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avemuri

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@anandvemuri

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Can't agree more. We can also predict with some confidence that in a year or two, supply would have adjusted and ram will be cheaper in the long run. We benefit from the expanded demand even if the fact that it first lands as a shock is disruptive to prices.

I've asked before - I am not clear what the massive boost is other than saving a few days or weeks at the beginning. I believe all taxation, labor compliance and other such regulation is still the same as the status quo. The one time ease of setup doesn't seem to be worth the ongoing hassle of dealing with the same crap, just with the added friction of a new and unfamiliar entity structure. What am I missing?

Depends on the failure mode and application. But a first approximation is the same way you would for a human output. E.g. process engineering for a support chatbot has many of the same principles as process engineering for a human staffed call center.

Engineers work with non-deterministic systems all the time. Getting them to work predictably within a known tolerance window and/or with a quantified and acceptable failure rate is absolutely engineering.

No I'm talking about my own skills. How I onboard, structure 1on1s, run meetings, create and reuse certain processes, manage documentation (a form of org memory), check in on status, devise metrics and other indicators of system health. All of these compound and provide leverage even if the person leaves and a new one enters.the 30th person I onboarded and managed was orders of magnitude easier (for both of us) than the first.

With LLMs the better I get at the scaffolding and prompting, the less it feels like catherding (so far at least). Hence the comparison.

I agree with your points but I'm also reminded of one my bigger learnings as a manager - the stuff I'm best at is the hardest, but most important, to delegate.

Sure it was easier to do it myself. But putting in the time to train, give context, develop guardrails, learn how to monitor etc ultimately taught me the skills needed to delegate effectively and multiply the teams output massively as we added people.

It's early days but I'm getting the same feeling with LLMs. It's as exhausting as training an overconfident but talented intern, but if you can work through it and somehow get it to produce something as good as you would do yourself, it's a massive multiplier.

Motivation is some combination of real and perceived effort Vs expected reward. Shorter isn't always better. For eg. Counting every single calorie is the shorter way to lose weight, but for most people, eating approximately healthy is more optimal from an effort /motivation poi t of view.

SaaS Plateaus 1 year ago

Lots of this rings true. Especially the "Solutions to plateaus are straightforward but not easy." part. So much of this psychological - both in being objective with your failings and in having to live with them every day until you fix them.

P.S. Nice of him to not mention the "built an unscalable org and burnt myself out" plateau :)

Some thoughts (I used to run a chain of 20+ coworking spaces)

* Remote individual workers are the least attractive customer for the typical coworking space (that isn't a cafe). Small and unpredictable revenue, plus higher support per head, since the account is only one head.

* Remote workers also aren't a great fit for you. Very few like to hop around. Their reasons are typically avoiding loneliness, finding a reliable place to focus etc. And so would only use your platform until they find a space they like.

* SMBs are the sweet spot. Coworking is cheaper AND less overhead for them. In many countries they don't get access to grade A space even if they're willing to pay. For the coworking space, it's only slightly more work than a solo account and significantly more recurring and reliable revenue. You may be better off targeting small teams.

* One particular pain point is expiring inventory - remote workers actually fit this well since they're willing to go for a floating desk. Most spaces would be willing to offer discounts on this. Kind of like last minute flight or hotel deals.

* Another related product is meeting and conference room bookings. Also expires and has a market in WFH teams.

* The last two also have a better business model fit since they are intermittent and people may be more inclined to shop around, allowing you to take a cut of every transaction. For any kind of recurring contract, you're probably limited to taking a one time lead gen or brokerage fee since you have no grounds to maintain a relationship with the customer after the initial match.

It's not great for blindly generating code to use, but it's great for asking for help -debugging, planning etc. I ask it a lot of 'dumb' questions and I feel like I've learnt a lot more than I have in the past. It's given me code that doesn't work every now and then, but I'm yet to find an instance of it explaining a concept wrong.

There are two opposing forces that determine the net change

- Greater productivity. A single carriage driver can now drive a bus, so fewer carriages are needed

- Lower costs/ higher demand. Everyone who walked can now afford the bus, so the number of drivers goes up even if fewer drivers are needed per traveler.

I doubt they feel safe, and twitter is a unique case.

In general the cut once advice is not to make people less skittish immediately, it's to avoid the long term mistrust that comes from cutting repeatedly. When you do that, the message is you are either incompetent or you hid information from them the first time. A bigger one time cut is more shocking, but things settle down after and you have an opportunity to start building trust back up and put the company on an upward trajectory people will want to stay on.