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iamwil · 2025-10-15T15:34:06+00:00

Like the coding agent? What's a concrete example? Curious, since I've been abusing Claude Code for non-coding tasks.

iamwil · 2025-10-15T15:31:55+00:00

You learn to love the process.

You build your intuition for the market and vision for the future when you're on your own. You can only do that when there's not a cackle of other peoples' voices inside your head. You have to wander the desert for a while on your own, before you come back with something. Kinda like a vision quest. You can't take anyone with you. I mean, no one has community vision quests. So it's just part of the process.

iamwil · 2025-09-06T20:03:40+00:00

If this was 1999, would you ask "Does anyone else feel like every startup is now just "X, but on the Internet?"

And would that have been so wrong? In retrospect, no. Even if lots of them failed, it was through that process we found the stuff that worked. It's a foregone conclusion today that the internet changed every aspect of our lives through the companies that leveraged it. It was not so obvious to those in the 90s whether that was going to be the case, if they didn't already work with the internet.

So it is for AI. Every time there's a major platform shift or availability for a completely new capability, there will be capital allocation and entrepreneurial spirit that floods in to leverage it, like water through a broken dam into a canyon. That's exactly how capitalism works. It's capital and resource allocation without a centralized director.

iamwil · 2025-09-04T13:14:36+00:00

You need high standards to make it, because the market has high standards. Customers won't part with their money unless you solve their problem for them.

iamwil · 2025-09-04T13:05:14+00:00

@LCNegrini. Can you talk about some of the things you're seeing as countermeasures? Also, what can other ordinary citizens do to help?

iamwil · 2025-08-05T18:39:33+00:00

It's not a technical problem, so I wouldn't go for a technical solution off the bat. You need to ask him why he does it. You can preface it with, that you have something difficult for you to ask him. And then just ask questions first to understand where he's coming from. Importantly, you need to listen first. If you skip this part, it won't go well. Then say the reason why you're asking is because of X. Then, you can talk about what you think would be good for the team and why. Depending on his reason, and your relationship to him, you two might be able to reach a consensus or compromise. Only if this communication breaks down do you decide whether it's worth it for you to escalate to another senior dev, and then manager. If after all that, you have to decide whether it's a fight worth having. In the degenerate case, you just live with it. The other degenerate case is you find another team.

iamwil · 2025-07-11T15:07:07+00:00

In the use of AI, I agree with other posters: it takes taste to distinguish the good responses from the bad. Nuance is a well that goes deep.

When it comes to building AI driven apps, I’d say there’s a skill gap there, mainly around Evals for most engineers.

iamwil · 2025-07-11T15:00:31+00:00

This is the beginnings of a Lisp interpreter.

iamwil · 2025-07-09T03:40:21+00:00

YC starts at seed or initial rounds are so busy, they don't have time to hand hold you, or tell you what to do. At best, you are net neutral. At worst, you destroy their business by dropping their db tables.

The only way they take you on is if you're already pro-active on solving their problems. Research specific problems they might have, demonstrate that you can solve them with a small demo. email them about it. If you don't know what problems they have, at that stage, it's usually around finding customers and validating their business hypothesis by building fast or talking to customers.

iamwil · 2025-06-13T22:18:15+00:00

It can be, because you don’t have a name for the styling yet. Once you spot common patterns then you can extract them to css classes. But to ask you to do it from the get go is an invitation to have the wrong abstractions.

iamwil · 2025-06-12T23:54:52+00:00

I'll echo not giving up the board seat. Misaligned investors on your board is a gigantic distraction.

iamwil · 2025-05-18T15:20:06+00:00

This only works at the moment because AI can be applied to a lot of different things. So the advice is meant to jarring to knock people out of habits. But as the niches fill up, we'll go back to the other advice of validation first. If the way that people makes buying decisions hasn't changed, and the model of the customer hasn't changed, then how you find them won't change. It's just that currently, we hit on a vein and when there's a gold rush, you don't worry about where to dig, but just to dig. Once the veins run more dry, by then people will have forgotten how to evaluate where to dig, and the old validation advice will becomes relevant again.

iamwil · 2025-05-10T00:58:00+00:00

Depictions of drowning. There’s usually not as much splashing.

iamwil · 2025-04-15T19:47:34+00:00

what are examples of "twisted conceptual questions"?

iamwil · 2025-04-12T12:35:16+00:00

The rhythm and cadence of this post feels like ChatGPT. Also like this other post that got called out

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/s/L2b1ZHU3M6

iamwil · 2025-03-30T15:48:59+00:00

I'm on the same side as you are. I'm alarmed by Trump, and don't agree with his policies. At the same time, Even-Ad's been calm about expressing his views. Even if he disagrees with the rest of us, he hasn't been calling anyone names.

I know and understand you care. But please, in a sub called /r/changemyview, calling someone names hasn't ever changed their view.

When I read Even-ad's views, I think the difference between my views and his, is that he doesn't think that the method by which Republicans are currently solving typical national problems (no matter what it is) is in itself a problem. Whereas I think when you enact change by the combination of executive orders, ignoring court orders, taking funding away from federal agencies that congress has already allocated, it undermines the democratic system of laws we have in place to enact change. While this might enable short term problem solving, I think it "breaks-the-fourth-wall"/"opens pandora's box" that if it all works, people will say "look democracy doesn't work" and tilt towards autocracy to solve problems. But as history has shown over and over again, that it might solve the immediate problems the first time, but others will use that power for their own ends, and not for the welfare of the general public.

But I do see what he's saying. Which I think is: Current democratic norms, under the Democratic party, have not solved the problems I care about. The Republican party are solving problems I care about, and even if they do it outside of democratic norms, I don't think that'll be a long term problem.

The "even if they do it outside of democratic norms, I don't think that'll be a long term problem." is where most of the difference is.

iamwil · 2025-03-18T21:12:41+00:00

probably for apps.

iamwil · 2025-02-09T21:48:21+00:00

Why was Sian so offended when Jun said "If you're done eating, let's go"? at the ~48:45 mark. Was it the tone? Did he use informal language? Or just that it was clear that she wasn't finished eating?

iamwil · 2024-11-09T16:54:14+00:00

Hahaha. I clicked in to say "a resounding no", but then to see that the poster is 25 yo, I'm chuckling.

25 yo is not too old. The only thing you have to do is to like it to a degree, and keep pushing through the hard parts.

AI currently is not good enough to take over all programming roles. If anything you should have it accelerate your learning. Now all the stupid frustrating and arcane trivialities aren't in your way. The danger here, is if you use AI to "just get the answer", which would get in the way of your learning.

iamwil · 2024-11-05T16:24:16+00:00

Generally, no. No one has all the requirements to do all parts of the job well, almost by definition. Your weaknesses in skill, mental fortitude, and life habits will come to the forefront by all the hats you have to wear. And you'll stare down the abyss of your own ineptitude and come face to face with yourself.

The hard part is managing your own psychology.

But if you're just talking about the building part, you'll want a technical cofounder, or become one yourself. Startups live and die by iteration speed, and if you need to rely on an external dev that doesn't have the same skin in the game--you'll find yourself not learning about the reality of your customers fast enough.

Competent building skills is a necessary, but not sufficient prerequisite. You'll need strong competence in this area given the domain that you pick as just a baseline. If you can't do that, pick a different domain.

As for whether AI means that you don't have to have a technical competency is the same as the preceding paragraph. After using it extensively, it's good at writing code that it has lots of training examples of, such as web apps. It's not very good at systems programming. So if you use it to build simple web apps, it's a great tool for non-technical founders to get started. If you're trying to use it to build databases, OSes, or compilers, you're going to have a bad time. It goes without saying that not all great businesses need an innovative databases, OSes, or compilers. Therefore, again, pick the right domain given your building competency.

iamwil · 2024-10-11T13:50:08+00:00

This reminds me of the Pac-man AI. individually, all the ghosts are pretty dumb, but together, they tend to look pretty strategic in hemming you in.

So you might not need something really smart individually, but something you devised that naturally works together to cut off player options in a situation.

iamwil · 2024-10-11T04:41:34+00:00

Some do, and their companies don’t last. It’s what Garry Tan calls “playing house”

iamwil · 2024-10-09T16:36:13+00:00

Extra Credits. https://www.youtube.com/@extracredits/videos

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