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This is what inspired me to build my new CLI tool, Burn, Baby, Burn (https://github.com/dtnewman/burn-baby-burn/tree/main https://github.com/dtnewman/burn-baby-

This is what inspired me to build my new CLI tool, Burn, Baby, Burn (https://github.com/dtnewman/burn-baby-burn/tree/main https://github.com/dtnewman/burn-baby-burn/tree/main). (If you are a VP at Amazon, yes, I'll consider acquisition offers. I'm also working on an enterprise version of this with additional features.) Show HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48151287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48151287

stephenhuey 5mo ago
Just sent it to some developers who could really benefit from this! Please let us know when you have Codex and Gemini versions ready to rumble.
- dtnewman 5mo ago
  Sorry, it will be a while. We're currently building out enterprise features like SSO/SAML support, role based burn access, and a carbon offset marketplace. As you can imagine, we're burning a lot of tokens to get these out, but actual productivity isn't up as much as you'd think.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - ted_bunny 5mo ago
    How about a built-in AI assistant to answer my burning questions?
- sznio 5mo ago
  I want a in-browser Gemini version. For some reason my company doesn't count Gemini CLI use. I guess I'm supposed to copy code between my browser and my editor.
LikeBeans 5mo ago
Brilliant
- kurthr 5mo ago
  Like attack ships off the shoulder of Orion, the only way to burn!
dyauspitr 5mo ago
Only problem with this is that outcome metrics are still jira storypoints. Burning huge number of token while not improving the velocity is going to get you fired.
- recursive 5mo ago
  If we had a way of measuring velocity, we'd already be using that instead of tokens.
  - promano 5mo ago
    We had a way of measuring velocity, but who cares about estimating stories when we could be spinning up more agents? Burn a bunch of tokens and those stories will be DONE before you could even find your planning poker cards!
    - recursive 5mo ago
      I've lived through a bunch of initiatives about improving planning and estimation. None of them turned into a stable process that worked for anyone. I don't know if I can extrapolate from that, but it gives me an inclination that no one really trusts anything that comes out of task estimation. Which would be why we're looking for more objective metrics like token burn rate. No room for argument - tokens are tokens!
      - joquarky 5mo ago
        "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
      - promano 5mo ago
        A token is approximately word generated by a LLM; a few dozen tokens gets you a line of code... so measuring token burn rate is the same as counting lines of code. All it took was a change of name, and we're back to the most primitive metric we ever got for measuring programmer productivity. I don't think I can take anything from management in tech seriously again after tokenmaxxing.
cyanydeez 5mo ago
any plans for a distributed deployment via cloudflare works. I'm not sure this thing is powerful enough for my use case.
- dtnewman 5mo ago
  Yeah, lots of enterprise features in the works, but first i need to raise money at a $1B+ valuation (this might seem high for a project that started 4 hours ago, but it's actually very low for the project that will soon be the #1 consumer of tokens on the planet)
  - cyanydeez 5mo ago
    recommend you extrapolate your value based on the token spend rates of FAANG; if you can spend 10x FAANG, then you should get atleast 10x valuation. godspeed.
  - Esophagus4 5mo ago
    You got four hours of Claude Code usage without hitting a rate limit???
eudamoniac 5mo ago
Won't the company audit the requests to AI and see you're sending a bunch of BS?
- jimbokun 5mo ago
  If only Scott Adams were alive to write Dilbert comics about this.
- palmotea 5mo ago
  > Won't the company audit the requests to AI and see you're sending a bunch of BS? Shouldn't be too hard to game. Version 2 uses the M365 MCP server to load up your email and iterate over all the messages, summarizing them over an over.
- cleaning 5mo ago
  Do you have an example of any company ever doing this?
  - eudamoniac 5mo ago
    No, but if you run this non judiciously and burn 100x the next guy with no output, maybe they would want to know how
sph 5mo ago
AI-powered cobra breeding tool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
jimbokun 5mo ago
This is hilarious and utter genius.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

stephenhuey 5mo ago

Just sent it to some developers who could really benefit from this! Please let us know when you have Codex and Gemini versions ready to rumble.

dtnewman 5mo ago
Sorry, it will be a while. We're currently building out enterprise features like SSO/SAML support, role based burn access, and a carbon offset marketplace. As you can imagine, we're burning a lot of tokens to get these out, but actual productivity isn't up as much as you'd think.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- ted_bunny 5mo ago
  How about a built-in AI assistant to answer my burning questions?
sznio 5mo ago
I want a in-browser Gemini version. For some reason my company doesn't count Gemini CLI use. I guess I'm supposed to copy code between my browser and my editor.

LikeBeans 5mo ago

Brilliant

kurthr 5mo ago
Like attack ships off the shoulder of Orion, the only way to burn!

dyauspitr 5mo ago

Only problem with this is that outcome metrics are still jira storypoints. Burning huge number of token while not improving the velocity is going to get you fired.

recursive 5mo ago
If we had a way of measuring velocity, we'd already be using that instead of tokens.
- promano 5mo ago
  We had a way of measuring velocity, but who cares about estimating stories when we could be spinning up more agents? Burn a bunch of tokens and those stories will be DONE before you could even find your planning poker cards!
  - recursive 5mo ago
    I've lived through a bunch of initiatives about improving planning and estimation. None of them turned into a stable process that worked for anyone. I don't know if I can extrapolate from that, but it gives me an inclination that no one really trusts anything that comes out of task estimation. Which would be why we're looking for more objective metrics like token burn rate. No room for argument - tokens are tokens!
    - joquarky 5mo ago
      "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
    - promano 5mo ago
      A token is approximately word generated by a LLM; a few dozen tokens gets you a line of code... so measuring token burn rate is the same as counting lines of code. All it took was a change of name, and we're back to the most primitive metric we ever got for measuring programmer productivity. I don't think I can take anything from management in tech seriously again after tokenmaxxing.

cyanydeez 5mo ago

any plans for a distributed deployment via cloudflare works. I'm not sure this thing is powerful enough for my use case.

dtnewman 5mo ago
Yeah, lots of enterprise features in the works, but first i need to raise money at a $1B+ valuation (this might seem high for a project that started 4 hours ago, but it's actually very low for the project that will soon be the #1 consumer of tokens on the planet)
- cyanydeez 5mo ago
  recommend you extrapolate your value based on the token spend rates of FAANG; if you can spend 10x FAANG, then you should get atleast 10x valuation. godspeed.
- Esophagus4 5mo ago
  You got four hours of Claude Code usage without hitting a rate limit???

eudamoniac 5mo ago

Won't the company audit the requests to AI and see you're sending a bunch of BS?

jimbokun 5mo ago
If only Scott Adams were alive to write Dilbert comics about this.
palmotea 5mo ago
> Won't the company audit the requests to AI and see you're sending a bunch of BS? Shouldn't be too hard to game. Version 2 uses the M365 MCP server to load up your email and iterate over all the messages, summarizing them over an over.
cleaning 5mo ago
Do you have an example of any company ever doing this?
- eudamoniac 5mo ago
  No, but if you run this non judiciously and burn 100x the next guy with no output, maybe they would want to know how

sph 5mo ago

AI-powered cobra breeding tool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

jimbokun 5mo ago

This is hilarious and utter genius.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]