You have to know to look around you, at your peers, and come to the conclusion that this generality is quite true even if you’re personal datum varies.
Who did they overhire? Like, Covid didn’t just increase the number of people in the field. Prior to Covid there was a so called talent shortage. The hiring that did occur was mostly net zero in aggregate. Workers got poached, grads got hired, compensation went to far up. And, that’s what they mean by overhired. They over paid. They now see the benefits of hiring cheaper talent on another continent. Cheaper talent that can use the same tools as you are going to use. AI equalized a lot of talent, the US labor doesn’t have the edge it once did. In a sense, this should have been happening at higher rates much earlier than it did but for some reason investors saw value if you paid big salary to smart people in one part of California for a very long time. Now, the thing that should have happened is happening. And they also realize it’s not limited to California, turns out even salaries in Alabama are high compared to other parts of the world.
There is also much more productivity. But I’m not sure it’s really a driving force yet as with the new productivity people are still just trying to do more with it which doesn’t translate to efficiency. Yet. It might once AI loses its wow factor and is just status quo. I feel like this is fast approaching but still may be a few years away.
Yeah so most of my friends who are dealing with spike in outsourced devs in their work environments are cleaning up the AI slop churned out by offshore people who are slinging code and getting the business requirements all wrong. Their jobs are now to clean up the mountains of code coming in from people who don't really get the problems they are being asked to solve.
Outsourcing seems to come in cycles, where it's tried, fails due to communication issues (resulting in quality issues), then things get inhoused again.
I do think there is some opportunity for AI to smooth out the communication aspect, but I think what we will actually see is larger volumes of poorly guided work coming through for each feature. The AI does not fix the lack of deep systems understanding which is why inhousing is always the antidote to bad outsourcing.
I need to make this clear, there are great devs on either side of the various oceans, the issue is usually communication between two parties with nuturally mis-aligned incentives.
I’ve had a lot of success in past with the Apple approach. I design and architect locally but build it overseas. I think AI and the post-WFH office work culture really helped executives get over the hump / learn to make decisions and lead without being in the same physical space daily. Also, feel like the communication gap is largely a solved problem at this point. It is incredibly common to find English speakers in this profession from any country. The trick is learning to project management. At times, you simply just give the person objective instructions of what to build and the exact rendering and color palette. Or the exact packages you they can use as dependencies. But largely the world communicates together much better than the previous wave of outsourcing.
It’s not always wealth accumulation as driver. It’s often just chasing deals and fixing companies that is fulfilling for some people. But, it’s also the thrill of the hunt and he’s effectively a big game hunter looking for a huge trophy.
> I'm just not sure his rationale is completely objective given such a structure...
Which is why the board would have to approve the deal and he can’t act alone on it. He was hired to create and execute the strategy including finding the target. The real question is, why did he get hired to do something anyone could have done?
Agree. My first thought is most people in early days didn’t even want to start using PCs for work to begin with. The businesses generally had to mandate it. I imagine many people are facing this today with AI.
Water is pretty scarce in some of the places they want to build these things. I know people in West Texas that own ranches that have been approached by the datacenter people and it’s basically a desert, oil industry consumes a lot of their water, and the public water they get in the city smells toxic, the well water is flammable. So water use is concerning and I don’t think there’s any reliable or trustworthy source for them to use as a gauge for what to expect so they have to ask.
In my experience, it tells you to do the necessary clicks in the editor if it can’t be coded. Gives you step by step instructions. It kind of makes it a bit more hands on than just letting the agent run free. I tried once to let it take control of my device so it could do those clicks itself but couldn’t get it working, I’m amateur at best with this though so I feel like it should be possible even if it had to do it by running selenium code it wrote.
I’m weighing whether I should get a Slate or R2 next. Yet, somehow, I feel like these don’t compete directly much. Perhaps I’m wrong. My friends with R1s would never consider a Slate. Maybe the R2 is more of a match even at twice the price.
I think that: 1) Slate will still not be available for a while, and 2) Once you get everything you want on it, the price won't be that much better. But that's just my take.
Don't get me wrong, I look forward to Slate being available and think it's compelling, but just my cynical take.
I love the cynicism! My thought is that’s why it doesn’t compete for many people. Either you like Slate for what it is (simplistic, low features, or just really want that customization yourself) or you think it’s too simplistic, want a lot of features, or like the luxury finishes - so you just buy a Rivian without considering the Slate.
I’ve been wanting something like the Slate for a long time and am truly excited by it. The more they’ve commented on specifics however, the more I feel like it’s a risky buy though (for me and my needs). If they do the test drive tour I’m going to make sure to visit it, the whole preorder a car from a company that doesn’t exist thing stokes my anxiety a bit too. Rivian at least I’m familiar with but I’m definitely in the “this company is going bankrupt camp” and don’t see their path towards profitability. So hard for me to buy their product even if they are built for camping
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