4 ms·

Thank you for coming on HN and offering to answer questions.[a] This is a fantastic piece, very timely, evidently well-researched, and also well-written. Judgi

by cs702 6mo ago

Thank you for coming on HN and offering to answer questions.[a] This is a fantastic piece, very timely, evidently well-researched, and also well-written. Judging by the little that I know, it's accurate. Thank you for doing the work and sharing it with the world. OpenAI may be in a more tenuous competitive position than many people realize. Recent anecdotal evidence suggests the company has lost its lead in the AI race to Anthropic.[b] Many people here, on HN, who develop software prefer Claude, because they think it's a better product.[c] Is your understanding of OpenAI's current competitive position similar? --- [a] You may want to provide proof online that you are who you say you are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet%2C_nobody_knows_you're_a_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet%2C_nobody_know... [b] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-04-01/openais-shocking-fall-from-grace-as-investors-race-to-anthropic https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-04-01/openais-sh... [c] For example, there are 2x more stories mentioning Claude than ChatGPT on HN over the past year. Compare https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=true&query=openai&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru... to https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=true&query=chatgpt&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...

brightbeige 6mo ago
He’s replying on this twitter thread - perhaps someone with an account can ask there and link his comment here? https://xcancel.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041127882429206532#m https://xcancel.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041127882429206532#m
- jamiequint 6mo ago
  Here is the actual link, not a link to some weird third-party site that can't be trusted. https://x.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041127882429206532 https://x.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041127882429206532
  - SwellJoe 6mo ago
    Whereas X can be trusted?
    - jamiequint 6mo ago
      Yes? It's the data source, not a third-party. How is this even a question?
      - SwellJoe 6mo ago
        X restricts what you can view without logging in. Many folks don't want to log in to X, for obvious reasons. Posting an xcancel link is kinda like folks posting various `archive` URLs to bypass paywalls, work around overloaded servers, etc. That's an extremely common practice here that usually goes without comment.
        jamiequint 6mo ago
        What is an "obvious reason" one might not want to log into X? I can't think of any rational reason.
        SwellJoe 6mo ago
        You can't think of even one reason? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk-posts-january-white-supremacists https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk...
      - minimaxir 6mo ago
        There's pedantic, and then there's needlessly pedantic. xcancel is a valid workaround for X links on Hacker News and is sufficient for original attribution.
  - rounce 6mo ago
    FYI xcancel is just a mirror that allows reading replies without needing an account.
georgemcbay 6mo ago
> You may want to provide proof online that you are who you say you are Unfortunately it probably doesn't even matter here on HN considering how brigaded down this story is predictably getting. But yeah, it was a fantastic piece.
- ronanfarrow 6mo ago
  Fair request, here you go: https://x.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041203911697068112 https://x.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041203911697068112
- dang 6mo ago
  It wasn't getting "brigaded down" - it set off a software penalty called the flamewar detector. I turned that off as soon as I saw it.
  - cs702 6mo ago
    Thank you for keeping HN sane :-)
ronanfarrow 6mo ago
Thank you for this, very much appreciate the thoughtful response. The piece captures some of the anxieties within OpenAI right now about their competitive position. This obviously ebbs and flows but of late there has been much focus on Anthropic's relative position. We of course mention the allegations of "circular deals" and concerns about partners taking on debt.
- cs702 6mo ago
  Thank you. Yes, I saw that. The company's always been surrounded by endless talk about insane hype, speculative bubbles, and financial engineering. I wasn't asking so much about that. I was asking more about your informed view on how OpenAI's technology, products, and roadmap are perceived, particularly by customers and partners, in comparison to those of competitors. If you have an opinion about that, everyone here would love to hear about it.
  - irishcoffee 6mo ago
    My guess is that the answer to your question, fantastic question, is that nobody knows. I remember having the same thoughts when Covid was first “arriving” if you will: we wanted people in the know to throw us a nugget of information, and they just didn’t know. As it turns out, and what I’m kind of going with for this LLM shit, is that it’ll play out exactly how you think it will. The companies are all too big to fail, with billionaire backers who would rather commit fraud than lose money.
    - philipallstar 6mo ago
      How would fraud help here? Don't they just need scale of lots of customers paying a little bit? How do you fraud your way into that?
      - kelvinjps10 6mo ago
        they don't need customers, when the customers ere each others companies for example the deals openAI nvidia oracle made
unsupp0rted 6mo ago
Many of us prefer OpenAI's Codex, because we think it's a better product. No comment on the CEO: I just find the product superior in everything but UI/UX and conversation. It's better at quality code.
- DeathArrow 6mo ago
  I prefer GLM 5.1 and MiniMax 2.7. With a better harness like Forge Code, I have better results for way less money than by using GPT and Opus.
- thaoanh404 6mo ago
  i find myself being more productive with codex/copilot on coding tasks, but claude does seem to be better at planning
- mliker 6mo ago
  Who is “us”? It does seem that some scientists prefer Codex for its math capabilities but when it comes to general frontend and backend construction, Claude Code is just as good and possibly made better with its extensive Skills library. Both codex and Claude code fail when it comes to extremely sophisticated programming for distributed systems
  - unsupp0rted 6mo ago
    Us = me and say /r/codex or wherever Codex users are. I've tried both, liked both, but in my projects one clearly produces better results, more maintainable code and does a better job of debugging and refactoring.
    - sampullman 6mo ago
      That's interesting, I actively use both and usually find it to be a toss up which one performs better at a given task. I generally find Claude to be better with complex tool calls and Codex to be better at reviewing code, but otherwise don't see a significant difference.
ed 6mo ago
It's worth noting Codex has 2x more stories than Claude https://hn.algolia.com/?query=codex https://hn.algolia.com/?query=codex
- cloverich 6mo ago
  But by page 5, those stories have around 50-60 karma, while claude page five is still 500+ (i found your comment surprising based on my daily hn reading recollection - i mostly read top N daily and feel i only occassionally see codex stories).
- qotgalaxy 6mo ago
  [dead]
ATMLOTTOBEER 6mo ago
Yeah we moved to Claude a few months ago, mostly because the devs kept using it anyway. Altman stuff is interesting but at the end of the day you just go with whatever tool works
cableshaft 6mo ago
Personally, I prefer Claude for coding, but I still prefer ChatGPT for hashing out ideas for my projects (which tend to be game designs). So I use both.
lasky 6mo ago
I’m assuming this is all sarcasm.

by cs702 6mo ago

brightbeige 6mo ago

He’s replying on this twitter thread - perhaps someone with an account can ask there and link his comment here? https://xcancel.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041127882429206532#m https://xcancel.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041127882429206532#m

jamiequint 6mo ago
Here is the actual link, not a link to some weird third-party site that can't be trusted. https://x.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041127882429206532 https://x.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041127882429206532
- SwellJoe 6mo ago
  Whereas X can be trusted?
  - jamiequint 6mo ago
    Yes? It's the data source, not a third-party. How is this even a question?
    - SwellJoe 6mo ago
      X restricts what you can view without logging in. Many folks don't want to log in to X, for obvious reasons. Posting an xcancel link is kinda like folks posting various `archive` URLs to bypass paywalls, work around overloaded servers, etc. That's an extremely common practice here that usually goes without comment.
      - jamiequint 6mo ago
        What is an "obvious reason" one might not want to log into X? I can't think of any rational reason.
        SwellJoe 6mo ago
        You can't think of even one reason? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk-posts-january-white-supremacists https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk...
    - minimaxir 6mo ago
      There's pedantic, and then there's needlessly pedantic. xcancel is a valid workaround for X links on Hacker News and is sufficient for original attribution.
- rounce 6mo ago
  FYI xcancel is just a mirror that allows reading replies without needing an account.

georgemcbay 6mo ago

> You may want to provide proof online that you are who you say you are Unfortunately it probably doesn't even matter here on HN considering how brigaded down this story is predictably getting. But yeah, it was a fantastic piece.

ronanfarrow 6mo ago
Fair request, here you go: https://x.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041203911697068112 https://x.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041203911697068112
dang 6mo ago
It wasn't getting "brigaded down" - it set off a software penalty called the flamewar detector. I turned that off as soon as I saw it.
- cs702 6mo ago
  Thank you for keeping HN sane :-)

ronanfarrow 6mo ago

Thank you for this, very much appreciate the thoughtful response. The piece captures some of the anxieties within OpenAI right now about their competitive position. This obviously ebbs and flows but of late there has been much focus on Anthropic's relative position. We of course mention the allegations of "circular deals" and concerns about partners taking on debt.

cs702 6mo ago
Thank you. Yes, I saw that. The company's always been surrounded by endless talk about insane hype, speculative bubbles, and financial engineering. I wasn't asking so much about that. I was asking more about your informed view on how OpenAI's technology, products, and roadmap are perceived, particularly by customers and partners, in comparison to those of competitors. If you have an opinion about that, everyone here would love to hear about it.
- irishcoffee 6mo ago
  My guess is that the answer to your question, fantastic question, is that nobody knows. I remember having the same thoughts when Covid was first “arriving” if you will: we wanted people in the know to throw us a nugget of information, and they just didn’t know. As it turns out, and what I’m kind of going with for this LLM shit, is that it’ll play out exactly how you think it will. The companies are all too big to fail, with billionaire backers who would rather commit fraud than lose money.
  - philipallstar 6mo ago
    How would fraud help here? Don't they just need scale of lots of customers paying a little bit? How do you fraud your way into that?
    - kelvinjps10 6mo ago
      they don't need customers, when the customers ere each others companies for example the deals openAI nvidia oracle made

unsupp0rted 6mo ago

Many of us prefer OpenAI's Codex, because we think it's a better product. No comment on the CEO: I just find the product superior in everything but UI/UX and conversation. It's better at quality code.

DeathArrow 6mo ago
I prefer GLM 5.1 and MiniMax 2.7. With a better harness like Forge Code, I have better results for way less money than by using GPT and Opus.
thaoanh404 6mo ago
i find myself being more productive with codex/copilot on coding tasks, but claude does seem to be better at planning
mliker 6mo ago
Who is “us”? It does seem that some scientists prefer Codex for its math capabilities but when it comes to general frontend and backend construction, Claude Code is just as good and possibly made better with its extensive Skills library. Both codex and Claude code fail when it comes to extremely sophisticated programming for distributed systems
- unsupp0rted 6mo ago
  Us = me and say /r/codex or wherever Codex users are. I've tried both, liked both, but in my projects one clearly produces better results, more maintainable code and does a better job of debugging and refactoring.
  - sampullman 6mo ago
    That's interesting, I actively use both and usually find it to be a toss up which one performs better at a given task. I generally find Claude to be better with complex tool calls and Codex to be better at reviewing code, but otherwise don't see a significant difference.

ed 6mo ago

It's worth noting Codex has 2x more stories than Claude https://hn.algolia.com/?query=codex https://hn.algolia.com/?query=codex

cloverich 6mo ago
But by page 5, those stories have around 50-60 karma, while claude page five is still 500+ (i found your comment surprising based on my daily hn reading recollection - i mostly read top N daily and feel i only occassionally see codex stories).
qotgalaxy 6mo ago
[dead]

ATMLOTTOBEER 6mo ago

Yeah we moved to Claude a few months ago, mostly because the devs kept using it anyway. Altman stuff is interesting but at the end of the day you just go with whatever tool works

cableshaft 6mo ago

Personally, I prefer Claude for coding, but I still prefer ChatGPT for hashing out ideas for my projects (which tend to be game designs). So I use both.

lasky 6mo ago

I’m assuming this is all sarcasm.