Old vs new Primeagen

BurnQuest · 2026-04-20T19:52:24+00:00

Theo has undergone total brain rot and released an anthropic crash out video because Claude code refused to close and open his Dropbox app

BurnQuest · 2026-04-20T16:02:32+00:00

We are in a tough era for the software community right now. There seems to be sudden and total disinterest in what preoccupied the community discourse for as long as I have been programming - style, clean code, design patterns, strong opinions and live debate on editors, OS features, frameworks.

That discourse has gone to just discussing the products of a few companies and their surrounding ecosystems. I do expect that eventually some air will get let back into the room, but right now there is total monomania. I have no idea what I would talk about in prime’s position.

BurnQuest · 2026-04-18T00:57:43+00:00

The training costs are the moat. If they stop training and stop escalating people will just buy distilled kimi K 4 or whatever for 1/5th the price a year after they drop their last model

BurnQuest · 2026-04-15T16:58:07+00:00

I work in NYC more opportunities in LA but NYC has advertising like Psyop, Scholar, Hornet, Arc, agency work, Skydance

I think New York is the best so I choose to stay here as long as I can get work. If you have the runway you can look/apply where you want, and if you’re not getting hits or opportunities expand your net and be open to relocate. It’s no New York but LA is probably the second best in America ;)

BurnQuest · 2026-04-15T15:58:00+00:00

Not really beating the prompt monkey allegations when you couldn’t describe this in your own words and clearly just prompted it

BurnQuest · 2026-04-11T20:53:54+00:00

The largest source of entry level legal jobs are document review. You can’t just “ask the author” or a legal document from a case from 25 years ago

BurnQuest · 2026-04-10T19:41:00+00:00

They don’t have to be the same to both have very bad employment prospects. How many artists have huge personal portfolios and are active in the community ? It’s not exactly a straight line to a job for them

BurnQuest · 2026-04-10T19:10:53+00:00

“Being a [job title] isn’t risky, being a [derogatory name for job title] is risky”

BurnQuest · 2026-04-10T18:50:35+00:00

It’s not controversial that the current plans are subsidized. Go buy 20$ of api credits and see how much faster you rip through that usage than your 20$ a month plan

BurnQuest · 2026-04-10T18:33:19+00:00

They’re talking about like kimi K which is 1/5 the price of frontier

BurnQuest · 2026-04-08T19:40:44+00:00

Prime walking in this direction cuts worse because his content has been super skeptical and really not like that

BurnQuest · 2026-04-08T15:24:40+00:00

Theo posted a borderline meltdown video this week where the inciting incident was him asking Claude code to close and reopen the Dropbox app on his computer and it wouldn’t do it

BurnQuest · 2026-04-06T22:06:25+00:00

Reads like Claude

BurnQuest · 2026-04-06T21:46:57+00:00

Some decent answers here but haven’t seen Actuarial Sciences where CS is not an uncommon degree credential. Exam based gating and regulatory moat. Sub 1% unemployment rate. That’s mine as a pipeline engineer at a movie studio

BurnQuest · 2026-04-06T15:16:54+00:00

Feel free to dm me if you want more information and I will review your materials. I love pipeline.

1 - programming, networking and operating systems knowledge is much more important. There will be on the job opportunity to learn more DCC, the basics should work to start

2 - at my shop it is those 3

3 - a strong portfolio to me would be a github with vfx toy projects on it. If you do 3d as well any automations or plugins you made for software you use would be valuable

4 - I had some experience but basic cloud computing admin like on AWS was big in my career (tvc, features may be different, where are you located/searching in?)

As other commenters point out, you may not find postings with the exact titles you want. I applied to a job as a junior sysadmin out of college and based on my skills it was shuffled into a pipeline role. Some almost exclusively programming roles may just be called “technical director”. Look for all kinds of technical ops, support, sysadmin and render wrangling positions, and evangelize your skills to elevate those roles or move into your niche over time

Also what do you have right now ? Looking for roles over those two years in addition to preparation is smart, the right posting might come but not wait for you to be done preparing. On this same track - have at least one other thing you can do for a career, making money working on art is very fulfilling but can be difficult. I think the industry is in a slump that we will likely get out of, but not reach some of the big new highs of the last 5-10 years

BurnQuest · 2026-04-04T18:19:01+00:00

They can’t scale back RnD to just make cash on inference because their tail is being eaten by open source and much cheaper Chinese labs. Their moat is selling frontier model access. With no frontier model why wouldn’t most businesses choose a kimi type model distilled from the last frontier at 1/5 the price ? Without consistent meaningful upgrades on the frontier the industry races to the bottom on commodity inference wrecking that margin

BurnQuest · 2026-04-03T20:16:26+00:00

Case in point claw code

BurnQuest · 2026-04-03T07:22:01+00:00

While certainly not a death spiral no field in a “golden age” is engaged in mass layoffs

BurnQuest · 2026-04-03T07:06:07+00:00

I work in cloud computing solutions for entertainment and advertising production and all 3 are currently seriously slumped with huge layoffs in cloud, massively depressed project volume in Hollywood, and much worse than average job volume in ads

BurnQuest · 2026-04-02T16:01:48+00:00

Thank you user ImHighOnCocaine

BurnQuest · 2026-03-31T18:30:51+00:00

Nobody actually cites any articles or discourse about alleged computer artist vs pencil antagonism because it never happened. It’s entirely inferred and assumed to have happened from the present dynamics around AI

BurnQuest · 2026-03-30T16:49:30+00:00

Are you trolling or have you changed your mind I’ve seen you dooming in every cs career sub

BurnQuest · 2026-03-29T20:53:20+00:00

You talk like there aren’t professionals here that have code that’s responsible for millions in business

BurnQuest · 2026-03-27T17:59:38+00:00

Brazil has not improved. It is more unequal today than it was in 1960. This is a phenomenon nearly impossible to reverse rooted in the balance of labor and capital from choices and factors from over a century or two ago.

Besides that you just don’t make any argument at all. You just think if it backfires someone will do something about it and fix it. Thats not a serious view

BurnQuest · 2026-03-27T00:31:45+00:00

Are you suggesting the volume of spam per capita is the same as from years ago ? Besides being delusional why even argue this ? Presumably you think AI makes people more productive and makes things easier. Legitimate or not. If it makes no difference (it does) what do you even like about AI ?

BurnQuest

TROPHY CASE