I find it really interesting that SWEs think this is a good essay. As an experienced marketer, I really disagree. It’s stupid.
The barriers to entry / “respect” angle is a weird one to go in. Obviously people will think they can do marketing if the main, qualified activity you use as an example is… /choosing colours on a landing page/. Marketers have way more important, difficult and “high-barrier-to-entry” tasks to do in order to succeed - and this suggests Tereza is totally unaware of them.
So is she trying to say that software engineers are being treated by the market like marketers?
“Writers, designers, and marketers all have wider pay distributions because the barrier to entry is low and the work is visible: anyone can try, everyone has an opinion, and only the proven best command a premium.” My sweet summer child, have you ever MET a software engineer? What the fuck do you think they do!?
Her paradox of choice implies that she’s ACTUALLY talking about software /companies/… but none of this is new information. Marketers are trained in positioning, segmentation and “finding the fit” - she doesn’t even make a point here!
The middle class of software won’t disappear. Again, she’s equating SaaS to be “all software” (as a marketer she should know better).
And finally, the most critical and undeniable evidence that Tereza is by NO means the “very decent marketer” she calls herself… “Sell services, not software”.
What? Functionally and positionally they are identical. One sells OUTCOMES. It doesn’t matter, as a marketer, whether your product is a service or a software. The product is just ONE of the 4Ps we’re trained to think about when making tactical decisions. Let alone strategic ones.
I’d really strong encourage anybody reading this interested in marketing to read a bit of Mark Ritson. This is the most irritating essay I’ve read in months.
They might not easily be able to cash out, but they often have more options than people realise.
VCs will sometimes invest ‘convertible notes’ which start as debt and “convert” into equity in favourable scenarios.
‘Swamp’ and ‘drag’ clauses are also commmon: if a management team/CEO doesn’t meet their goals as set by the board (like give investors a meaningful exit) then investors can take over and replace that team, or force a sale.
Illiquid private equity in an early stage business, especially one that isnt growing, is hard to get rid of. That’s why investors derisk with terms that massively favour them at the expense of the business they invest in.
Allow me to suggest a form where people can leave their email to get updates or a newsletter from you! Brevio is the kind of thing that a lot of people look for, and value. The fact you're not charging and it all runs locally earns you a lot of trust and goodwill.
I'm not suggesting monetising your audience or starting a substack, but you never know when having a list of people who are interested in the things you build could come in handy.
I wouldn't even think you'd need to send a confirmation email: just leave it there and see who fills it in.
Realistically, almost 1/4 of the world don’t live in a democracy. And probably another 1/4 of the world doesn’t live in a functioning democracy. By your logic, does that mean half of the global population actually ARE at risk of AI laying waste to almost all employment?
I am by no means an AI doomer, and I use frontier models to a great extent every day as part of my job…
But those at the top of the corporate food chain, those who own and profit from the AI companies themselves, will reap the rewards of this technology.
Maybe there won’t be a dramatic elimination of jobs. But even if there isn’t, the overwhelming majority of the “value” will be going to the 1% and the working class will benefit not.
Heads they win, tails we lose.
AI will not meaningfully improve the standard of living or the quality of life of the everyman. But it will funnel even more of his share of the profit from his work to his corporate paymasters.
Previously we had strikes, powerful unions and even revolutions. There will be none of that this time round.
We have this though, right? Compare SOTA local models to where the frontier was last year. There weren't many people complaining that last year's frontier models were incapable.
Next year, and the year after, Fable, GPT 5.5 and Gemini 3.5 will feel quite ordinary. And perhaps even within reach of a prosumer running models locally.
Leaving money on the table, as opposed to losing it. They make a decent buck on the hardware, but could have charged more (though likely would have sold fewer units).
Absolute insanity from other commenters here. I totally disagree about it being hard to read - it’s fine.
And others bitching about being instructed to read the whole thing, clearly didn’t.
It’s not JUST about Proton Meet. The article goes on to point out that even for Proton Mail, around 10,000 foreign subpoenas were complied with last year.
It draws attention to the STARK contrast between their messaging and their actual culpability when it comes to compliance with foreign powers.
The author also goes on to talk about the hypocrisy in Proton’s use of AWS, Google, DigitalOcean and Google and Apple app stores, which goes to more or less completely undermine Proton’s standing here.
It’s also worth drawing attention to their class action waiver, AND their bizarrely hypocritical ToS which flies in the face of their positioning.
Which, you know, others would have found out if they read before commenting.
Am I losing it? They can’t be seeing the far side of the moon right now, because they haven’t adjusted course to go round the far side of the moon yet…
So does this suggest the BBC is wrong and it’s the side of the moon we’re used to seeing, but just it’s “dark”?
But then the astronauts are saying it’s weird seeing the moon in a whole new light (excuse the paraphrasing pun).
One thing I think would be very useful here is national archive data: there will be thousands of letters, memos and official documents shared between people alive back then under the care of a museum or government.
One of my dreams is to help digitise and make available the thousands of Second World War-era documents in the National Archives at Kew.
We’re at the point where a simple phone camera and a robust LLM-powered process can digitise ENORMOUS amounts of archive material almost effortlessly [1]. This is going to be enormous for historians eager to dive into the millions of interesting primary sources.
The teachings of the Buddha explicitly encouraged it. Buddhism is the only religion I know of that instructs you to fully abandon it, as once you’ve fully grokked what it has to teach… you won’t need it any more.
IIRC the Buddha said it was like carrying the oar of a boat: once you have used it to get you to your destination (nibbhana), carrying it is needless.