[scrubs]

I was briefly employed by a robotics company in the US ... robotics is too nice: glorified if/then/else is better.

The owner was the son of an old school magnate out of PA.

Among other things his line has always stuck with me: "A whale that surfaces is soon harpooned."

The company never made money. I think the whole thing was run as a loss on purpose for tax purposes. I became tired of the head manager/engineer combo (big fish in this tiny, tiny world) and left.

Even they knew this company was never really trying to do anything serious. Strange indeed

[cobbzilla]

> The owner was the son of an old school magnate out of PA.

If you have a lot of money it’s fun to LARP the startup life. The experience working for such a company is highly varied and completely depends on the personality of the founder. But even if it’s a healthy place, it’s usually a black hole from a career development POV.

[jamesfinlayson]

I know someone who is an accountant for very wealthy people and quite a few seem to have useless children whose failing businesses they bankroll.

[cobbzilla]

fwiw, you’ve perfectly described the feeling of working for a “tax write-off” and how to recognize those vibes.

It could’ve been worse, it could’ve been a fraud! But it’s merely a business designed to lose money. It won’t land you in jail but it’s not a place anyone would advance a career.

[itwaswatson]

> robotics is too nice: glorified if/then/else is better.

I have been on the other side of this, building a frontend that connected to an external service robot that we, with a 5 minute script, managed to successfully prove internally was just a if/then/else state machine.

We got paid to make it, so we didn't care, but we knew someone was losing money.

[Mistletoe]

I can't wait for these AI companies to IPO and be harpooned.