Exact same argument for crypto though. It is all just supply demand. BTC has much more demand currently and likely more sustainably. Alt coins are just less popular. It is all just supply vs demand.

Not really though, in crypto the thing you own is the ledger entry, the record that says you hold N BTC. You own it because you hold the keys, and only the keys can change it. The token isn't a pointer to some asset sitting elsewhere, the on-chain entry is the asset.

NFTs use the same machinery but the premise is that you own something else, e.g. an image (or real estate!) but nothing on-chain actually grants that ownership. To the extent real ownership exists at all, it lives entirely off-chain, e.g. in a legal contract (that would hold with or without the blockchain).

I am not a fan of crypto either way but NFTs are just ridiculous.

It's a specific subtype of Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. They "know" AI cant do their own jobs, but it seems pretty good at summarizing what others do without understanding the nuance. It seems to really apply to the AI Lab CEOs who appear "shocked" everyone isn't simply replaced with LLMs by now so the timelines get kicked.

i like this and i think it's adjacent to gell-man effect rather than a subtype of it. Any CEO claiming AGI is here will never say, "AGI is here because it can automate what I do today." They are saying AGI is here because they have some loose understanding of what other humans seem to be doing and think the LLMs can also do this. In a way it also makes me think that these CEOs are kind of operating like LLMs - they sound confident, they don't have the full nuanced picture (its impossible to have a nuanced understanding of everything), they are not doing the actual labor that they want to replace.

Spot on. That is what I was trying to get at.

Reverse imposter syndrome.

Gell-Mann Amnesia AI effect. They "know" AI cant do their own jobs, but it seems pretty good at summarizing what others do without understanding the nuance. It seems to really apply to the AI Lab CEOs who appear "shocked" everyone isn't simply replaced with LLMs by now.

Getting cranked on Bia Hoi in Hanoi with some locals is just an incredible cultural experience.

Yeah, it's great stuff - you can drink skips of the stuff and no hangover - well me 20 years ago could! I've great memories of sitting around on those tiny stools with friends - such a different drinking experience from home in Ireland

Providing a useful service.

Totally agree but the hard part is making sure users feel that value every time they open it. What's your take on how to make that obvious from day one?

I think you are thinking about this wrong. Don't approach a business from a UI and code first attitude. You need to focus on solving a problem well. The other stuff will come once you have paying users.

Take OpenAI as an extreme example. The UI was basically a POS and it was difficult to even navigate to ChatGPT when they launched. It was just such an awesome service that people paid for it and used it. Focus on the business you are creating not the software you are using to deliver the service. Honing a UI can come later.

In a world where code is a disposable commodity, it is the business that matters. What specific problem/service are you trying to provide?

Some things I have paid for: -ChatGPT -Amazon Prime -Genscape/Wood Mckenzie crude oil tracking -Netflix -Bloomberg Terminal -LSEG -Disney+ -a finance substack -Cell phone data

Many of these have atrocious interfaces. I pay because they solve real problems in the real world for me.

A common issue among (particularly young entrepreneurs) is thinking, "I want to get into SAAS.", then focusing on some website or UI first.

In a modern world, that is the last thing that matters. What matters is solving a real problem for people.

What is the business you want to create? What is the market? What is the problem you are solving for them. What are you providing people to save them time or money or entertainment etc? That is what matters.

You’ve hit on something that I think deserves to be called out more directly — all of the things you pay for have significant non-software aspects. It is pretty hard to make something people will pay for without tackling some hard problem outside of the software itself, unless your software is very niche.

Looking at your examples - ChatGPT, you need some way to get an otherworldly sized dataset before you can train a model, and the fact that you also happen to have to write a web interface for the chat looks like a footnote in comparison - Amazon Prime, have to create a distribution empire - Crude Oil Tracking, have to get raw data from somewhere, I don’t know the space well but I’d be shocked if they didn’t have some moat around the data source, or they even have a hand in collecting it - Netflix, you can solve all the hard problems of video streaming and still have nothing people want to watch - Bloomberg Terminal, this one is maybe the closest to being replicable with just good software? I’m sure building the data sourcing for it would still be the “hard part”

If you broaden your scope from SaaS to “software that makes money” the most obvious are social networks, but then your problem becomes how to actually monetize it, since you more than likely can’t charge the users for it.

Exactly. Wood Mackenzie has insane amounts of data sources: infrared cameras pointed at most storage tanks in North America, cameras counting the movement of rail cars, drones have been flying over tanks measuring roof levels on tanks for years, thermal tracking of crude oil pumping stations, production by field for years, hoards of data they've accumulated over decades and the list goes on. The website/apps are pretty to deliver the service but that isn't what really matters to solving my problem and providing value.

Preview coming out on Bedrock. So not sure this is true any longer. Im awaiting further details.

EDIT: AWS said Anthropic’s Claude Mythos is now available through Amazon Bedrock as a gated research preview focused on cybersecurity, with access initially limited to allow listed organizations such as internet-critical companies and open-source maintainers.

Basically, realized vol is lower than implied vol over time. Yes.

also people overpay for skew protection and you can make consistent money selling skews (until that one time it blows up on you)

This is a "wishful thinking" take that ignores a brutal reality: AI isn’t just a tool; it’s raising the cognitive floor for employment. We are rapidly approaching a point where the baseline IQ required to contribute at all will surpass the capabilities of a huge segment of the population. And that floor is rising.

You can already see the decoupling: Mag7 hiring has flatlined while their AI capex hits the moon. Even the "brightest minds" are being replaced by the hardware they built. No amount of policy or interest rate maneuvering can stop this shift because you can't legislate away the fact that human labor is becoming an inferior good.

The assumption that this shift can be evenly distributed and broadly wiped away via policy tools is asinine.

This time IS different.

Sidenote: This is exactly why I’m so bullish on risk assets—we are transitioning into an economy where capital no longer needs to drag the weight of a massive, increasingly "useless" workforce, and the policy responses will actually exacerbate the shift (ie. rates down on unemployment = assets up)

I think you're right. I think that a majority of people, including myself, will be generally unemployable soon.

I'm early career and have a few hundred thousand dollars I can deploy. What's the best way to invest?

I'd invest in whatever is profitable when the unemployed masses burn these data centers to the ground, like fire trucks.

I'd also invest in companies that make rope.

Sort of agree with this but I do find it amusing that this sort of take on it implicitly discounts that the capital still has to live with all these “useless” people on the same rock, whose numbers will grow to an unignorable amount...The idea that anything will be insulated is for the fairies and seems just as asinine to me

The irony of this SHOW HN is that "just roll your own" was the classic OG critique of Dropbox before they took the space rocket to unicorn land.