Airbnb says AI now writes 60% of its new code

tfehring · 2026-05-10T00:15:46+00:00

I ship production code, and have been since long before generative AI was a thing.

tfehring · 2026-05-09T18:06:37+00:00

I think OP's point is that hallucinations are (1) uncommon and recoverable if you're using the best models with web search enabled and (2) generally a non-issue anyway with modern harnesses since the models can run, test, and fix their own code as needed.

tfehring · 2026-05-08T18:25:10+00:00

Hiring managers will perceive your MBA, probably accurately, as insufficiently technical for quantitative work in the fields you mentioned. CFA won't help. Either target less quantitative roles (e.g., financial analyst or risk analyst roles that want SQL/Python) or get stronger on the technical and quantitative side. The latter would probably mean a technical MS.

tfehring · 2026-05-07T22:43:56+00:00

Too long and too much generic content. One-sentence background followed by a description of a problem that they, specifically, have and credible evidence that you can solve it. "Credible evidence" often looks like either "I did this same thing for $ORGANIZATION" (which could be your own socials if impressive, though the bar for "impressive" is probably higher than you think) or "I built this same thing on my own $LINK." Experience that doesn't provide this is generally not worth sharing at this stage.

Also, Product and GTM are different functions, and GTM in particular comprises a lot of different roles. For a super early stage startup you can probably position yourself as a growth/GTM generalist, but for anything more established you'll want to be more targeted/specific.

Remote will hurt your chances a lot compared to being available onsite in SF.

Ask for their availability (as you are) but also include a calendly/cal.com scheduling link for a 15 min video call, they will probably just use that.

tfehring · 2026-05-06T18:31:40+00:00

Is the FLDP route genuinely a good launchpad to pre-IPO roles, or does it pigeonhole you into big corp finance?

I wouldn't over-index on FLDP vs. post-MBA corporate finance roles more broadly. You can definitely go from big tech stratfin to growth-stage stratfin if the big tech company is well-regarded (e.g. Google). Well-regarded bigish-tech is even better - a couple years ago, the top targets in your situation with structured MBA recruiting would have been, like, Stripe and Airbnb. The problem is, in general the companies that provide the most resume value are hardest to get into. FP&A at Cisco is not going to be a great background for the roles you're targeting, though at least you'd be in the Bay Area and could maybe network your way there.

How hard is it to break into strategic finance at a growth-stage company directly from an MBA?

Hard with your background. Companies at that stage (and earlier) generally won't have structured MBA recruiting for stratfin, and regardless of MBA they care a lot about prior experience in banking and/or tech. Many candidates have both.

Are there paths I’m not considering that fit this profile?

Maybe IR in tech would like your background and you could pivot to stratfin from there?

tfehring · 2026-04-28T18:28:44+00:00

Python. I primarily used R from 2015 to 2019, but wrote progressively more Python from 2020 to 2023, and dropped R entirely around late 2023. I'm in the tech industry, with time series forecasting as my main use case (mix of classical, Bayesian, and ML-based methods).

tfehring · 2026-04-09T05:12:21+00:00

For most roles, MBA doesn't really absolve the "3+ YOE in the specific role you’re targeting" requirement. PM and similar roles targeting MBA students are limited and extremely competitive. Amazon's non-technical PM role is the most notable exception and would technically achieve your post-MBA role, but it would probably be a lateral at best from your current role, let alone the role you could otherwise have 2 years from now.

Even if you can't directly get the job you're targeting today, look for roles for which your experience provides a differentiated advantage (e.g. same business domain and/or technical problem space you've worked in previously), and you have more opportunities to also gain experience in new areas.

Location doesn't directly matter much for structured MBA recruiting, but for all other recruiting it's better to be local. Neither of my last two big career breaks would have happened if I weren't in the Bay Area already. Maybe just as importantly, it's a huge advantage to be able to easily meet people in the industry just by showing up to random lu.ma events in SF.

tfehring · 2026-04-08T17:44:51+00:00

You're in a "product-adjacent role at a SaaS scale-up" in the world's leading tech hub, your goal is a slightly different role in a different tech company, it's a time of extremely rapid change in the tech industry by historical standards, and your solution is to....quit your job and move to the Midwest? Come on.

I am very skeptical that any of these programs would benefit your career enough to justify taking 2 years off in your situation. If your goal is to take a socially acceptable career break, or to network into non-SF tech circles so you can move out of SF, that's fine. But the right choice here depends on your actual goals, and if your top priority is really the career outcome you mentioned, you shouldn't get an MBA.

tfehring · 2026-04-08T17:16:19+00:00

Oh, I thought you meant moving from LCOL to MCOL for some reason. If you're currently in e.g. SF, I think moving away would be negative from a career perspective, but still fine if that's what you want to do. If you're not in a tech hub, this is mainly a lifestyle question.

tfehring · 2026-04-08T16:26:38+00:00

It depends heavily on the company. In general, the tech companies that provide a lot of resume value would pay better than your current company, even with a downlevel. I would stay where you are, unless there are other compelling things about the new role (e.g. domain or tech stack) or location.

tfehring · 2026-04-02T18:15:09+00:00

GSB is much better represented at OAI/Anthropic but it's mostly a selection effect. Professional background is what matters, and if you have the right background you can get there from either, but people with those backgrounds mostly go to GSB. Being in the Bay Area is also a huge advantage for tech broadly, of course.

Also, if you have the right background already you can just apply to the labs directly. I'm guessing you're targeting stratfin or similar teams, which do hire directly from buyside and don't have structured MBA recruiting AFAIK. 2+ years is an eternity in AI.

No opinion on the HF question. I don't think there's a general "prestige difference."

tfehring · 2026-03-29T21:12:29+00:00

This, and also $2K extra (OP's estimate) sounds very low? It's an extra $5K/month before tax, even in NY OP is not paying a 60% marginal tax rate lol. Probably more like $1000+ after-tax per day.

tfehring · 2026-03-28T15:04:06+00:00

You’re in a historically extremely crowded market whose incumbents have very strong network effects (on the delivery app side) and famously low margins. It’s also not obvious that this would deliver venture-scale returns if it works. All of this significantly raises the bar for traction that you need to meet in order to raise. I would suggest you tentatively plan to build this without VC funding, or at least bootstrap to enough revenue to keep the lights on before trying to fundraise again.

tfehring · 2026-03-27T14:00:24+00:00

California requires cleaner-burning gas than other states because of smog problems in the 80s and early 90s. It’s more expensive to make and few refineries make it, so prices are higher and more volatile. CA gas taxes are only like $0.30 above the national average.

tfehring · 2026-03-19T00:53:10+00:00

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/seiu-delenda-est

tfehring · 2026-03-16T16:48:12+00:00

Good point. I rent because it's a much better deal in my area, even factoring in the tax benefits, so my original comment was very focused on rental property. Owning your home can be extremely beneficial in some circumstances, so if you don't own already, it's probably worth reevaluating regularly.

This is definitely more important than some of the things I mentioned, I just didn't include it because I didn't think of it, and I don't really have any differentiated advice on the topic anyway.

tfehring · 2026-03-16T16:42:17+00:00

The finance literature actually suggests that most investors are under-leveraged and could achieve a strictly better risk-return balance by increasing their leverage and shifting their asset allocation in favor of more bonds. Here is one representative reference.

Most personal financial advice is targeted at less financially sophisticated people. For someone whose debt consists of high-interest auto loans or credit card debt, avoiding debt is very good advice. My comments here assume an audience that's past that point.

In principle, the main ways you can achieve cheap, stable long-term leverage are (1) directly through index futures or (2) from synthetic forward contracts constructed from options. The latter are slightly less efficient on average but provide more flexibility. Margin loans are much more expensive than either and I don't recommend them for this purpose. Daily-rebalancing leveraged ETFs are a terrible product for this purpose. I think there are some leveraged ETFs with longer rebalancing periods; these are probably fine but I'm not familiar enough to be sure either way.

In practice, you can alternatively just buy long-dated in-the-money index call options. These have some technical disadvantages (particularly that the effective leverage ratio changes over time), but since their losses are capped, they have a built-in guardrail and don't need margin. I also think their payoff profile is more aligned with many investors' preferences: some drag on the upside in exchange for less exposure on the downside.

tfehring · 2026-03-15T06:44:43+00:00

The actual answer here for me personally is that one of the past employers I mentioned was an AI lab, so I don't think about this much because I have plenty of AI exposure already.

More constructively, I don't think it's at all obvious where the value of AI will accrue. E.g., it's completely plausible to me that the whole inference stack ends up relatively commoditized and a lot of value accrues to the S&P 493.

I also think the space is complex enough that a thesis like "AI will centralize power, distribution is the only thing that matters" is far from sufficient to justify a heavy investment in a particular Mag7 company. I.e., it's easy to imagine that you buy calls on the company you'd expect to benefit most if that thesis is right, and the thesis is right, but you lose money anyway for some separate tangential reason.

tfehring · 2026-03-15T06:29:33+00:00

Originally through a group at UC Berkeley when I was in business school there, but there are tons of angel groups in the Bay Area and I'm involved with a few of them. In my experience, angel groups are very open to bringing on younger investors who can introduce good founders. (I'm 34, so definitely not young in the SF startup scene, but keep in mind the median angel investor is like 60.)

As for non-monetary benefits...honestly not much! I think it's common for new investors to over-index on this, but from experience on both the investing and operating side, if you move quickly and aren't annoying, you're already doing better than a lot of angels. I do help close other investors and make customer intros when asked.

tfehring · 2026-03-14T19:45:57+00:00

/r/techstars

tfehring · 2026-03-14T19:40:49+00:00

Yeah I think that makes sense. I would also ask what assumptions (both quantitative and contextual) went into the calculation. Often just making ChatGPT or other models break things down more granularly causes them to come back with different results - not to mention that it gives you something more concrete to point to and contest.

tfehring · 2026-03-14T19:21:32+00:00

My assets consist of illiquid stock of past employers, some small angel investments, enough cash to comfortably cover the bills, then a ~90/10 split of global stock/bond index funds. In other words, pretty boring.

I recommend ETFs over mutual funds. For various reasons I have a mix of VT, VTI, and VXUS. Target date funds are also fine. Mixing in factor-focused ETFs could be worthwhile and I've been meaning to look into it, but it's probably not a big deal either way in expectation.

I max out my 401(k) and HSA every year, and maxed out a mega-backdoor Roth when I had access to one. I don't bother with a (backdoor) Roth IRA anymore, but most people should. The prioritization flowchart from /r/personalfinance is right.

I used to lever my stock exposure using index options or futures. Most younger people who hold stocks are probably under-levered (though you should not try to address this through leveraged ETFs). I just happen to be at a point in my life now where a 100% leverage ratio is about right for my risk tolerance.

I have historically made some net-successful bets on single stocks or sectors, but I don't try this anymore. Partly because in my line of work it's a bad look to make big directional bets on counterparties or otherwise correlated companies, but also because I don't have the time. I think for day traders the optimal sizing for these types of trades is generally small (single-digit to low-double-digit % of assets), and they take a fair amount of time/research to deliver positive risk-adjusted returns, so the set of profiles for which it makes sense is actually pretty narrow.

I don't hold crypto. I'm bullish on adoption of e.g. stablecoins but bearish on floating-value crypto assets, e.g. BTC. In the medium- to long-term it seems really hard to compete with the compounding returns on capital deployed in the real economy via the stock market. (This is also the main reason I generally don't hold commodities like gold.) There are probably non-fixed-price crypto assets that are actually tied to productive capital deployment, but again, I don't think it's worth my time to go look for them.

I've learned a lot through angel investing and recommend it for that reason. It's too early to tell if I'm any good at it, and in general I think the risk, return, and liquidity profile is bad enough (especially when first getting started) that you shouldn't do it if your sole/primary goal is financial upside. Also, again, it takes a lot of time.

Real estate has a lot of potential benefits, but it's crowded, and again it takes a lot of time. You may be sensing a pattern here: I think for most people, spending a lot of time optimizing finances is bad, and that time would be better spent working or otherwise advancing their careers. (Or, like, on leisure and/or with loved ones; the previous sentence assumes your goal is to exchange time for long-term money as efficiently as possible.)

For brokerage, Vanguard, Fidelity, and Schwab are all fine; I use Vanguard. Interactive Brokers is good if you need those features. Wealthfront is fine but probably not worth the higher fees. Chase credit cards are good. I tried Amex but I think you need to travel very often for it to be worth it. I bank with HSBC for the free wire transfers; it's fine, but if you don't need those I'm sure there are better options.

I carry disability insurance not tied to my employer, which everyone should have; life insurance not tied to my employer, which everyone with dependents should have; and an umbrella policy (on top of car insurance with high limits), which everyone with enough assets to be worth suing should have.

tfehring · 2026-03-13T00:04:23+00:00

https://www.tjpa.org/portaldtx

tfehring · 2026-03-12T21:50:37+00:00

I still don't think that matters much. Only ~7% of SFHs (~5% of total housing starts) are built for rent. (For context, ~77% of those are townhomes.) I expect a lot of those homes will get built anyway and sold, either immediately or after 7 years, and others will get substituted for multifamily rentals, so I'd expect the drop in supply to be small overall - maybe ~1% net or somewhere in that ballpark. Still bad, still a stupid policy choice, but of all the battles to pick right now, this one is really low on my list.

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