this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
749 points (100.0% liked)
TechTakes
1532 readers
209 users here now
Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.
For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
"I personally chose the price"
Is that how well-run companies operate? The CEO unilaterally decides the price rather than delegating that out to the numbers people they employ?
Should have asked chatgpt to play the role of a CEO.
This answer would be much funnier if that wasn't his fucking plan.
This is my first experience listening to this guy, and I'll be darned, it's a another idiot billionaire.
I'd like to think there are intelligent billionaires but honestly folks, if you win that big and haven't cashed out to do something more meaningful with you're life, you're an idiot.
jesus fuck how did i never see this before
Worth the watch just to hear the genuine laughter
A real ceo does everything. Delegation is for losers who can’t cope. Can’t move fast enough and break enough things if you’re constantly waiting for your lackeys to catch up.
If those numbers people were cleverer than the ceo, they’d be the ones in charge, and they aren’t. Checkmate. Do you even read Ayn Rand, bro?
Is that what Ayn Rand is about? All I really remember is that having a name you chose yourself is self-fulfilling.
Ayn Rand is about spending your whole life moralizing a social philosophy based on the impossibility of altruism, perfect meritocratic achievement perfectly distributing wealth, and hatred of government taxation, regulation, and social welfare programs...
... and then dying alone, almost totally broke, living off of social security and financial charity from your former secretary.
Oh boy I got a fun video for you: https://youtu.be/GmJI6qIqURA @26:50
Atlas Shrugged is so bad that if you didn't know anything about the author, it could be read as a decent satire.
A monologue that last SIXTY PAGES of dry exposition. Barely credible characterization from the protagonist and villains and extremely poor world building.
Anthem is her better book because it keeps to a simple short story format - but still has a very dull plot that shoehorns ideology throughout. There’s far better philosophical fiction writers out there like Camus, Vonnegut, or Koestler. Skip Rand altogether imo
In tech? Kinda yeah. When a subscription is 14.99 $£€/month it's a clear "we just think it's what people think is a fair price for SaaS".
The trick is that tech usually works on really weird economics where the fixed costs (R&D) are astonishingly high and the marginal costs (servers etc) are virtually nil. That's how successful tech companies are so profitable, even more than oil companies, because once the R&D is paid off every additional user is free money. And this means that companies don't have to be profitable any time in particular as long as they promise sufficient projected growth to make up for being a money pit until then. You can get away with anything when your investors believe you'll eventually have a billion users.
... Of course that doesn't work when every customer interaction actually costs a buck or two in GPU compute, but I'm sure after a lot of handwaving they were able to explain to their investors how this is totally fine and totally sustainable and they'll totally make their money back a thousandfold.
far, far, far, far, far, far, far fewer business people than you’d expect/guess are data-driven decision makers
and then there’s the whole bayfucker ceo dynamic which adds a whole bunch of extra dumb shit
it’d be funnier if it weren’t for the tunguska-like effect it’s having on human society both at present and in the coming decades to follow :|
I endorse this as a data professional. It's maddening.
There’s a reason so many companies fail
there is, but this isn’t (the primary) it tbh
It works for ice tea and hotdogs, why not AI? (I jest)
I think I remember Jeff Bezos in "The Everything Store" book seeing a price they charged for AWS and went even lower for growth. So there could be some rationale for that? However, I think switching AI providers is easier than Cloud Providers? Not sure though.
I can imagine the highest users of this being scam artists and stuff though.
I want this AI hype train to die.
I’m guessing that means a team or someone presented their pricing analysis to him, and suggested a price range. And this is his way of taking responsibility for making the final judgment call.
(He’d get blamed either way, anyways)
$20/mo sounds like a reasonable subscription-ish price, so he picked that. That OpenAI loses money on every query, well, let's build up volume!
While the words themselves near an apology, I didn't read it as taking responsibility. I read it as: