FinnLobsien

Yes, and I even think this applies to generally valuable skills.

I can be really good at organizing projects, but I shouldn’t channel that into spending hours creating the perfect Jira template with 18 integrations just because I can do it well because that’s a lot of energy spent on something nobody may ever use.

Meanwhile that skill may very well be extremely valuable elsewhere.

Possibly, but I think it’s a bit more intuitive than that. It’s basically just like companies with terrible websites:

Most of them are terrible because they no longer exist, have no budget because they’re not making money, or because they’re bad at doing things generally.

But then there’s a set of companies that do fantastically well and are so busy serving customers (or are satisfied with their results) that their website doesn’t matter. In that case, the bad website is an indicator for a good product.

True! And the point isn't that you shouldn't base whether you do something on how much economic value it produces.

I think the judgment is more that if you're doing something to produce some kind of outcome (e.g. work), don't get stuck on things that don't impact that outcome.

The point isn't that you shouldn't do things well. It's that just because AI makes it effortless to ship some random new thing nobody asked for, that doesn't mean you should ship it.

I think that calculus changes completely when you do things for fun, where the only outcome you're trying to produce is doing more of the activity.

If you're doing something for fun, the doing is itself the reward.

Technology was supposed to make room for life but instead for more and more people life is slowly being rearranged around AI. People fear being replaced by machines and respond by giving those machines more of their judgment, attention and time. And for what? Every “saved” hour is returned to a race with no finish line.

I think this is true. I've recently heard Tim Ferriss say: Just because you can do something well doesn't mean it's worth doing.

This is so true with AI. You can do a lot of things with AI, but that doesn't automatically make them worth doing. Anything multiplied by zero is zero. If the benefit of something is (effectively) zero, it doesn't matter how low the cost is.

AI isn't useless and there are beautiful, enriching use cases for it. But the idea that AI must consume our lives so we don't get left behind by those who brag on LinkedIn about operating 12 concurrent agents in self-perpetuating loops seems faulty to me.

I've come around to the other side of this in a way. I used to think "wow they don't care at all" the same way I previously looked at menus clearly made in MS Word: The place will probably be cheap and they don't care about having fancy menu design.

From there, it's two possibilities:

-They care about the food at the expensive of design and it's going to be cheap and great (good) -They care about the food as much as the design and it's going to suck (bad)

This switch happened after a new place opened in my neighborhood that had AI signage and is now my favorite lunch spot.

Yes! It has all the polish and flourish of something that has all the finishing touches, but none of the underlying structure your brain infers it to have due to its polish.

Sure this is true. And if an AI draft helps in creating quality writing, great!

I was thinking more when it comes to stuff other people send me (like a freelance writer) and “editing” is basically writing the first draft because no cognitive effort has yet been spent on the piece

Yes some parts of that are easier with AI, but I think comparatively to other activities, architecture is much harder.

And I also think what you describe is true in some contexts where you know exactly what you’re after.

You also don’t make architecture decisions in a vacuum, so the decision others make also affect you and you need to sell your decisions to others.

I think the bigger issue in defining this is that “programming” is too big a task to say whether it got easier or harder.

Some YAML formalities now take zero effort while architectural thinking became way more important and difficult.

It’s the same with writing: AI writing is coherent on the surface, but is impossible to edit because it’s built on no real insight.

Now the sharpening of a coherent point, challenging one’s assumptions, and editorial decisions of what (not) to include are super important because they’re no longer a byproduct of the writing process.

I think the reason this is so popular is because it's simple and universal and doesn't force someone else's assumptions and workflows upon you.

I also think the reason this works is because it forces exactly what AI makes it convenient to skip:

The hard part of thinking about our assumptions and intentions, challenging them, and resolving them.

I think that stuff is what's often lost with AI. I work in growth nowadays, and it's easy to say "Write me copy for this landing page based on our docs" and it'll write something that contains real features, integrations, and potential benefits.

The hard part isn't finding features and how they could be useful, but to decide which are the 3-4 to spotlight based on what users care about most and how they actually use the product.

Or to realize that yes, there's a set of general "best practices", but we need to overrule some because we're in a niche category, so people will care about some niche details that other products don't need to surface on their home page.

I found the same is true in engineering. We recently rebuilt our Kubernetes operator because one CRD replicated connection and auth for each resource, which led to scalability issues:

-Each resource authenticated independently on restart, and the burst of API calls led to rate limits, which led to latency in getting to steady state.

-Each resource held its own client in memory, which led to OOM issues, which led to restarts.

If you ask AI on how to fix this, it did realize the issue was burst API calls and replication of connection/auth. But its suggestions were that we needed to build event watchers/dither/queues, etc.

This would've solved that specific issue, but not the underlying problem that we had an overloaded CRD.

The real solution was to turn auth/connection into separate CRDs that operate as a lazy, shared cache. This solved the underlying architectural problem, not just the symptoms of it.

Doing this kind of thinking is the important part, and you can't skip it and expect good results. Something like grill-me is a forcing function to do this.

Most people don’t need all the integrations (I‘d even say most need very few).

But:

1. As companies grow, customers continue to want more integrations.

If you imagine a massive matrix of companies and all the tools they use, you need to expand the number of rows where your product is a viable solution.

This matters for implementation now (any tool must work with your stack) and for your long-term prospect of using a product since companies expect to migrate, add, or retire tooling.

2. I think the problem with a vibe-codeable plugin platform is “what is a good data model” because that depends principally on what a tool is for.

I think this is true, but there's also another thing here: The software market is incredibly complex, and much of the "SaaS is dead because I can vibe-code custom software" voices don't understand why certain products are bought.

Let's take project/task management stuff. You can vibe-code a kanban board, task tracker with different statuses, and project folders quite easily.

For my personal use, I can probably build a "better" Jira. I could have an agreeable interface, a data model molded to the types of projects I work on and how I work on them, useful constraints that assuage my weaknesses (e.g. you can't have more than 3 active projects), and a persistent list of things I've shipped to combat imposter syndrome.

That solution would be far too opinionated to scale across even a small team, let alone an enterprise.

Companies buy Jira because it integrates with just about everything, because it's the de-facto standard so you don't need to teach people how to use it, and because you have all the SSO, workflows, approval policies, RBAC, etc. anyone could want.

SaaS vendors don't compete to offer the core features, but the genuinely hard stuff.

Disclaimer: Work culture has changed since 2009 and obviously none of this applies if you work with/for someone who can't take any criticism or disagreement and expects subordination.

I think the issue is not disagreeing with one's boss, but what relationship you have with your boss.

There's a big difference between hostility and wanting to win against the other person vs. trying to find the best possible solution for the team, and clashing on what that should look like.

Some of this is about communication (continually centering on what goal one is trying to reach and validating the other party's perspective) other stuff is basic manners (don't make a public spectacle of your disagreements, especially in front of your boss's boss), but much of it boils down to relationship skills.

I think more people in tech should understand basic relationship skills and how they apply at work. Work is more transactional than a friendship or a marriage, but the core parts still matter: everyone wants to feel seen and heard, not invalidated and attacked.

I think this is absolutely an issue.

The rise of knowledge work made many people far less physically active because moving one's body was no longer a given part of one's job. This led to a lot of people (who assumed sports was exercise on top of one's work, not the only source of exercise) moving very little. This meant we needed to rediscover the importance of exercise as a pillar of health.

I think something similar will happen with knowledge work, where we have to do a lot less cognitive exercise due to AI (as well as the decline of reading and rise of short-form video), which will likely lead to eventual issues and subsequently, a rise in activities designed to replicate the cognitive exercise work used to provide.

I recently realized this when I started a 30 day „digital declutter“ and banned myself from social media, YouTube etc for 30 days.

It’s interesting how ruling out those options of spending my time made me default to reading more.

I also noticed I had a much better attention span for long-form movies (2+ hours used to be hard for paying attention to one thing).

I‘ve definitely noticed this over time as spaces (especially public ones like cafes, retail locations, and restaurants) started being designed as props for Instagram/TikTok.

This made a big contribution because vertical short-form video feeds require extreme stimuli to get anyone’s attention - but they add nothing to the actual experience and often detract from it.

This has also led to the absolutely horrific acoustics where even in non-nightclub bars and normal restaurants, you have to yell to understand each other because the decor is made of tile, tables and chairs are at odd angles that increase distance, etc.

Everything now is subordinate to the visual environment because that’s what gets shared on Instagram.

Not saying interior design doesn’t matter, but its point should be to create a great overall experience, not to be visually stimulating at the expense of the rest.

I think this missed the emotional experience of using a tool.

My kitchen knives are decent knives, but no hand-forged Japanese masterpieces. Using them is a joy though, because I have an ingrained understanding of their ergonomics and how they cut.

I remember how clumsily I handled them at first. I take them to a sharpener regularly.

That experience of built-up familiarity puts me into a state of mind where I feel competent and joyful.

This is also true for my mechanical keyboard and some reference books I keep around my desk.

They are not necessarily the best possible tools, but they’re gateways to who I am at my best in different disciplines.

This has been true, but I think that promise of middling comfort is being eroded.

I‘m German, but I no longer live in Germany, so I can’t relate to the experience of immigrating to Germany.

I think a big part of the issue is a certain German presumptuousness.

There’s a general sense that Germany is a prosperous, influential country. The reason for that must be that things are done correctly in Germany.

I think this is an inherited attitude that doesn’t really correspond to reality anymore as systems are crumbling and a trip to many other European countries (including those Germans grew up to view as a barbaric hinterland or as holiday destinations) shows them that even small towns can have fast mobile internet, that you can pay by card at market vendors, and that the government can use computers.

I love this. Even if relatively niche, it’s so important.

I do think there’s a bit more depth here.

One is that he worked as a middling chef for decades and only had his breakout success in his 40s. I think this made him much different than your generic essayist/journalist, and also let him speak to different kinds of people. He became a symbol that international travel, trying new things, and living life to its fullest doesn’t have to be an early 20s thing followed by decades of monotony.

He was also uniquely principled (he’d finance some episodes himself) and speak to people on all sides politically, without pandering to either.

I guess the question is always to what degree one can do those things without being the person.

You may admire the reckless behavior and carefree attitude of the rockstar in part because you’d like to worry a bit less about what other people thought or whether that party will compromise your sleep score.

Not because you’d like to do the exact same thing they do.

I think the same happens with startup founders and other tech types who get idolized and speak at conferences.

You can admire their dedication to the mission, their wealth, ingenuity, etc.

But it’s easy to forget that for many of them, it comes at the expense of seeing their kids, spending time with their spouse, and their own health.

I’d much rather sell a company for $20m and have a happy marriage than be a billionaire stuck in a cycle of divorces and estranged children.

I don't think it's just that, I also think it's "be someone I want to help"

I think there's a big difference between putting people's houses next to the local paint factory and saying that you could have mixed-use neighborhoods where you have local businesses and recreational activities close to where you live vs. needing to go to the designated area for it.

I'm not arguing for zero zoning laws, but I'm saying that much of modernist urban planning primarily benefits the planner.

I literally wrote a similar comment to this. I think the core differentiator is whether they want to solve the problem or whether they want the problem to be solved.

Is this person actively solving the problem, tried a bunch of approaches and ran into a road block where they're asking for help?

Or are they wishing the problem didn't exist, so they do as little as possible, hoping somebody else will solve the problem for them?

The problem here is that most points are about how to formulate your ask. I think the biggest thing is that you're much more likely to get help if you show you're doing the best to solve it yourself.

There's a big difference between:

"Hey, I saw this job at [company you work at], could you refer me please? I'm [lists skills and experience]"

and

"Hey I'm thinking of applying to [company you work at] for the product designer position and I want to make an impression, so I'm putting together a demo Figma with a couple of things I'd fix and how. I spotted those when I did the onboarding for your free trial. I'm curious if you could tell me whether [design flaw] is intentional to deter abuse or if that's something I could fix? Totally get if that's confidential"

The part where you're solving the problem instead of hoping someone else will solve it for you, that's much more important then how you word it.

I agree with the problem, and I think it stems from a few core issues:

1. Societies are heterogenous, and some groups are always benefitting from the status quo, which will then rebel against any potential changes.

For instance, in Germany (and multiple other European countries), forming a GmbH (LLC) requires in-person sessions with expensive notaries, who will read the entire paperwork out loud.

This made sense when it was invented in 1892 because company formation was extremely rare, always required large facilities and upfront purchases, etc.

Today, this requirement only benefits notaries, as I reckon extremely few people would voluntarily hire a notary to form their company.

But of course notaries would be against making their services legally required! And of course, if anyone suggests loosening requirements, they will spell out all of the terrible fraud that would happen if company formation didn't require a thorough legal review.

That's an example for something relatively obvious. It gets much harder with genuinely complex topics (pensions? tax reform? healthcare?).

2. Many initiatives to improve society fail because they're viewed through a prism of administration/policy, not the actual people impacted.

Take modern urbanism, which cleanly separates where people live (residential areas), where they work (commercial districts), where they shop (malls), and where they spend their free time (recreational centers, etc.)

This beautifully serves people who plan and administer because it makes their work massively easier vs. a tangle of apartment buildings with a coffee shop and clothing boutique on the ground floor and a playground for the kids in front.

It checks the boxes of daily life, but the people living through it feel alienated from their community with these single-purpose urban areas.

3. We have a bias towards actionism.

We tend to think that big, complicated problems need big, complicated solutions, and politicians (who are evaluated on perception, not results) need to be seen designing and implementing those big, complicated solutions.

Massive amounts of infant mortality were prevented by simply making doctors wash their hands, and Semmelweis (who came up with the hypothesis) was so ridiculed for that idea that he died in an insane asylum.

It's sadly often unacceptable to say "we're going to make a little tweak that'll have a ton of downstream effects and solve this massive problem in 5 years".

I think the problem is that the companies mostly don't make money, period. They may have better unit economics on underused subscriptions, but I don't see a world in which OAI/Anthropic don't heavily tighten the screws in the future.

Right now it's silly to default to frontier models, but it won't bankrupt your company. I believe in the short-medium term future, we'll need to be more deliberate about model choices.

In the long-term, of course, tech costs tend to plummet. Is there a future where in 15 years, my Apple Watch locally runs an Opus 4.8-class model? Maybe. And that would obviate this whole discussion.