosting software and selling SaaS you have an advantage over a competitor who does not host their own software.
That's not how it was interpreted at the time: Netscape threatened to route around the desktop operating system (Win32) to deliver applications via the browser. "Over the top" as they say in television land.
Netscape didn't succeed, but that's precisely what happened (along with the separate incursion of mobile platforms, spearheaded by Apple... followed quickly by Google, who realised they had to follow suit very quickly).
> And neither had the capability to build large software very fast.
Internet Explorer. Android. Gemini.
2026 is the year where we all realise that we can be our own company and build the stuff in our dreams rather than the mundane crap we do at work.
Honestly I am optimistic about computing in general. Llms will open things up for novices and experts alike. We can move into I the fields where we can use our brain power... But all we need is enough memory and compute to control our destiny....
Do you know how hard it to make a successful company or even make money? Its like saying any actor can goto hollywood and be a star
VCs wont fund everyone
Nobody is sure of anything
> Do you know how hard it to make a successful company or even make money?
Yes I have failed to do it before. I get this.
> VCs wont fund everyone
And? Do you need VCs? Economics mean that scale matters but what if we don't need it. What if we can make efficient startups with our own funding??
But heres the reality from me- I’m in my 50s and I don't have it in me to grind at the level of 20 year olds to achieve some level of security in an untried business model - and this is someone who has launched 2 AI startups in the past 2 years
In one we got VC funding but I left after setting up their agent platform and tons of AI assisted coding only to not meet impossible deadlines and over-promised AI value to enterprise customers - I was literally working 20 hr days at stretch for 170k salary competing and half benefits against 25 year olds out of stamford with no lives- far lower than the 250+ with stock and benefits I got in my EM role at a big company which now evaporated - I was edged out of that startup role for not delivering “on time”
My second AI startup I cofounded with friends and trusted colleagues its bootstrapped (all of us are over 40) - so we have more experience and better deadlines now but its up to the business gods on how well it will do- crossing my fingers
But its a lot of pressure for sure and I currently have no health insurance and my wife was laid off in December and we lost her benefits
So I wouldn’t call myself optimistic in the end stage capitalistic hellwhole that is modern “middle class” America
I hope a better work model can be found - but having some any salary and medical benefit security would be nice
I went to an AI meetup last week and it was filled with gray hairs - i could sense the desperation as many people I met told me they were laid off recently and trying to dive in
Ironically looking at them it reminded me of those interviews they used to do in Appalachia or something when a town was out of work and advisors came in and said “learn to code instead of mining” (ok I may be exaggerating somewhat but I even know a ex Microsoft manager who had to resort to a go-fundme to keep his family afloat)
https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1qzj9ve/67_no_f...
Start? Excuse moi