4 ms·

Same situation (50 last week, 2 kids) though have been unemployed for a year. Part of me thinks that, rather than taking jobs, AI is actually the only reason a

by daxfohl 8mo ago

Same situation (50 last week, 2 kids) though have been unemployed for a year. Part of me thinks that, rather than taking jobs, AI is actually the only reason a lot of jobs still exist. The rest of tech is dead. Having worked in consulting a while ago, you can kind of feel it when you're approaching the point where you've implemented all the high value stuff for a client and, even though there's stuff you could do, they're going to drop you to a retainer contract because it's just not the same value. That's how the whole industry feels now. The only investment money is flowing into AI, and so companies with any tech presence are touting their AI whatevers at every possible moment (including during layoffs) just to get some capital. Without that, I wonder if we'd be seeing even harsher layoffs than we already are.

mrsilencedogood 8mo ago
Software will ALWAYS be an attractive VC target. The economics are just too good. The profit margins are just inherently fat as fuck compared to literally anything else. Your main expense is headcount and the incremental cost of your widget is ~$0? It's literally a dream. It's also why so much of AI is targeting software, specifically SAAS. A SaaS company with ~0 headcount driven by AI is basically 100% profit margin. A truly perfect conception of capitalism. Meanwhile I think AI actually has a decent shot at "curing" cancer. AI-assisted radiology means screening could be come significantly cheaper, happen a lot more often, and catch cancers very early, which is extremely important as everyone knows to surviving it. The cure for cancer might actually just involve much earlier detection. But pfft what are the profit margins on _that_?
- b3kart 8mo ago
  It’s funny that perfect capitalism (no payroll expenses) means nobody has money to actually buy any of the goods produced by AI. Re cancer: I wonder how significant is the cost of reading the results vs. the logistics of actually running the test
  - daxfohl 8mo ago
    Bots using bots to write software for bots. And it only cost 5 trillion dollars! The best part? Bots don't get cancer, so that problem is solved too!
  - 9rx 8mo ago
    > It’s funny that perfect capitalism (no payroll expenses) means nobody has money to actually buy any of the goods produced by AI. When you remember that profit is the measure of unrealized benefit, and look at how profitable capitalists have become, its not clear if, approximately speaking, anyone actually has the "money" to buy any goods now. In other words, I am not sure this matters. Big business is already effectively working for free, with no realistic way to ever actually derive the benefit that has been promised to it. In theory those promises could be called, but what are the people going to give back in return?
    - acuozzo 8mo ago
      Can you please dig into this more deeply or suggest somewhere in which I can read more?
      - 9rx 8mo ago
        Money is an IOU; debt. People trade things of value for money because you can, later, call the debt and get the exchanged value that was promised in return (food, shelter, yacht, whatever) I'm sure this is obvious. I am sure it is equally obvious that if I take your promise to give back in kind later when I give you my sandwich, but never collect on it, that I ultimately gave you my sandwich for free. If you keep collecting more and more IOUs from the people you trade your goods with, realistically you are never going to be able to convert those IOUs into something real. Which is something that the capitalists already contend with. Apple, for example, has umpteen billions of dollars worth of promises that they have no idea how to collect on. In theory they can, but in practice it is never going to happen. What don't they already have? Like when I offered you my sandwich, that is many billions of dollars worth of value that they have given away for free. Given that Apple, to continue to use it as an example, have been quite happy effectively giving away many billions of dollars worth of value, why not trillions? Is it really going to matter? Money seems like something that matters to peons like us because we need to clear the debt to make sure we are well fed and kept warm, but for capitalists operating at scales that are hard for us to fathom, they are already giving stuff away for free. If they no longer have the cost of labor, they can give even more stuff away for free. Who — from their perspective — cares?
- llmslave 8mo ago
  when software gets cheap to build the economics will change
- daxfohl 8mo ago
  Yeah for the better part of a generation, our best and brightest minds have been wasted on "increasing click count". If that can all be AI from here on out, then maybe we can get actual humans working on the real problems again.
  - drivebyhooting 8mo ago
    The problem was always funding. All those bright minds went into ads because it paid well. Cancer research, space, propulsion, clean, energy, etc.. none of those paid particularly well. Nor would they have afforded a comfortable life with a house and family. The evisceration of SWE does not guarantee a flourishing in other fields. On the contrary, increased labor supply with further pressure, wages, downwards.
    - daxfohl 8mo ago
      Agreed, though I think we all knew that the software industry payscales were out of whack to begin with. Fresh college grads that can barely do a fizzbuzz making twice as much as experienced doctors. What I don't know is, say the industry normalizes to roughly what people make in other engineering fields. Then does everything else normalize around that? i.e. does cost of living go down proportionally in SF and Seattle? Or does all the tech money get further sucked up and consolidated into VC pockets and parked in vacant houses, while we and our trite "cancer research" and such get shepherded off to Doobersville?
      - drivebyhooting 8mo ago
        Expensive private schools, luxurious ski vacations, and exclusive neighborhoods existed long before the ascendance of software engineers. These had been the purview of investment bankers, high-powered, lawyers, realtors, etc.. For a brief time with big tech, it seemed like intellectual prowess could allow you to jump the social strata. But that arrangement need not exist. It’s perfectly possible, indeed likely that we will revert to the old aristocratic ways. The old boys’s network ways.
jacquesm 8mo ago
> The only investment money is flowing into AI That's so not true. Of the 23 companies we reviewed last year maybe 3 had significant AI in their workflow, the rest were just solid businesses delivering stuff that people actually need. I have no doubt that that proportion will grow significantly, and that this growth will probably happen this year but to suggest that outside of AI there is no investment is just not compatible with real world observations.
- daxfohl 8mo ago
  That's good to hear actually. It's usually a downer when a strongly held belief is contradicted with hard evidence, but I'm excited to hear that there's life yet in the industry outside of AI. Any specific trends or themes you can share?
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    Energy is a much larger theme than it was in the years before (obviously, since we're in the EU and energy overall is a larger theme in society here. This has a reflection in the VC market, but it also is part of a much larger trend, climate change and CO2 neutrality). Another trend - and this surprised us - is a much stronger presence of really hard tech and associated industries and finally - for obvious reasons, so not really surprising - more parties active in defense.
    - daxfohl 8mo ago
      Totally makes sense. Things that (once complete) have more realizable tangible value, rather than "optimizing user engagement" aka "enshittification" as some kind of imaginary value store for the last 20 years and is now being called in.
      - jacquesm 8mo ago
        What is especially interesting is to see the delta between the things that are looked at in pre-DD and which then make it to actual DD after terms are signed.

by daxfohl 8mo ago

mrsilencedogood 8mo ago

Software will ALWAYS be an attractive VC target. The economics are just too good. The profit margins are just inherently fat as fuck compared to literally anything else. Your main expense is headcount and the incremental cost of your widget is ~$0? It's literally a dream. It's also why so much of AI is targeting software, specifically SAAS. A SaaS company with ~0 headcount driven by AI is basically 100% profit margin. A truly perfect conception of capitalism. Meanwhile I think AI actually has a decent shot at "curing" cancer. AI-assisted radiology means screening could be come significantly cheaper, happen a lot more often, and catch cancers very early, which is extremely important as everyone knows to surviving it. The cure for cancer might actually just involve much earlier detection. But pfft what are the profit margins on _that_?

b3kart 8mo ago
It’s funny that perfect capitalism (no payroll expenses) means nobody has money to actually buy any of the goods produced by AI. Re cancer: I wonder how significant is the cost of reading the results vs. the logistics of actually running the test
- daxfohl 8mo ago
  Bots using bots to write software for bots. And it only cost 5 trillion dollars! The best part? Bots don't get cancer, so that problem is solved too!
- 9rx 8mo ago
  > It’s funny that perfect capitalism (no payroll expenses) means nobody has money to actually buy any of the goods produced by AI. When you remember that profit is the measure of unrealized benefit, and look at how profitable capitalists have become, its not clear if, approximately speaking, anyone actually has the "money" to buy any goods now. In other words, I am not sure this matters. Big business is already effectively working for free, with no realistic way to ever actually derive the benefit that has been promised to it. In theory those promises could be called, but what are the people going to give back in return?
  - acuozzo 8mo ago
    Can you please dig into this more deeply or suggest somewhere in which I can read more?
    - 9rx 8mo ago
      Money is an IOU; debt. People trade things of value for money because you can, later, call the debt and get the exchanged value that was promised in return (food, shelter, yacht, whatever) I'm sure this is obvious. I am sure it is equally obvious that if I take your promise to give back in kind later when I give you my sandwich, but never collect on it, that I ultimately gave you my sandwich for free. If you keep collecting more and more IOUs from the people you trade your goods with, realistically you are never going to be able to convert those IOUs into something real. Which is something that the capitalists already contend with. Apple, for example, has umpteen billions of dollars worth of promises that they have no idea how to collect on. In theory they can, but in practice it is never going to happen. What don't they already have? Like when I offered you my sandwich, that is many billions of dollars worth of value that they have given away for free. Given that Apple, to continue to use it as an example, have been quite happy effectively giving away many billions of dollars worth of value, why not trillions? Is it really going to matter? Money seems like something that matters to peons like us because we need to clear the debt to make sure we are well fed and kept warm, but for capitalists operating at scales that are hard for us to fathom, they are already giving stuff away for free. If they no longer have the cost of labor, they can give even more stuff away for free. Who — from their perspective — cares?
llmslave 8mo ago
when software gets cheap to build the economics will change
daxfohl 8mo ago
Yeah for the better part of a generation, our best and brightest minds have been wasted on "increasing click count". If that can all be AI from here on out, then maybe we can get actual humans working on the real problems again.
- drivebyhooting 8mo ago
  The problem was always funding. All those bright minds went into ads because it paid well. Cancer research, space, propulsion, clean, energy, etc.. none of those paid particularly well. Nor would they have afforded a comfortable life with a house and family. The evisceration of SWE does not guarantee a flourishing in other fields. On the contrary, increased labor supply with further pressure, wages, downwards.
  - daxfohl 8mo ago
    Agreed, though I think we all knew that the software industry payscales were out of whack to begin with. Fresh college grads that can barely do a fizzbuzz making twice as much as experienced doctors. What I don't know is, say the industry normalizes to roughly what people make in other engineering fields. Then does everything else normalize around that? i.e. does cost of living go down proportionally in SF and Seattle? Or does all the tech money get further sucked up and consolidated into VC pockets and parked in vacant houses, while we and our trite "cancer research" and such get shepherded off to Doobersville?
    - drivebyhooting 8mo ago
      Expensive private schools, luxurious ski vacations, and exclusive neighborhoods existed long before the ascendance of software engineers. These had been the purview of investment bankers, high-powered, lawyers, realtors, etc.. For a brief time with big tech, it seemed like intellectual prowess could allow you to jump the social strata. But that arrangement need not exist. It’s perfectly possible, indeed likely that we will revert to the old aristocratic ways. The old boys’s network ways.

jacquesm 8mo ago

> The only investment money is flowing into AI That's so not true. Of the 23 companies we reviewed last year maybe 3 had significant AI in their workflow, the rest were just solid businesses delivering stuff that people actually need. I have no doubt that that proportion will grow significantly, and that this growth will probably happen this year but to suggest that outside of AI there is no investment is just not compatible with real world observations.

daxfohl 8mo ago
That's good to hear actually. It's usually a downer when a strongly held belief is contradicted with hard evidence, but I'm excited to hear that there's life yet in the industry outside of AI. Any specific trends or themes you can share?
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  Energy is a much larger theme than it was in the years before (obviously, since we're in the EU and energy overall is a larger theme in society here. This has a reflection in the VC market, but it also is part of a much larger trend, climate change and CO2 neutrality). Another trend - and this surprised us - is a much stronger presence of really hard tech and associated industries and finally - for obvious reasons, so not really surprising - more parties active in defense.
  - daxfohl 8mo ago
    Totally makes sense. Things that (once complete) have more realizable tangible value, rather than "optimizing user engagement" aka "enshittification" as some kind of imaginary value store for the last 20 years and is now being called in.
    - jacquesm 8mo ago
      What is especially interesting is to see the delta between the things that are looked at in pre-DD and which then make it to actual DD after terms are signed.