(1) https://philippdubach.com/posts/the-saaspocalypse-paradox/

(2) https://philippdubach.com/posts/the-impossible-backhand/

Acharya’s framing is different from mine (he’s talking book on software stocks) but the conclusion is the same: the “innovation bazooka” pointed at rebuilding payroll is a bad allocation of resources. Benedict Evans called me out on LinkedIn for this take, which I take as a sign the argument is landing..

Or maybe they own the debt.

Listen to some of the Marc Andreessen interviews promoting cryptocurrency in 2021.

Do that and you will never listen to him or his associates again.

I really hate the expression "the new normal", because it sort of smuggles in the assumption that there exists such thing as "normal". It always felt like one of those truisms that people say to exploit emotions like "in these trying times" or "no one wants to work anymore".

But I really do think that vibe coding is the "new normal". These tools are already extremely useful, to a point where I don't really think we'll be able to go back. These tools are getting good enough that it's getting to a point where it's getting to where you have to use them. This might sound like I'm supportive of this, and I guess am to some extent, but I find it to be exceedingly disappointing because writing software isn't fun anymore.

One of my most upvoted comments on HN talks about how I don't enjoy programming, but instead I enjoy problem solving. This was written before I was aware of vibe coding stuff, and I think I was wrong. I guess I actually did enjoy the process of writing the code, instead of just delegating my work to a virtual intern while I just watch the AI do the fun stuff.

A very small part of me is kind of hoping that once AI has to be priced at "not losing money on every call" levels that I'll be forced to actually think about this stuff again.

I don't even know what this means, but my take: we should stop listening to VCs (especially those like A16Z) who have an obvious vested interest that doesn't match the rest of society. Granting these people an audience is totally unwarranted; nobody but other tech bros said "we will vibe code everything" in the first place. Best case scenario: they all go to the same exclusive conference, get the branded conference technical vest and that's were the asteroid hits.

This is your regular reminder that

1) a16z is one the largest backers of LLMs

2) They named one of the two authors of the Fascist Manifesto their patron saint

3) AI systems are built to function in ways that degrade and are likely to destroy our crucial civic institutions. (Quoted from Professor Woodrow Hartzog "How AI Destroys Institutions"). Or to put it another way, being plausible but slightly wrong and un-auditable—at scale—is the killer feature of LLMs and this combination of properties makes it an essentially fascist technology meaning it is well suited to centralizing authority, eliminating checks on that authority and advancing an anti-science agenda (quoted from the A plausible, scalable and slightly wrong black box: why large language models are a fascist technology that cannot be redeemed post).

We work in Software ENGINEERING. Engineering is all about what tools makes sense to solve a specific problem. In some cases, AI tools do show immediate business value (eg. TTS for SDR) and in other cases this is less obvious.

This is all the more reason why learning about AI/ML fundamentals is critical in the same way understanding computer architecture, systems programming, algorithms, and design principles are critical to being a SWE.

Given the number of throwaway accounts that commented, it clearly struck a nerve.