tyyyy3

Can we build a list of the actual nerds who care? Need it for my future recruitment needs lol.

I think its a direct reflection of the fact that most people really prefer to go-go-go and not spend the time up-front thinking about what their project even is, why it matters and is it worth dedicated resources toward it. The abandonment usually reflects the answer - no it was not worth it.

LLMs amplify this behaviour.

"I feel like we could leap ahead a decade if people could divorce "we use language, and it uses language so it is like us","

Or maybe just maybe... the thing should be much better designed around the human.

That's how personal computers made their way into homes. People like yourself are comical and can't understand how widespread adoption takes place to obtain value from what the thing intrinsically possesses.

Firms literally exist to take care of the hassle so that the person can get the value from the thing closer to the present - like hello...?

The more difficult it is to trace one’s labour to output.. expect more theatrics ;)

Exactly what I expected to read after reading the first part of your post lol.

I’m starting to realise, many people and the management themselves don’t really understand why the firm exists, and what they do. Funny to watch tbh

I agree generally but there are periods where creative people show up and a whole slew of existing firms go bust/shrink due to one’s ability to envision a path toward creative destruction.

Your post weeks of pure arrogance. You sound like the bozo’s at Anthropic who made an AI agent for finance and think this is somehow going to provide a huge productivity boost because all they do is a bunch of tick boxing and spreadsheet work.

No, just no.

The problem of life in general is the last 5-10% is always the hardest. And it makes no economic sense in many cases to invest in trying to make that last part mechanised.

I believe the llm providers went with the wrong approach from the off - the focus should’ve been on complementing labour not displacement. And I believe they have learned an expensive lesson along the way.

Correct me if I’m wrong Simon, but weren’t you highly optimistic about llm’s and agentic-use of them?

I believe this is a common fault of not being able to zoom out and look at what trade offs are being made. There’s always trade-offs, the question is whether you can define them and then do the analysis to determine whether the result leaves you in a net benefit state.

Hype

This is an empty statement - if you pour in hundreds of billions should you not expect progress?

The question is will these firms be able to continue to spend at that rate. The managers of the firms don’t necessarily have control over that - ultimately punishment in the form of drop in stock price hurts many people involved and will force the management to act in the interest of marginal investors. Even Zuckerberg who has majority control had to concede when meta’s stock cratered to below 100.

I did a degree in comp sci but my focus through my career is at the intersection of product design, economics and corporate finance/valuation whilst working with software engineers.

Im beginning to realise people who are too concentrated on one dimension (e.g software engineering) can’t see how things actually fit together. You only know what you know I guess.. but it’s blindly obvious to me.

I strongly believe increasing the rate at which one produces code misses the point.

If engineers already know up front with clarity what they need to build, and, the leadership are very focused and concentrate resources on doing a few things.. then increasing the rate at which LOC is written is not beneficial - because getting the product built right is what matters.