4 ms·

If you want an example of a project that condensed 5 years into 6 months and exploded past the competition I suggest looking at OpenClaw. The first line of cod

by simonw 6mo ago

If you want an example of a project that condensed 5 years into 6 months and exploded past the competition I suggest looking at OpenClaw. The first line of code was written on November 25th. It achieved adoption in the "personal agents" space that far exceeded the other companies that had tried the same thing. (Whether or not you trust the quality of the software you can't deny the impact it had in such a short time. It defined a new category of software.)

mlsu 6mo ago
Ideally, the given example would be something not ajacent to the presently white-hot category of "AI agents". Like, look at e.g. YC minus the AI and AI ajacent companies. Are those startups meaningfully more impressive or feature-rich as compared to a couple years ago?
- simonw 6mo ago
  Not yet, no. I think that's because coding agents got good in November, most people didn't notice until January and it still takes 3-4 months to go from idea to releasing something. I expect we will start seeing the impact of the new coding agent enhanced development processes over the next few months.
retinaros 6mo ago
Its trash vibecoded markdown files around pi. This exemplifies well what op’is saying. We are at the ICO stage of llms. Hopefully there wont be an nft one
- mschuster91 6mo ago
  As much as I love to hate on AI: even the bad apples still produce something that one can reasonably work with. Cryptocurrencies? Barely any other use than money laundering, buying drugs and betting on the outcome of battles in war. And NFTs? No use at all other than money laundering and setting money ablaze.
  - gck1 6mo ago
    Privacy and security from government overreach is not enough?
    - mschuster91 6mo ago
      What privacy? Enough drug dealers have already been busted with solid evidence from trailing the paths on public blockchains.
  - retinaros 6mo ago
    crypto is a few 100 of billions less big as an industry than GenAI is. I guarantee you that AI is a far better money laundering scheme. mb the two better money laundering schemes would be construction business and the global warming business. doesnt mean that some of the stuff produced is good.
mjr00 6mo ago
OpenClaw is definitely not a "5 years" project pre-AI though. That was more like a month of greenfield work compressed into a weekend -- which is still really impressive, don't get me wrong! -- but I think the point is we're not seeing mature, legacy codebases get outcompeted by new, agile, AI-driven codebases; we're seeing greenfield projects get spun up faster. Which, again, is still impressive and valuable. If agents could really compress 10 years of development into 1 year, you'd see people making e.g. HFT platforms and becoming obscenely rich, not making a fun open-source project and getting hired by OpenAI as an employee.
- thunky 6mo ago
  You're framing it like the only barrier to writing wildly successful money printing software is software development skills. If that were true, all of these anti-AI greybeards who have been in the game for 30 years would all own their own jets.
- simonw 6mo ago
  41,964 commits is a lot more than "a month of greenfield work". https://tools.simonwillison.net/github-repo-stats?repo=OpenClaw%2FOpenClaw https://tools.simonwillison.net/github-repo-stats?repo=OpenC...
  - timr 6mo ago
    Seriously? Commit count is right up there with lines of code as a classically dumb measurement of productivity.
    - simonw 6mo ago
      Sure, but it's still a good counter to "a month of work".
      - timr 6mo ago
        No it isn't. There's basically no upper bound on the number of commits an LLM can generate. If the LLM takes 10,000 commits to do what a human would do in 10, then the comparison is meaningless. I don't know anything about the code quality of OpenClaw, but telling me the number of commits tells me precisely nothing of use.
layer8 6mo ago
I don’t see OpenClaw making much of an impact. Maybe in your bubble?
- simonw 6mo ago
  There are credible reports of regular people in China attending dedicated events for help getting started with OpenClaw. They're not in my bubble! https://www.reuters.com/technology/openclaw-enthusiasm-grips-china-schoolkids-retirees-alike-raise-lobsters-2026-03-19/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/openclaw-enthusiasm-grips...
demorro 6mo ago
> It defined a new category of software Which is exactly why you can't use it as an example, there is no control. This is basic stuff.
cbarte01 6mo ago
The condensation argument is totally true.... Strikes me though the other metric Id look at is how long code survives before being re-written. Feels like for that one a bit early to tell...
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

by simonw 6mo ago

mlsu 6mo ago

Ideally, the given example would be something not ajacent to the presently white-hot category of "AI agents". Like, look at e.g. YC minus the AI and AI ajacent companies. Are those startups meaningfully more impressive or feature-rich as compared to a couple years ago?

simonw 6mo ago
Not yet, no. I think that's because coding agents got good in November, most people didn't notice until January and it still takes 3-4 months to go from idea to releasing something. I expect we will start seeing the impact of the new coding agent enhanced development processes over the next few months.

retinaros 6mo ago

Its trash vibecoded markdown files around pi. This exemplifies well what op’is saying. We are at the ICO stage of llms. Hopefully there wont be an nft one

mschuster91 6mo ago
As much as I love to hate on AI: even the bad apples still produce something that one can reasonably work with. Cryptocurrencies? Barely any other use than money laundering, buying drugs and betting on the outcome of battles in war. And NFTs? No use at all other than money laundering and setting money ablaze.
- gck1 6mo ago
  Privacy and security from government overreach is not enough?
  - mschuster91 6mo ago
    What privacy? Enough drug dealers have already been busted with solid evidence from trailing the paths on public blockchains.
- retinaros 6mo ago
  crypto is a few 100 of billions less big as an industry than GenAI is. I guarantee you that AI is a far better money laundering scheme. mb the two better money laundering schemes would be construction business and the global warming business. doesnt mean that some of the stuff produced is good.

mjr00 6mo ago

OpenClaw is definitely not a "5 years" project pre-AI though. That was more like a month of greenfield work compressed into a weekend -- which is still really impressive, don't get me wrong! -- but I think the point is we're not seeing mature, legacy codebases get outcompeted by new, agile, AI-driven codebases; we're seeing greenfield projects get spun up faster. Which, again, is still impressive and valuable. If agents could really compress 10 years of development into 1 year, you'd see people making e.g. HFT platforms and becoming obscenely rich, not making a fun open-source project and getting hired by OpenAI as an employee.

thunky 6mo ago
You're framing it like the only barrier to writing wildly successful money printing software is software development skills. If that were true, all of these anti-AI greybeards who have been in the game for 30 years would all own their own jets.
simonw 6mo ago
41,964 commits is a lot more than "a month of greenfield work". https://tools.simonwillison.net/github-repo-stats?repo=OpenClaw%2FOpenClaw https://tools.simonwillison.net/github-repo-stats?repo=OpenC...
- timr 6mo ago
  Seriously? Commit count is right up there with lines of code as a classically dumb measurement of productivity.
  - simonw 6mo ago
    Sure, but it's still a good counter to "a month of work".
    - timr 6mo ago
      No it isn't. There's basically no upper bound on the number of commits an LLM can generate. If the LLM takes 10,000 commits to do what a human would do in 10, then the comparison is meaningless. I don't know anything about the code quality of OpenClaw, but telling me the number of commits tells me precisely nothing of use.

layer8 6mo ago

I don’t see OpenClaw making much of an impact. Maybe in your bubble?

simonw 6mo ago
There are credible reports of regular people in China attending dedicated events for help getting started with OpenClaw. They're not in my bubble! https://www.reuters.com/technology/openclaw-enthusiasm-grips-china-schoolkids-retirees-alike-raise-lobsters-2026-03-19/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/openclaw-enthusiasm-grips...

demorro 6mo ago

> It defined a new category of software Which is exactly why you can't use it as an example, there is no control. This is basic stuff.

cbarte01 6mo ago

The condensation argument is totally true.... Strikes me though the other metric Id look at is how long code survives before being re-written. Feels like for that one a bit early to tell...

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]