Hacker News: byoung2

New comment by byoung2 in "HN seems dead compared to say 10-15 years ago"

byoung2 — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:15:51 +0000

Yeah I remember the "X for Y" format being encouraged [1]. But X was always an example of a successful startup that was a leader in one category/audience, and you were saying you would be the X for a different category or audience.

PG's examples here were AirBnB as the "Ebay for space" or Viaweb as "the Microsoft Word of Ecommerce".

I'm not rewriting history when I say that the X has changed from a representative example of a successful company to a lazy broad technology like "AI agent for insurance" or "AI native recruiting". Here is a current YC batch startup: Manicule - AI Native Developer Relations. I have no Idea what that is. Does it talk to devs using my product like in a chatbot? Does it help them write code using AI? If they said "HubSpot for developer content" or "Vercel for developer relations" I would get it right away. But better than the X for Y formula would be just to describe the startup: we provide an AI-native developer relations team that owns documentation and technical content end-to-end so you don't have to hire someone for $300k.

  1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6866822

New comment by byoung2 in "Ask HN: Why won't you be replaced by AI?"

byoung2 — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:56:18 +0000

My exact wording was "fully automated". Yes actively replaced, but cashiers have not been fully automated. That would mean no more cashiers at any grocery store, convenience store, because all they have are self checkout machines. That has not happened except at Amazon Go, and they closed all those stores. So my claim is accurate.

New comment by byoung2 in "HN seems dead compared to say 10-15 years ago"

byoung2 — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:52:06 +0000

Correct $Foo for $Bar was common back then but I made the subtle distinction between "TikTok for Math Tutors" ([solution] for [audience served]) where naming a startup in a different vertical is a shortcut for the solution, and what we see now which is "AI agents for Banking" ([technology] for [industry]) where naming the technology doesn't make it clear what the problem or solution is, and the industry doesn't necessarily say who has the problem or needs the solution.

New comment by byoung2 in "Ask HN: Why won't you be replaced by AI?"

byoung2 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:18:04 +0000

When I worked at Disney, there were some jobs where people's entire jobs were compiling reports and following up with various departments. Like taking lists of security vulnerabilities from scans and getting commitment dates to fix them. They would take the data out of one system and put it in a spreadsheet. Then they would reach out and create Jira tickets for the teams responsible and then schedule meetings if necessary to discuss. These roles are definitely at risk.

New comment by byoung2 in "HN seems dead compared to say 10-15 years ago"

byoung2 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:13:17 +0000

Exactly, and the formula in the past was less "[hot new tech] for [some industry]" back in the day, and more "[problem solved] for [target audience]". Maybe it is just the wording that I object to, and not the substance of the startup's solution to the problem?

I guess I don't care about today's "AI agent for the agricultural industry" as much as I cared about yesterday's "Tool to help farmers plan crop rotation".

New comment by byoung2 in "Ask HN: Why won't you be replaced by AI?"

byoung2 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:59:39 +0000

Stepping back from LLMs, look at other jobs that could have been fully automated using technology, but haven't. Some jobs, like a grocery cashier could be automated with self check, or waiters could be replaced with phone ordering. We still have humans in these roles, decades after they could have been replaced.

New comment by byoung2 in "HN seems dead compared to say 10-15 years ago"

byoung2 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:31:07 +0000

I agree about the bias to believe the past was better than it actually was. I think it's called rosy retrospection, like when people are nostalgic for their high school days even though they were bullied and had no friends. Maybe HN isn't getting worse, it's just that the negative parts are more recent and noticeable.

New comment by byoung2 in "HN seems dead compared to say 10-15 years ago"

byoung2 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:03:12 +0000

The recent batches all use the following formulas which I don't find particularly interesting:

  AI native ______ for _______
  ______ for AI agents
  AI _______ for _______

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?batch=Winter%202027&ba...

New comment by byoung2 in "HN seems dead compared to say 10-15 years ago"

byoung2 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:59:33 +0000

I agree there. Back in 2009 I used to be excited by each new YC batch. There were fresh new ideas like Dropbox, AirBnB, Instacart. I feel like there were cool stories around those startups, like Drew losing a thumbdrive and coming up with the idea for DropBox, or the AirBnB marketing hack with the cereal, or Instacart's founder having beer delivered during the YC interview. I can't think of any recent YC startups that I've cared about. Maybe it just became saturated or maybe I just moved on to other things. I will say this, that the ideas I had 15 years ago needed a startup and investment. Now I'm able to build a lot of those ideas using the cloud and AI. It seems inevitable that some solo founder will soon be able to build a unicorn with no investment and no employees.

New comment by byoung2 in "Ask HN: Why hasn't there been a real competitor to Ticketmaster yet?"

byoung2 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:36:59 +0000

They merged with LiveNation and they own half of the venues. The other half of the venues have exclusive deals with TicketMaster, who provides them with software to run venue logistics (TicketMaster for business), creating vendor lock-in.

New comment by byoung2 in "Ask HN: Is Apple taking AI seriously?"

byoung2 — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 05:15:59 +0000

Apple has to take privacy more seriously than their competitors since they've marketed it as a competitive advantage. So they've focused more on in-device AI features than cloud-based models.

New comment by byoung2 in "Ask HN: Are we observing the death of social networks?"

byoung2 — Thu, 07 May 2026 22:00:14 +0000

I would argue that social networks died a decade or more ago, and were replaced by social media. When I joined Facebook in 2006 a big part of it was finding and connecting with friends from school. It was cool to see their vacation photos or kids' graduation pics. But now it seems that friends have been replaced with followers, and instead of peer to peer connections of a social network, we have one to many broadcast of social media.

New comment by byoung2 in "Don't prepone it – do the needful. 10 Indianisms we should all be using"

byoung2 — Mon, 04 May 2026 19:00:48 +0000

Kindly revert is my favorite

New comment by byoung2 in "Built $5M. Got 1%. Got let go"

byoung2 — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 11:18:57 +0000

A founder came to you with just an idea and you went on to build it? You should have been a cofounder from the beginning.

New comment by byoung2 in "LegionGo gamepad as a Claude Code controller (Konami code activates voice mode)"

byoung2 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 22:21:55 +0000

Is that repo public? I see a 404

New comment by byoung2 in "Ask HN: Does everyone here hate ads?"

byoung2 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 18:56:18 +0000

Two things can be true at the same time: people hate ads, and that they are effective. But more likely the reality is more nuanced. I think that there are a minority of people that hate ads and they are very vocal about it. A majority of people are likely indifferent, and passively consume the ads and then buy the products.

New comment by byoung2 in "Non-Profit Dating App"

byoung2 — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 15:55:02 +0000

Finding a needle in a haystack? The easiest way to do that is to use a magnet. The magnet relies on attraction that the eyes cannot see. So maybe the best dating app for long term matches would have the pics blurred out until you connected on some other level

New comment by byoung2 in "Ask HN: Do multiple short stints in startups hurt even if you've learned a lot?"

byoung2 — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 22:53:14 +0000

As long as you have a reasonable explanation, it shouldn't matter. I have a lot of 1 year stints, but I can explain them:

I was at TrueCar when the pandemic started. Suddenly everyone was working from home and new car production was halted. With fewer people in the market for new and used cars, TrueCar laid off 30% of the company. I survived but left before the next wave of layoffs because we were in lights-on mode, not building anything new. (1 year at TrueCar)

I went to Cameo next, and saw the company become a pandemic darling and a unicorn during my tenure. I helped build new features such as video messaging and subscription fan clubs, but as industries started to reopen, actors, performing artists, and athletes went back to work, along with the general public returning to the office, both sides of the celebrity shout out market began to tank. A left days before the layoff announcement. (1 year at Cameo)

New comment by byoung2 in "Non-Profit Dating App"

byoung2 — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 22:23:58 +0000

Non-profit is not the same as not monetized. Somehow you will have to pay for the infrastructure running the app. If it's ads, you likely wouldn't have a large enough audience to get enough impressions. If it's subscriptions, how is that any different from other paid dating apps? I'm actually working on a dating app at the moment and it is currently not monetized:

  iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nectar-dating-by-jubilee/id6476018063
  Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jubilee.nectarmobile

New comment by byoung2 in "Ask HN: What's your favorite number, and why?"

byoung2 — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 20:48:46 +0000

3...an odd choice, I know