Hacker News: etempleton

New comment by etempleton in "I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit"

etempleton — Thu, 28 May 2026 00:37:02 +0000

Because the most important thing for any pure play AI company right now is to prove they are a viable company. And sure they have proved they can make billions, but also that they can lose billions more. They are going to need even more money and to prove to the next round of investors at an even higher valuation that they are a viable business they need to show not that they can generate revenue, but that they can one day turn a healthy profit. And that is the trillion dollar question.

New comment by etempleton in "Is "colorectal cancer" rising in "young people"?"

etempleton — Tue, 26 May 2026 17:57:49 +0000

It is one of the most common procedures and is generally very safe. Even a botched procedure probably just means some temp discomfort after the procedure. Much better than the alternative.

New comment by etempleton in "Ferrari Luce"

etempleton — Tue, 26 May 2026 17:51:53 +0000

I agree. It is quite nice. Just way too expensive. If this was a $100,000 Apple car people would be lining up to buy one.

New comment by etempleton in "Ferrari Luce"

etempleton — Tue, 26 May 2026 02:35:28 +0000

I didn’t realize it was an Ive creation. The asthetics make more sense now. It just doesn’t really make sense as a Ferrari. Ferrari makes super cars and this is kind a a run of the mill ev under the hood.

The interior is very nice. The rest of Ferrari can hopefully borrow from this.

New comment by etempleton in "Ferrari Luce"

etempleton — Tue, 26 May 2026 02:27:25 +0000

This is a very strange car for Ferrari to make. What people expected is a Rimac and instead they get a fancy electric Prius.

Maybe it is really a functional prototype, but Ferrari as a company does strange things. They live off of their name brand, but they make buying and owning their cars a pain and frankly I don’t think they are very high quality compared to what other car makers in their price point are doing.

New comment by etempleton in "Dad Books Are a Dying Breed"

etempleton — Mon, 25 May 2026 12:20:08 +0000

The book industry, despite its size, really doesn’t have large budgets on a per book basis. They release so many books and almost all of them lose money. Maybe 20 percent of published books break even and most of those just barely so.

New comment by etempleton in "'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused"

etempleton — Sun, 24 May 2026 19:16:00 +0000

My favorite was block chain. A company I used to work for that was not a tech company, suddenly going on about the block chain. I saw former, non technical colleagues that were still there write long authoritative LinkedIn posts about the advantages of the block chain and it was incredibly cringey because I am not sure what they thought the block chain was, but I am confident they didn’t understand it at all.

New comment by etempleton in "'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused"

etempleton — Sun, 24 May 2026 19:11:47 +0000

I have seen both. I have heard some talking on live television about how it is a bubble, but it isn’t popping yet, so keep investing. Everyone seems to just be trying to get theirs while the party is still happening.

New comment by etempleton in "'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused"

etempleton — Sun, 24 May 2026 19:00:39 +0000

You have to realize rich people can be stupid too.

New comment by etempleton in "'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused"

etempleton — Sun, 24 May 2026 18:55:06 +0000

VCs, PE and investors in general. Not all, but enough. Watch CNBC or Yahoo News for even 10 minutes—the sheer stupidity and mania around AI right now is frankly terrifying.

New comment by etempleton in "Elon Musk will be king at SpaceX"

etempleton — Sun, 24 May 2026 15:38:37 +0000

SpaceX won’t really be a public company in the traditional sense. Class A shareholders will have no real ownership of the company. If he wants to hard pivot to selling hamster balls no one can do anything about it.

The fact that the Nasdaq is expediting SpaceX and open AI inclusion just adds gasoline to the fire that is the bubble.

New comment by etempleton in "Is AI Profitable Yet?"

etempleton — Sat, 23 May 2026 03:54:06 +0000

All of those companies will be fine, but they are currently valued on the stock market for future earnings. Investors anticipate them making a lot more money in the future. So stocks will slide dramatically. Open AI and Anthropic might not survive. And suddenly you see a 20-50% pull back on stocks. That impacts retirement and pension funds. It may trigger a panic and sell off across sectors.

New comment by etempleton in "Is AI Profitable Yet?"

etempleton — Sat, 23 May 2026 03:50:17 +0000

The difference is the sheer scale of the spend. I bet that SaaS company hasn’t spent the annual GDP of a small nation. If Chat GPT can’t pay the bills it is going to ripple through the economy likely causing at minimum a large correction. If the SAAS company goes under hardly anyone noticed.

New comment by etempleton in "Why Japanese companies do so many different things"

etempleton — Fri, 22 May 2026 16:13:10 +0000

There is zero appetite for things that make a little bit of money, but in big tech there is limitless appetite for things that lose money but might make a lot of money one day.

If it ends up AI only makes a little profit annually in the longer term the whole thing collapses on itself.

New comment by etempleton in "Why Japanese companies do so many different things"

etempleton — Fri, 22 May 2026 16:04:15 +0000

My experience in American organizations is that products and services need to not just make money, but make a lot of money. There is zero appetite for things that make a little bit of money relative to the cash cows of the company. You could say this is in part focus, but it is also based on internal accounting. Small product lines are saddled with total company overhead costs even if they do not apply to said product or service. Not good or bad, but it can lead to strange situations where you have a successful product that everyone complains doesn’t make any money.

New comment by etempleton in "Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence"

etempleton — Fri, 22 May 2026 12:08:20 +0000

I have noticed a certain personality gloms onto AI and unlike other technologies, it is so easy old people and the technologically illiterate can do it! In fact, old people and morons seem to love it. And it gets annoying really fast. The same people who were web 3, crypto, block chain, nft bros are the biggest supporters of AI. Utility or not when scammy people act the same way as they did for all the other tech trends it is a massive turnoff. I am tired of seeing AI writing and AI images, and instead of people talking about how we are going to use AI to make people’s lives better the only thing people can talk about is how much money some tech bros are going to make and how everyone else is going to lose their jobs because we won’t need them anymore. And your idiot friend from HS has an awesome business idea, which amounts to AI art on a t shirt or AI youtube videos and just needs you to be in on it with them to actually do the work like they are selling Amway.

I think the problem AI has is after the novelty wears off, and if you are not using it for code specifically, it is mostly just a fancy search engine that the dumbest person you know uses to validate their idiocy.

So, yeah, I can see why the kids are over it.

New comment by etempleton in "Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods"

etempleton — Thu, 21 May 2026 17:49:06 +0000

This is really my bear case against AI. I am not against it. I actually think it is really neat! But we have been working on driverless cars for how long and spent how much? And still things like a flooded roadway completely throw them.

Tesla failed to deliver driverless cars but now is pivoting to the much more complex fully autonomous robots. And we can’t get AI to stop hallucinating facts, but any day we are going to be at AGI in a few years? I get people want these things to happen, but I just don’t see it happening any time soon. The whole tech industry feels built on what maybe, someday, possibly, could happen but most likely won’t, but we are all going to act like is a sure thing and is just around the corner.

Are there no responsible adults left at these tech companies?

New comment by etempleton in "SpaceX S-1"

etempleton — Thu, 21 May 2026 04:04:28 +0000

I think if SpaceX were to drop dramatically it may spook the market and lead to a lot of the NASDAQ 100 pulling back.

New comment by etempleton in "SpaceX S-1"

etempleton — Thu, 21 May 2026 01:19:19 +0000

Anthropic is not profitable and does not expect to be revenue even until 2028. They are just losing less billions per year than everyone else.

New comment by etempleton in "SpaceX S-1"

etempleton — Thu, 21 May 2026 01:16:55 +0000

The deal with Anthropic gives me more pause about the whole market. More circular spending. They are all propping each other up making it look like they have more revenue than they really have. I think Open AIs S-1 will be just as crazy. I don't think there is any rationality or plan to all of this. AI doesn't pay for itself. It won't for a very long time.