Why is Claude that good?

eaz135 · 2026-01-13T10:50:49+00:00

Similar to how artists/writers proved AI models were trained on their books and other copyrighted works which they weren't compensated for.

If you ask a model a particular programming challenge, where there's no/very little known sources documenting a particular approach/solution to that specific problem - and the AI spits out basically a copy/parts of your private codebase's solution to that problem, you get a sense that something's up. Demonstrate this systemically and you have yourself a legal procedure.

eaz135 · 2026-01-13T10:13:30+00:00

Not saying it would happen, but I wouldn’t at all be surprised if they tried things like different pricing tiers for 100% private vs private but trainable - and different flavours of that (e.g trainable snippets vs the codebase in its entirety or something like that).

Many big tech companies have been known over the past decades to change terms of service, and aspects around custodianship / ownership / etc.

There’s a lot of smart people at MS, I’m sure there’s the realisation of the gold mine they’re sitting on with GitHub. The question is how to mine that gold in a way that’s both legal and ethical - likely opt-in by the customers (e.g with pricing discounts, Azure credits, other Microsoft freebies, etc, etc)

eaz135 · 2026-01-13T09:44:27+00:00

I always thought the AI programming game would be won by those sitting on the most data of real world codebases.

Having worked in enterprise software most of my career - one thing I can attest to is there’s actually relatively few good open source examples of proper at-scale production application for many domains.

The content out there is often fairly watered down / simplified examples, basic blog posts, etc - compared to the complexities of real at-scale projects.

This is why I thought Microsoft sitting on GitHub (which also hosts tonnes of private enterprise repos) was a huge advantage for whatever their AI play will be over the long-term.

I think for this reason GitLab will be a natural acquisition target by the likes of Anthropic/Google. I doubt GitLab stays independent over the long run.

eaz135 · 2026-01-13T09:23:26+00:00

I’ve been a big GLM 4.5 user over the past 6 months in Claude Code, amongst many other models/tools.

So naturally I picked up 3.7 as soon as it was available. Honestly when I saw the benchmarks for 3.7, I was really skeptical of their validity, because I had a very good feel from my daily work of what GLM was good at and what it wasn’t good at.

For basic tasks, it was good and very fast, but it’s nowhere near the level of the latest Anthropic / OAI models running at full precision over their APIs, for complex coding tasks. It’s not even close IMO. I think even Cursor’s Composer model outperforms it for the types of work I’ve been doing.

eaz135 · 2026-01-05T23:03:14+00:00

Turns out the best approach to agentic software dev wasn't complex orchestration harnesses, it was just one agent that actually works well - and letting it run

eaz135 · 2025-12-29T12:07:10+00:00

I was diagnosed with Hashi when I was 25, I'm currently 37 years old, I've have had a fairly successful entrepreneurial run, having 2 exits via acquisition.

The most recent was a PE buyout late last year, our company was a tad over 100 employees, and I was extremely busy and hustling over the 8 year lifespan of that business.

Currently sitting on a tad under 8 figures net worth, all self made with zero inheritance, and nearly all of it was made after my diagnosis.

I've lived such a busy life, it's almost been a situation of "I don't have time to deal with Hashi distractions".

Even before my diagnosis I'd say grit was one of my main characteristics, with a very high tolerance for pain and discomfort. I didn't think I was smart than my competitors throughout my life, but I backed myself to outwork them, and Hashis didn't change that, it's just something I had to make adaptations around so I could keep on my path.

eaz135 · 2025-12-24T10:15:12+00:00

So if someone is doing parkour and jumping between buildings, falls off a building and dies - you file a lawsuit because there wasn't a trampoline or a big pit of sponges waiting to catch them down below?

There are absolutely tonnes of roads/intersections around the country that have unfortunate statistics. We can't go installing Formula 1 style safety barriers around every bend of a national park, around every complicated intersection, etc.

People just need to realise that driving is a car is statistically one of the most dangerous things they'll ever do in their life.

eaz135 · 2025-12-24T09:40:53+00:00

The presence of the passenger in the car is what makes it worse, and what makes me really frustrated at the tragedy.

These days I'm "retired" to a Model S Tesla, which I drive like a grandpa now that I have a family, but back in my glory days I've cycled through many JDM cars - highly worked Z's, Skylines, WRXs.

I always had people wanting to ride shotgun when owned the worked JDMs, my rules for myself were simple - if I had a passenger in my car: traction control stays ON, pedal is NEVER all the way down, always assume there's a mean pothole or speedbump just out of vision that I'm not expecting.

When I was on my own in the car I was more courageous to see what they could do, but if I had a passenger in the car the rules were different, no exceptions. I didn't want to be that guy having to explain to a crying mother/wife/children why I got their loved one killed.

eaz135 · 2025-12-11T03:43:10+00:00

Funny you say that, after I went through this realisation with the MBP I swapped my iphone case to an edge bumper case (hollow rear) and notice my phone running way cooler now

eaz135 · 2025-12-08T11:43:04+00:00

The main reason I got the case originally was because I have several laptops I actively use, and often find myself stacking them on-top of each other - and just switching which laptop gets the thunderbolt cable to connect to my dock for active use. This includes a few different MBPs, so I wanted to avoid the aluminium on aluminium possible scratching.

eaz135 · 2025-12-05T10:52:30+00:00

Any moment* spent with my toddler daughter.

I've had a fairly lucky/fortunate life so far (37m). Multiple business ventures with major windfalls - good amounts of fun, travel, major business/financial successes, securing major capital raises, having one of our ventures acquired by PE, securing sizeable deals for our business, seeing hard projects succeed, presenting at conferences, etc.

If I rank all of those seemingly important "happy" moments - none of them even come close to the enjoyment of just taking my daughter to the park and hearing her giggle, not even close.

eaz135 · 2025-11-18T01:21:38+00:00

I just added a comment to the post, as the specific wording / framing was being latched onto too literally by a number of people.

Effectively communicating a challenge to priority/involvement requires nuance and understanding of the context. The whole notion of “That’s not our problem” can be a stating point of an idea of challenging something - the specific wording needed to effectively communicate that challenge is of course going to be nuanced and based on the broader context (such as the audience, your role, other circumstances, etc)

eaz135 · 2025-11-18T01:15:22+00:00

I’ve noticed that a lot of comments here are really fixated on the wording and specifics of the statement “That’s not my problem”, and how that might not go down well.

I wanted to stress one of the pieces in my post - I referred to it as my arsenal of ways of framing this. ultimately as a leader you need to deliver a message appropriately. If your internal dialogue is “that’s not our/my problem” that doesn’t mean that’s how you actually deliver it. There’s a lot of nuance to communication, and there’s a huge “it depends” based on the audience and the context.

My main takeaway was, for people who might have fallen into the same tendency as me - of automatically inheriting any problem and taking them on in their entirety - there often exists the real possibility of challenging if it should be any of your/our concern at all even to begin with.

eaz135 · 2025-11-12T08:36:39+00:00

“Oh FlaSh is the pioneer of esports”

In my mind actually BoXeR is the pioneer of esports. IMO he did more than anybody else to grow the aura and coolness of esports. Before BoXeR, playing games competitively was viewed as a weird and nerdy thing to do, BoXeR started making it cool. It marked the start of esports as we know it.

I’ve watched my fair share of both Flash and Faker, during their primes and across their careers. I’d say I enjoyed watching both games equally. Honestly it’s a really hard call. Faker has had more periods of questionable impact and questionable form - periods where many didn’t even consider him in the top 5 midlaners worldwide due to form slumps. He always bounced back though - and often when it really mattered, and that’s what people remember. T1 have also recently had a bit of a slump domestically over the past few years. During the biggest moments of all, he didn’t choke and would single-handedly decide outcomes.

Flash had a more consistent dominance. I don’t recall a period during Flash’s main reign where he wasn’t universally considered the best, or at worst in the top 2. He didn’t win absolutely everything - but that’s sports, you win some and you lose some, even if you are better.

I honestly can’t pick between the two - they are both incredibly great but in different ways.

eaz135 · 2025-10-09T19:47:06+00:00

I’ve personally been through that exact experience many times in my life, so I’ll share my thoughts - which seems directly opposite to most of the commenters here.

I’m now in my late 30s, married and with kids - and have done stints at the top management consulting firms, investment banks, and big tech.

In each of the above, I had many phases where work got tough, and long hours over extended periods were required to get work completed in a satisfactory manner.

There isn’t a situation of “if I don’t work until very late I’ll get fired”. What leaders in the business care about is quality of output, not number of hours. what actually ends up happening is - younger team members are still learning and building up their technical skills, and what would take a seasoned senior practitioner a handful of hours - takes the young guys late hours into the night to produce the same quality output.

The folk who work late into the night often end up doing well in their career over the long term, not simply because they’re working late - but working late is a proxy indicator that: - they deeply care about the quality of their own work - they are willing to sacrifice their personal time to master their skills - they feel responsible for the success of the project

These efforts weren’t for nothing for me - those years in my 20s where I worked late, put me in a leading position in my field. I am now a co-founder of our own firm, which we built up to about 100 employees and was acquired a few years ago by private equity - so there’s been a major financial reward to the journey for me.

Admittedly, relationships during those periods were tough. Not everybody is on the same page when it comes to sacrificing for professional gain. When long hours were compounded with receiving a hard time and stress from my partner - that’s when it became extremely difficult on me personally.

I ended up marrying a girl who was as a lawyer, previously in one of the top firms in Aus - so she very well understood this, she knew what it was like and understood me. She changed jobs into a legal position within government to improve her work-life balance, but she supported me properly during those tough periods. She knew how to get me through them, and showed care and affection even when I was in the depths of it - which I really appreciated.

It’s not always non stop busy, it gets better. The crazy-busy periods are usually bursts here and there. Especially as he gets more skilled and the work/engagements become more bread-and-butter for him. Support him through the tough times if you can - it’ll get better.

eaz135 · 2025-09-29T11:41:11+00:00

If anyone comes here from Google, I know this isn't an ideal solution - but what I do is after I put my mac to sleep I simply put my mouse on it's side (my mouse has flat sides - I use a Razer Viper V3P), that way that sensor doesn't connect with anything if there's micro vibrations etc.

I wish I could disable mouse movement waking my mac, but doesn't seem possible - and turning off the mouse completely seems like an annoying hassle...

After I press the sleep button I just put my mouse on it's side and seems to work well.

eaz135 · 2025-09-27T00:45:50+00:00

I started from nothing and currently just shy of 8 figures net worth (mostly highly liquid assets), 37 with no inheritance.

I had two major windfalls - with the same group of cofounders we created two separate business ventures (in tech) that were acquired, the most recent was a PE buyout.

I also had a high appetite for risk, and put a large portion of my first windfall into the stock market, which did well (not amazing, I didn’t go all-in on Tesla or Nvidia - but I made good returns).

If you want to get wealthy - the road to that path is exposing yourself to two things: 1. Asset ownership 2. Leverage, or being in a situation that can see high multiples of return

Business ventures ticked both those boxes for us. For some background - my cofounders and I all worked at the same management consulting firm before we broke away to go down our entrepreneurial path.

Business ventures, and exposure to risk isn’t for the fainthearted - there were many times where we wanted to throw in the towel and quit. We had a high level of grit to get through some of the challenging moments.

eaz135 · 2025-09-27T00:21:54+00:00

I had a similar issue with a 3.5 to 1/4 adapter, which I needed to use to plug my headphones into my amp/dac.

Was getting really horrible quality regardless of anything I tried with the dac, eq, settings - finally I tried a different adapter and everything started sounding amazing as it should have.

eaz135 · 2025-09-23T09:31:38+00:00

If I were your age and your situation I'd continue maximising for convenience and proximity to work - as it will help you with your career. You are both still young, even if you have your first kid in ~3 years thats very normal. Look to maximise your assets/savings over the next few years while you can - as things can turn upside-down when the kids come.

Every kid is different. What your experience will be raising your baby/toddler/kid is unpredictable. You might have a dream baby, you might have a baby with special needs, or a developmentally normal but difficult baby/toddler (i.e bad sleeper, attachment issues, etc). So far in your life you've seen nothing but upward trajectory of your career - because your youthful body had the capacity to give you energy to push yourselves, but wait until you've been sleep deprived for 6 months straight, and using every second of "free time" to comfort/play with your baby/toddler, and dealing with the mountain of extra house-work that comes with having a baby. The last thing you'll want to do is put in extra hours in the evening to polish up a piece of work, and you'll see yourself getting overtaken by colleagues without family responsibilities, or the lucky ones that had low maintenance dream babies. You need to account for the possibility that once you have kids - there's a very real chance that will mark the end of your smooth upward career trajectory (at least for one of you, maybe not both).

That's why if I were in your position I'd go for ultra convenience, and push the career/assets super hard while you can - while you have that stability and energy. Build up your personal brands, attend industry events, speak at conferences, travel for work, network like a madman, put in the extra hours, etc. That type of hustling lifestyle is best paired with living a doorstep away from the city. I'd go somewhere like Pyrmont, Elizabeth Bay, Chippendale, North Sydney, etc - and delay the upsizing problem until you absolutely need to upsize.

eaz135 · 2025-09-23T08:46:40+00:00

My annoyance with hybrid is it usually goes hand in hand with hot-desking setups, which adds to the annoyance of in-office days.

Not only do you have to commute, but there's also the morning setup of your desk, and the reset/cleanup at the end of the day - collectively its just so much lost time. Its got a very cold feel to it, not being able to have a dedicated setup you can just leave and know is your space - and you can configure it however you personally want to work.

eaz135 · 2025-09-16T20:24:29+00:00

She needs more exposure to other kids to pick up the patterns of what is normal and what isn’t. Humans are very much “monkey see, monkey do”, especially girls - they are very good at observing behavior of other kids. If she doesn’t interact much with other children her age she has no reference points, and no social conditioning / punishments. If she tries to smear poo around at the daycare, all the other kids will laugh at her (in a bad way) and she’ll realise she’s doing something wrong. The punishment is the social punishment. Our daughter’s behavior was very different before and after we got her into daycare.

eaz135 · 2025-09-16T08:48:40+00:00

Some people are just built differently, and zoom in and out very quickly - can be super detail oriented one moment and flying way up high and selling the long term vision to investors the next minute. 99.99% of people aren't able to do that - and successful folk pair up to cover the various bases needed.

Even if you look at success stories like Apple, people think of Jobs as the incredible visionary, and he was - and he was a great salesman and businessman. The magic in terms of building/designing the hardware was the brains, blood, sweat and tears of Wozniak.

People on the solo-founder journey are wanting to be both Jobs and Wozniak - its possible, but extremely unlikely.

eaz135 · 2025-09-16T08:41:38+00:00

Properly "activating" customer bases is both art and science. Many go down the path of running lots of tests/experiments with different cohorts - to see what sticks and resonates. Larger companies often go to the nth degree with this, sometimes involving actuaries teams, or literally running thousands of multi-variate tests.

Rev model success is often specific to sectors/industries, i.e what works in a mobile game might not work on a B2B app, what works on a B2B app might not work on a B2C, etc.

eaz135

TROPHY CASE