alt Hacker NewsI think this is pretty spot on. It's already been mentioned a ton before how many of these "we're having layoffs to better utilize AI" stories are really just cover for axing lots of unprofitable projects that were birthed during the ZIRP/early pandemic era.
I think the additional wrinkle with AI is that it's having an impact, just not really in the way these execs are saying. Before ChatGPT, there was lots of speculative investment into SaaS-type products as companies looked for another hit. Now, though, I think there is a general sense that, except for AI, Internet tech (and lots of other tech) is fully mature. This huge amount of investment in "the next big tech" thing (again, ex-AI) is just over, and the transition happened pretty fast. Blockchain, NFTs, the metaverse, Alexa and other voice assistants, yada yada, were all ventures looking for something as big as, say, the rise of mobile, and they all failed and are getting killed basically simultaneously.
I think the scary thing going forward is that, over the past 25-30 years or so, tech provided a huge amount of the average wage growth, at least in the US. Even if AI doesn't result in huge employment reductions due to productivity gains, the number of high quality jobs in the AI space is just a lot smaller than, say, the overall Internet space. Lots of people have commented here how so many of these AI startups are just wrappers around the big models, and even previous hits are looking dicey now than the big model providers are pulling more stuff in house (and I say this as a previous Cursor subscriber who switched to Claude Code).
I'm curious what future batches of YCombinator will look like. Perhaps it's just a failure of my imagination, but it's really hard for me to think of a speculative tech startup that I think could be a big hit, and that's a huge change for me from, say, the 2005-2020 timeframe. Yeah, I can think of some AI ideas, but it's hard for me to think of things beyond "wrapper" projects on one hand and hugely capital intensive projects for training models on the other.
Replies
There's still enormous potential for technology solutions in the healthcare space. The population in every developed country is getting older and sicker. AI can help a little bit with building those solutions but there are no magic bullets: we still need lots of people grinding away on hard problems.
> I think the scary thing going forward is that, over the past 25-30 years or so, tech provided a huge amount of the average wage growth, at least in the US.
This is the thing that keeps me up at night. Tech has allowed a very solid middle class lifestyle for a lot of people. I can't think of another good paying job where someone is self-taught, or went to a 12-month certificate program at their local community college and now has a very good career.
If those jobs disappear, or wage growth is non-existent, I don't know where the next generation will find those jobs.
We've seen hackathons where attendees build a SaaS business in a weekend. More than just Startup Weekend validation and a shitty MVP. A pretty-much complete SaaS product. It's a step change.
But this means the market for SaaS products is going to get hit hugely. If you can vibecode up a specific service for your specific requirement in a few days, why bother buying a SaaS product?
And, of course, if you can build a me-too SaaS product that imitates a successful competitor over a weekend, and then price it at 10% of their price, that's going to hit business models.
I think the SaaS startup gravy train is definitely over and done.
Personally, my sense is that there's a lot left to do in batteries + motors + LLMs. The drones in Ukraine could be smarter. Robot companions that can hold a conversation. Voice interfaces for robots generally [0]. Unfortunately, the people making all the batteries, motors, and increasingly the LLMs, are in China. So those of us stuck with idiot governments protecting their fossil-fuel donors are going to miss out on it.
[0] the sketch of two scots in a voice-controlled lift still resonates, though. There's probably still work to do here.