[ArthurStacks]

I run a software development company with dozens of staff across multiple countries. Gemini has us to the point where we can actually stop hiring for certain roles and staff have been informed they must make use of these tools or they are surplus to requirements. At the current rate of improvement I believe we will be operating on far less staff in 2 years time.

[ssalazar]

Thanks -- this is what I mean by evidence, someone with actual experience and skin in the game weighing in rather than blustering proclamations based on vibes.

I agree they improve productivity to where you need fewer developers for a similar quantity of output than before. But I dont think LLMs specifically will reduce the need for some engineer to do the higher level technical design and architecture work, just given what Ive seen and my understanding of the underlying tech.

[hjgjhyuhy]

I believe that at current rate your entire company will become irrelevant in 4 years. Your customers will simply use Gemini to build their own software.

Better start applying!

[ArthurStacks]

Wrong. Because we dont just write software. We make solutions. In 4 years we will still be making solutions for companies. The difference will be that the software we design for that solution will likely be created by AI tools, and we get to lower our staff costs, whilst increasing our output and revenue.

[okinok]

If they are created by AI tools which we all have access to that means everyone will now become your competitor, and with all the people you are planning on letting go they can just as easily as you use these AI tools to create solutions for companies. So in a way you will have more competition, and calculation that you will have more revenue might not be that easy.

[theshackleford]

> Because we dont just write software.

Lolok. Neither do many using “AI” so what’s your point exactly?

It’s an odd thing to brag about being a dime a dozen “solutions” provider.

[ArthurStacks]

It means what it says. We dont just write software. An LLM cannot do the service that the company provides because it isnt just software and digital services.

[realusername]

I'd be worried instead of happy in your case, it means your lunch is getting eaten as a company.

Personally I'm in a software company where this new LLM wave didn't do much of a difference.

[ArthurStacks]

Not at all. We dont care whether the software is written by a machine or by a human. If the machine does it cheaper, to a better, more consistent standard, then its win for us.

[realusername]

You don't care but that's what the market is paying you for. You aren't just replacing developers, you are replacing yourself.

Cheaper organisations will be able to compete with you which couldn't before and will drive your revenue down.

[ArthurStacks]

That might be the case if we were an organisation that resisted change and were not actively pursuing reducing our staff count via AI, but it isnt. In the AI era our company will thrive because we are no longer constrained by needing to find a specific type of human talent that can build the complicated systems we develop.

[realusername]

You are no longer constrained by that but so are your competitors.

Your developers weren't just a cost but also a barrier to entry.

[short_sells_poo]

So what will happen once most/all your staff is replaced with AI? Your clients will ask the fundamental question: what are we paying you for? You are missing the point that the parent comment raises: LLMs are not only replacing the need for your employees, they are replacing the need for you.

[ArthurStacks]

We don't produce software for clients. We provide solutions. That is what they pay us for. Until there is AGI (which could be 4 years away or 400) there is no LLM which can do that.

[namesbc]

[flagged]

[ArthurStacks]

We have a very successful company that has been running 30 years, with developers across 6 countries. We just make sure we hire developers who know that theyre here to do a job, on our terms, for which they will get paid, and its our way or the highway. If they dont like it, they dont have to stay. However, through doing this we have maintained a standard that our competitors fail at, partly because they spend their time tiptoeing around staff and their comforts and preferences.

[postexitus]

and you happened to have created an account in hackernews just 3 months ago after 30 years in business just to hunt AI-sceptics?

[ArthurStacks]

I dont hunt 'AI skeptics'. I just provide a viewpoint based on professional experience. Not one that is 'AI is bad at coding because everyone on Twitter says so"

[postexitus]

and you happened to have created an account in hackernews just 3 months ago after 30 years in business just to provide a viewpoint based on professional experience?

[ArthurStacks]

Yes, you're right I should have made an account 30 years ago, before this website existed, and gotten involved in all the discussions taking place about the use of ChatGPT and LLMs in the software development workplace

[barrkel]

Have you ever hired anyone for their expertise, so they tell you how to do things, and not the other way around? Or do you only hire people who aren't experts?

I don't doubt you have a functioning business, but I also wouldn't be surprised if you get overtaken some day.

[ArthurStacks]

Most of our engineers are hired because of their experience. They don't really tell us how to do things. We already know how to do it. We just want people who can do it. LLMs will hopefully remove this bottleneck.

[short_sells_poo]

Wow, you are really projecting the image a wonderful person to work for.

I don't doubt you are successful, but the mentality and value hierarchy you seem to express here is something I never want to have anything to do with.

[resize2996]

Your response to lower marginal cost of production is to decrease capital investment?

[nnnnnande]

[flagged]

[tomhow]

I replied to the follow-up comment about following the guidelines in order to avoid hellish flamewars, but you played a role here too with a snarky, sarcastic comment. Please be more careful in future and be sure to keep comments kind and thoughtful.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[ArthurStacks]

[flagged]

[tomhow]

This subthread turned into a flamewar and you helped to set it off here. We need commenters to read and follow the guidelines in order to avoid this. These guidelines are especially relevant:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Eschew flamebait

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[pmarreck]

What if I told you that a dev group with a sensibly-limited social-club flavor is where I arguably did my best and also had my happiest memories from? In the midst of SOME of the "socializing" (which, by the way, almost always STILL sticks to technical topics, even if they are merely adjacent to the task at hand) are brilliant ideas often born which sometimes end up contributing directly to bottom lines. Would you like evidence of social work cohesion leading to more productivity and happier employees? Because I can produce that. (I'd argue that remote work has negatively impacted this.)

But yes, I also once worked at a company (Factset) where the CTO had to put a stop to something that got out of hand- A very popular game at the time basically took over the mindshare of most of the devs for a time, and he caught them whiteboarding game strategies during work hours. (It was Starcraft 1 or 2, I forget. But both date me at this point.) So he put out a stern memo. Which did halt it. And yeah, he was right to do that.

Just do me this favor- If a dev comes to you with a wild idea that you think is too risky to spend a normal workday on, tell them they can use their weekend time to try it out. And if it ends up working, give them the equivalent days off (and maybe an extra, because it sucks to burn a weekend on work stuff, even if you care about the product or service). That way, the bet is hedged on both sides. And then maybe clap them on the back. And consider a little raise next review round. (If it doesn't work out, no extra days off, no harm no foul.)

I think your attitude is in line with your position (and likely your success). I get it. Slightly more warmth wouldn't hurt, though.

[ArthurStacks]

> What if I told you that a dev group with a sensibly-limited social-club flavor is where I arguably did my best and also had my happiest memories from?

Maybe you did, and as a developer I am sure it is more fun, easier, and enjoyable to work in those places. That isnt what we offer though. We offer something very simple. The opportunity for a developer to come in, work hard, probably not enjoy themselves, produce what we ask, to the standard we ask, and in return they get paid.

[panja]

This sounds like an awful place to work lol

[nnnnnande]

Oh, just like every other business then! That's a nice strategic differentiator.

Look, I'm sure focusing on inputs instead of outcomes (not even outputs) will work out great for you. Good luck!

[ArthurStacks]

Weve done this since 1995 and it works perfectly well.

[numpad0]

IMO this is completely "based". Delivering customer values and making money off of it is own thing, and software companies collectively being a social club and an place for R&D is another - technically a complete tangent to it. It doesn't always matter how sausages came to be on the served plate. It might be the Costco special that CEO got last week and dumped into the pot. It's none of your business to make sure that doesn't happen. The customer knows. It's consensual. Well maybe not. But none of your business. Literally.

The field of software engineering might be doomed if everyone worked like this user and replaced programmers with machines, or not, but those are sort of above his paygrade. AI destroying the symbiotic relationship between IT companies and its internal social clubs is a societal issue, more macro-scale issues than internal regulation mechanisms of free market economies are expected to solve.

I guess my point is, I don't know this guy or his company is real or not, but it passes my BS detector and I know for the fact that a real medium sized company CEOs are like this. This is technically what everyone should aspire to be. If you think that's morally wrong and completely utterly wrong, congratulations for your first job.

[nnnnnande]

Turning this into a moral discussion is besides the point, a point that both of you missed in your efforts to be based, although the moral discussion is also interesting—but I'll leave that be for now. It appears as if I stepped on ArthurStack's toes, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and reply.

My point actually has everything to do with making money. Making money is not a viable differentiator in and of itself. You need to put in work on your desired outcomes (or get lucky, or both) and the money might follow. My problem is that directives such as "software developers need to use tool x" is an _input_ with, at best, a questionable causal relationship to outcome y.

It's not about "social clubs for software developers", but about clueless execs. Now, it's quite possible that he's put in that work and that the outcomes are attributable to that specific input, but judging by his replies here I wouldn't wager on it. Also, as others have said, if that's the case, replicating their business model just got a whole lot easier.

> This is technically what everyone should aspire to be

No, there are other values besides maximizing utility.

[numpad0]

No, I think you're mistaking the host for the parasite - he's running a software and solutions company, which means, in a reductive sense, he is making money/scamming cash out of customers through means of software. The software is ultimately smoke and mirrors that can be anything so long it justify customer payments. Oh boy those software be additive to the world.

Everything between landing a contract and transferring deliverables, for someone like him, is already questionably related to revenues. There's everything in software engineering to tie developer paychecks to values created, and it's still as reliable as medical advice from LLM at best. Adding LLMs into it probably won't look so risky to him.

> No, there are other values besides maximizing utility.

True, but again, above his paygrade as a player in a free market capitalist economy which is mere part of a modern society, albeit not a tiny part.

----

OT and might be weird to say: I think a lot of businesses would appreciate vibe-coding going forward, relative to a team of competent engineers, solely because LLMs are more consistent(ly bad). Code quality doesn't matter but consistency do; McDonald's basically dominates Hamburger market with the worst burger ever that is also by far the most consistent. Nobody loves it, but it's what sells.

[ArthurStacks]

> My problem is that directives such as "software developers need to use tool x" is an _input_ with, at best, a questionable causal relationship to outcome y.

Total drivel. It is beyond question that the use of the tools increases the capabilities and output of every single developer in the company in whatever task they are working on, once they understand how to use them. That is why there is the directive.