I am freelancing on the side and charge 100€ by the hour. Spending roughly 100€ per month on AI subscriptions has a higher ROI for me personally than spending time on reading this article and this thread. Sometimes we forget that time is money...
Really sharp reasoning. This can be reversed to define an extra ordinary manager: don't care about your head count and just be a fucking grown up who's emotional state does not depend on his team's performance. IMHO this results in having a high head count and a team performing pretty well. Kinda stoic wisdom. Go and figure...
> Don't you think they can easily monetize their 800 million [...] users?
I am pretty sure they will be able to monetize it. But there is a big difference between "generating revenue" and "generating profit". It's way cheaper to put ads between posts of your friends (like FB started out with ads) then putting ads next to the response of an LLM. Because LLM responses has to be unique, while a holiday photo of yours might be interesting for all of your friends, and LLM inference is quite expensive, while hosting holiday photos is cheap. IMHO this is the reason why the 5th generation of ChatGPT models try to answer all possible questions of the world in one single response, kinda hoping that I am going to be happy with it an just close the chat.
They have <a really expensive> infrastructure that serves 800 million monthly active <but non-paying> users.
Even worse, they train their model(s) on the interactions of those non-paying customers, what makes the model(s) less useful for paying customers. It's kind of a "you can not charge for a Porsche if you only satisfy the needs of a typical Dacia owner".
I am happy to read this here. I manage a team of 3 and code half-time. We are heavy on XP, because I introduced it. At the beginning it felt strange for the team but in between the enjoy the empowerment it comes with.
There are only two types of ppl: "the wrong kind of crazy" and "the right kind of crazy". Why would I want to connect with the wrong type of crazy? Ok, I don't work as a waiter.
I wish I would not have a standard post for topics like this:
Every time a surveillance system and violation of privacy rights is advertised in the EU as a solution against child abuse and trafficking I ask myself how such a system could have changed the outcome of a case like Dutroux. Would have been the dozens of witnesses and police officers involved in the investigation suicided a way sooner, later, more silently, or at all? We will never know...
Marketers ship code, salespeople answer technical questions without backup...
...and you dentist cuts you hair and your hairdresser pulls your teeth. Because everything is a trade what can and should be learned, except if it's related to writing and selling software.
To be fair, you did not say that marketers ship working and maintainable code, salespeople answer technical questions without backup the correct way. Therefore you might be right, thought.
Is this not the guy who is on the payroll of Anthropic? Not because he is wrong, but because there is so much marketing going on in this space nowadays.
Version A: find 100 LOC which can be reduced to 50 LOC without changing the functionality. Then ask the author to go through the PR making sure it's not bloated. Repeat.
Version B: find hidden bugs. Ask the author to fix them. Repeat.
Keep them occupied saving your face. I would also fine tune an own agent to automatise this kind of work for me.
Bending Spoons has own teams taking care of the acquired companies. I read about it here a while ago. I am pretty sure the re-design was done by one of those teams. It's pretty close to the new design of MeetUp. I am talking about those ppl.
> They bought Komoot, laid off 80% of the staff, but they still did a major redesign
This sounds like "doing a major redesign" would be something positive. I'm a paying customer since ages and use the app on daily basis. The new design adds nothing except confusion, at the same time they broke the app on my smartwatch. I'm pretty much thinking about switching apps because I don't see myself buying a new watch just because of this.
Some companies would be better off with less bored designers. This is exactly the same situation like a couple of years ago, when Spotify every week rearranged the GUI and every week I had to relearn how I can reach the same functionality. Back then I had to use the App Store to give feedback, but I see now I can do the same directly in the Komoot app. They're gonna have something to laugh about...
> Am I the only one who feels like this is obviated by Docker?
This whole discussion has the same vibes like digital photography 15 years ago. Back then some people spent more time on discussing the tech spec their cameras than takin photos. Now some people spend more time on discussing the pros and cons of different Python environment management solutions than building real things.
The last time I had to touch one of my dockerized environments was when Miniconda and Miniforge were merged. I said the agent "fix the dockerfile", and the third attempt worked. Another time, one dependency was updated and I had to switch to Poetry. Once again, I said the agent "refactor the repository to Poetry" and it worked. Maybe because all my Python package versions are frozen and I only update them when they break or when I need the functionality of the new version.
Whenever this topic pops up in real life, I always ask back what was the longest time they managed the same Python service in the cloud. In the most cases, the answer is never. The last time someone said one year. After a while this service was turned into two .py files.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just too far away from FAANG level sorcery. Everything is a hammer if all you have to deal with are nails.
On the first glance this seems to be a very bad idea. But re-readig this:
> Get answers about any cell in seconds: Navigate complex models instantly. Ask Claude about specific formulas, entire worksheets, or calculation flows across tabs. Every explanation includes cell-level citations so you can verify the logic.
this might just be an excellent tool for refactoring Excel sheets into something more robust and maintainable. And making a bunch of suits redundant.
Once my boss told me: “You can’t force people to do something they don’t want to do.” And this guy just don’t want to work well with you. Period.
I learned one approach that sometimes works: Figure out what they want and give them what they want. But with the condition they change their behavior. From your post, it sounds like this guy wants to be promoted.
If I were you, I would talk to him like this:
“Look, you are good technically. You should be promoted. But higher levels here mean more than just code. It means mentoring, working closer with peers, hiring people, training them, helping management. We have a career path in place, let’s make a plan for you.”
In big companies it’s even easier. Use the promotion track. Show him what’s expected. If he wants the title, he has to play the role.
Three things can happen:
He rises to it: He starts acting more professional, helps others, builds trust. You win, he wins, team wins.
He tries and fails: He’s exposed higher up. He has direct reports. He’s in meetings with management. He can’t hide his behavior anymore. Eventually, they’ll act.
He says “no thanks”: Then it’s clear. He just wants to stay where he is and make your life harder. At least now everyone sees it.
This puts the pressure where it belongs. On him, to live up to what he says he wants.
[Edit]: You can also tell him that if he wants the promotion, he has to start acting like someone at that level. That means following the principle: “There are no mistakes, only lessons we learn from.”
Tell him: "There was an outage. OK. Then step up. Take the lead, organize a post-mortem, and work with others to find real measures that prevent it in the future. Not to assign blame, but to help the organization improve."
Maybe you don’t even join the post-mortem, let him own it. Just make clear: this isn’t about finger-pointing, it’s about building a culture where problems lead to better systems.