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Comment by asdff | Hacker News Reader

This is the whole point and the reason for the lofty valuations. Get everyone to shift their work to be dependent on these tooling, to the point they can't imagine working in any other way, and then raise prices. Tale as old as enterprise software.

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Tale as old as the word "startup" even. Uber/Lyft did it with taxis. DoorDash did it with food delivery. You run at a loss for years while destroying your legacy competition by just outlasting them, then once you have cornered the market you squeeze.

I understand the cynism but it’s not the case here. Stainless isn't a case of blitzscaling or running a loss for years to destroy the competition. The motto of the company is polished and robust and we invested a lot into generating what we think are the highest quality SDKs available. We could have shipped things way, way faster if the focus on design and quality wasn’t such an essential part of the development process

No but Anthropic and OpenAI are very much trying to use their positions to destroy everyone's ability to do things without their product, make AI essential, and then jack prices. Thats the only way this becomes profitable.

It's not about Stainless, it's about Anthropic.

Don't you feel unqualified to make such statements since you have a obvious bias and extreme financial $tak€ here?

Did we all lose are critical thinking during COVID or something?

Obviously not, I do feel more than qualified given that I actively contributed to developing the company. None of what I wrote in the comment you responded to is a secret or is based on my personal judgement, we’ve been open about our values

This comment reminds me of the general malaise affecting the public discourse in the US these days. "Don't listen to the experts, all the context and knowledge they have makes them biased!!"

Of course Sam is "qualified" to speak to the ethos of Stainless, he was there longer than anyone except the founder.

I'm reading "enshitification", and it describes this cycle of first losing money but acquiring customers, then switching focus to catering to businesses, then to themselves and at that point the tool is not what it was supposedly intended to be.

This is the same startup culture. The only innovation here is finding new way to swindle customers and businesses out of money.

Now Uber is profitable what stops a taxi from just competing again, forcing Uber to have to be unprofitable again?

Skill issue. Taxi companies aren't able to innovate and adapt and improve, despite the competition from Uber, preferring instead to use lobbying and regulations too survive in a post-Uber world.

Actually, it is a marketing issue. Taxis did innovate and did improve and imo are a better product than uber today. They have an app that is no different than what you expect with rideshare apps. Actually it is better, I can schedule a ride and get a flat rate with tip already baked in to places like the airport. No need to fret about surge prices at all, what I see when I schedule it today is what I pay when it comes tomorrow or next week or next month, whenever I've scheduled it.

But, no one uses it, because uber and lyft have become kleenex or coca cola: the brand name associated with the basic phenomenon, such that consumers cannot even think about the phenomenon without thinking first of the brand and probably resorting to the brand.

I’ve tried taxis like 4 times in the past 5 years or so. I regretted it 3 out 4 of those times.

Maybe I’ll try again in a few years.

Last time I was in Vegas (in 2026), there was a $40/$60 surcharge to my destination because the taxicab commission was able to enact regulations that says taxis can charge that, while Lyft/Ubers to the same location did not have to pay it. I was waiting at a smaller hotel for 20 minutes for a taxi to arrive to the taxi stand. There was a line of people an no taxis in sight. The time before that, I got hit with the ole "credit card machine doesn't work" bit.

If they wannted to innovate, every taxi stand would have a QR code to download their app, you set your destination while you're waiting in the line (if there is one), you get in the cab, the driver scans the QR code from your phone, payment happens via CC in the app, no surprises either. The phone app would show you the route, and then give an estimated price, and if there's an overage due to traffic/other problem, give me a notification on my phone. It would also let me set preferences for conversation/temperature.

You know very well uber is not doing the transportation industry a good service

and this is why i use pi.dev and hotswap models and have no reliance on a single provider

Actually that wasn’t the plan, no

The moment a group accepts VC money, this becomes the plan

I was at stainless since the very beginning, I can tell you it wasn’t the plan

Yeah, but they now have new owner who might be having different plan.

The new owner's plan is...to sunset the paid product immediately and give customers access to tooling to be able to continue generating SDKs on their own. From Stainless's post:

    As we focus on Claude Platform capabilities and connecting agents to APIs, we’ll be winding down all hosted Stainless products, including our SDK generator. Starting today, new signups, projects, and SDKs will not be available.

    If you’re a Stainless customer, visit app.stainless.com/transition for help transitioning from Stainless-managed products to other options. As always, you own the SDKs you’ve generated to date, and have full rights to modify and extend them however you wish.

As a customer, all-in-all, we were pretty pleased with the outcome. Stainless was a great partner to us, even in "the end," and I'm really happy for the team.

The plan can change with the right amount of money. Just ask OpenAI.

the plan isn't really up to the recipient of VC money lol

With respect, you were manipulated (either by founders or by investors). Startups leverage employees' pro-social leanings to make them feel good about a fundamentally anti-social enterprise.

HN cracks me up sometimes. Anthropic is anti-social? Stainless devs don't want their pre IPO equity to do well? Okay.

I very much doubt you would apply your expectation of altruism to yourself!

But I think that doesn't matter.

If you intend to sell it to the highest bidder eventually then what difference does it make what was your plan?

If a business had real values then they would never sell out (see lichess).

Why wouldn't getting more customers the plan? Anthropic doesn't acquire companies to have a lower market share. There is clearly a consolidation and a rush to get as much of the developer market as possible.

Exactly. The goal of any VC by definition is to return a positive return on investment. I guess you might have a handful of exceptions, funds that are environmentally conscious, but profit remains paramount.

You forgot this: "trust me bro".

As opposed to what? Wild speculation people are making without any insider knowledge?

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