3 ms·

Without me trying to be snarky why do you feel spreadsheet software launching is comparable to this scenario?

by ianbutler 7mo ago

Marazan 7mo ago
VisiCalc was the killer app.
- ianbutler 7mo ago
  Ah got it. I wasn’t drawing that connection. Thanks
- zozbot234 7mo ago
  VisiCalc was "the" killer app for early micros, but being able to edit a written text on screen and then print it out with letter-like quality was nothing to sneeze at, either. This was plausibly a key gain in efficiency for the service sector, perhaps comparable to the 10%~25% that's now being talked about re: LLM's (which is huge on a secular basis).
mandevil 7mo ago
Visicalc is often described as the killer app of the first generation Personal Computer(1). It was the product that drove them into every small business in the country, that blew up sales of personal computers and brought them out of the realm of hobbyists into enterprise. And, honestly, I think Visicalc and spreadsheets are still a greater benefit than what I've seen out of generative AI today. And that happened a lot faster than where we are today with generative AI. Apple had enormous actual profits by 1980 (Apple IPO'd in 1980 with a 21% operating margin). So I think that a lot of the "just got to give it more time" argument misses that the previous computer based revolutions that we know about productized and threw off gobs of cash a heck of a lot faster than this one has. If the end result of this is "certain classes of white collar workers are 10-25% more productive" (which is the best results I can extrapolate from what I've seen so far) then it's really hard to imagine how OpenAI can return a profit to their investors. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc#Killer_app https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc#Killer_app is pretty much the normal narrative on Visicalc and its importance to the Personal Computer.
- ianbutler 7mo ago
  Thanks for the in depth explanation. I was definitely not up on my tech history here. :)
  - mandevil 7mo ago
    Sorry, I forgot that for many engineers this is, in fact, their first time going through a technology cycle like this, and so would need more explanation. I am too young for Visicalc myself, but the cycle that I saw while I was in high school- the dot-com bubble- doesn't have convenient, easy to mark out dates like the PC does. Thinking... Thinking... Tim Berners-Lee proposing HTTP in 1989 is kinda like the original Attention is All You Need paper, I guess? Netscape 1.0 release in December 1994 is ChatGPT 1.0? And then Amazon.com opened up to the public in July 1995 and then IPO'd in May 1997 (after raising less than 10 million dollars in two funding rounds). But once again we have the business side of these previous cycles moving much faster than this one.
    - piker 7mo ago
      WOW. That does really drive home the perspective. I was an adolescent during those years and it did seem quick then, but that's an insane pace in retrospect. Amazon is perhaps a counter-example to your point, though, to be fair. It seems to me they did a lot of spaghetti throwing while making accounting losses for a good number of years. Granted, they did it on OpenAI's dining budget.
      - df2sdf 7mo ago
        "It seems to me they did a lot of spaghetti throwing while making accounting losses for a good number of years." They actually didn't. They knew what they were doing. Bezos had a proper background in Finance, unlike Altman.
    - ianbutler 7mo ago
      Yeah I started programming in 2006 as a kid and then entered professional work in 2016 I guess as still a kid depending on your perspective :P This is really the first meteoric rise in tech I've seen / am experiencing first hand.
bombcar 7mo ago
I took it the other way, spreadsheets shook up the world way more than AI has (to date) - it's possible that history will look back and count AI as the bigger "thing" but if I had to pick a killer app, VisiCalc and computer spreadsheets in general would beat ChatGPT.
- aworks 7mo ago
  Good link from the other day about spreadsheet impact on business https://davidoks.blog/p/how-the-spreadsheet-reshaped-america https://davidoks.blog/p/how-the-spreadsheet-reshaped-america
taco_emoji 7mo ago
Visicalc is widely regarded to be the first "killer app" for the Apple computer. Perhaps even the first "killer app" period.

Without me trying to be snarky why do you feel spreadsheet software launching is comparable to this scenario?

Marazan 7mo ago

VisiCalc was the killer app.

ianbutler 7mo ago
Ah got it. I wasn’t drawing that connection. Thanks
zozbot234 7mo ago
VisiCalc was "the" killer app for early micros, but being able to edit a written text on screen and then print it out with letter-like quality was nothing to sneeze at, either. This was plausibly a key gain in efficiency for the service sector, perhaps comparable to the 10%~25% that's now being talked about re: LLM's (which is huge on a secular basis).

mandevil 7mo ago

Visicalc is often described as the killer app of the first generation Personal Computer(1). It was the product that drove them into every small business in the country, that blew up sales of personal computers and brought them out of the realm of hobbyists into enterprise. And, honestly, I think Visicalc and spreadsheets are still a greater benefit than what I've seen out of generative AI today. And that happened a lot faster than where we are today with generative AI. Apple had enormous actual profits by 1980 (Apple IPO'd in 1980 with a 21% operating margin). So I think that a lot of the "just got to give it more time" argument misses that the previous computer based revolutions that we know about productized and threw off gobs of cash a heck of a lot faster than this one has. If the end result of this is "certain classes of white collar workers are 10-25% more productive" (which is the best results I can extrapolate from what I've seen so far) then it's really hard to imagine how OpenAI can return a profit to their investors. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc#Killer_app https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc#Killer_app is pretty much the normal narrative on Visicalc and its importance to the Personal Computer.

ianbutler 7mo ago
Thanks for the in depth explanation. I was definitely not up on my tech history here. :)
- mandevil 7mo ago
  Sorry, I forgot that for many engineers this is, in fact, their first time going through a technology cycle like this, and so would need more explanation. I am too young for Visicalc myself, but the cycle that I saw while I was in high school- the dot-com bubble- doesn't have convenient, easy to mark out dates like the PC does. Thinking... Thinking... Tim Berners-Lee proposing HTTP in 1989 is kinda like the original Attention is All You Need paper, I guess? Netscape 1.0 release in December 1994 is ChatGPT 1.0? And then Amazon.com opened up to the public in July 1995 and then IPO'd in May 1997 (after raising less than 10 million dollars in two funding rounds). But once again we have the business side of these previous cycles moving much faster than this one.
  - piker 7mo ago
    WOW. That does really drive home the perspective. I was an adolescent during those years and it did seem quick then, but that's an insane pace in retrospect. Amazon is perhaps a counter-example to your point, though, to be fair. It seems to me they did a lot of spaghetti throwing while making accounting losses for a good number of years. Granted, they did it on OpenAI's dining budget.
    - df2sdf 7mo ago
      "It seems to me they did a lot of spaghetti throwing while making accounting losses for a good number of years." They actually didn't. They knew what they were doing. Bezos had a proper background in Finance, unlike Altman.
  - ianbutler 7mo ago
    Yeah I started programming in 2006 as a kid and then entered professional work in 2016 I guess as still a kid depending on your perspective :P This is really the first meteoric rise in tech I've seen / am experiencing first hand.

bombcar 7mo ago

I took it the other way, spreadsheets shook up the world way more than AI has (to date) - it's possible that history will look back and count AI as the bigger "thing" but if I had to pick a killer app, VisiCalc and computer spreadsheets in general would beat ChatGPT.

aworks 7mo ago
Good link from the other day about spreadsheet impact on business https://davidoks.blog/p/how-the-spreadsheet-reshaped-america https://davidoks.blog/p/how-the-spreadsheet-reshaped-america

taco_emoji 7mo ago

Visicalc is widely regarded to be the first "killer app" for the Apple computer. Perhaps even the first "killer app" period.