Hacker News: tdullien

AI: An Age of Experimentation [pdf]

tdullien — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 05:03:13 +0000

Article URL: https://thomasdullien.github.io/about/slides/An-age-of-experimentation-BlueHat-Asia-2026.pdf

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49736608

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by tdullien in "Experimental Evaluation Methodology for the Era of No Steady Performance [pdf]"

tdullien — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 21:25:47 +0000

Oh my. It gives me headaches to think about what "no steady state" means for the statistics of benchmarking and perf optimization.

New comment by tdullien in "Three important steps in my maturation process"

tdullien — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 17:35:32 +0000

Author here. To clarify: when I talk about dichotomy in this context, I refer to the idea that these two systems are in opposition, and that ignoring one system (and set of data) is somehow enlightened.

There's no point in denying that both emotions and rational thought exist, and that different regions in the brain are responsible for them. I do advocate pretty explicitly that all information sources should be considered when making decisions, including emotions - as a lot of them carry actual important non-verbalized information.

Point 3 was heavily influenced by reading the book "Descartes Error", fwiw, and I recommend that book to pretty much everybody.

RL economics, morally charged terms, and "distillation"

tdullien — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 22:29:23 +0000

Article URL: https://thomasdullien.github.io/posts/2026-06-15-rl-economics-morally-charged-terms-and-distillation/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49394501

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Three important steps in my maturation process

tdullien — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 22:29:00 +0000

Article URL: https://thomasdullien.github.io/posts/2026-08-21-three-important-steps-in-my-maturation-process/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49394496

Points: 227

# Comments: 124

New comment by tdullien in "Kelly Criterion Simulator"

tdullien — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:51:07 +0000

Optimal bet size is 2x the coin bias. Dérivation here: https://www.edwardothorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/TheK...

New comment by tdullien in "Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship"

tdullien — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 05:29:04 +0000

I should add something about this, but if a market looks like a drunken bar fight, I'd probably not want to go there.

That said: A good market will become crowded quickly in either way.

New comment by tdullien in "Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship"

tdullien — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 05:24:37 +0000

Good point, will add that. Thanks!

New comment by tdullien in "Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship"

tdullien — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 14:49:39 +0000

Yeah.

Also - I use the term "coach" broadly here. Many people react very poorly to the term "therapist", and "coach" is a much broader term encompassing both therapy or just people that have significant experience in a field. Or just an older relative or acquaintance that is willing to provide regular advice/feedback.

There's definitely charlatanism, particularly when people advertise themselves as "business coach" or "startup coach".

New comment by tdullien in "Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship"

tdullien — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 14:38:11 +0000

I don't think you need 8 years to build a product people like, Prodfiler got good resonance and we built it in ~18 months, it would probably take 4 months now...

New comment by tdullien in "Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship"

tdullien — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 14:36:42 +0000

Yes. Usually, the VCs will want you to not take an extravagant salary, but a solid family with which you can keep your family comfortable. And that's normally the right bar.

And if there are liquidity pressures a few years into the process, and you have traction at Series B or C - don't hesitate to think about a small secondary.

New comment by tdullien in "Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship"

tdullien — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 14:35:12 +0000

You don't have a product until there's ~3 customers, with perspective to more. Before that you're essentially a consultant. I'll add that to the next version of the doc, too.

The point is: For anything you build, you can find 1 customer. It's only when there's multiple customers that like the product and want to improve it where you move from "consulting" or "custom development" to "product".

New comment by tdullien in "Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship"

tdullien — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 13:34:48 +0000

I will add a section. Pay yourself a salary at the very latest the moment you've raised funding. If a VC objects to you doing that, get a different VC. You're in for the long run, and support from your family etc. is important, and you're already taking on a huge risk by pooling all your risk in one company, vs. the VC who is happily diversified.

Investors who imply you shouldn't take a salary are no bueno.

New comment by tdullien in "Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship"

tdullien — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 13:26:17 +0000

Definitely - but those are normally called "development partners" in B2B, right?

New comment by tdullien in "Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship"

tdullien — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 13:25:38 +0000

Good question. I think I did it to indicate that we sold to public companies.

New comment by tdullien in "Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship"

tdullien — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 13:24:37 +0000

Author here. I'd be curious what went wrong in your case? (Also, happy to soften that advice further if there's strong evidence that people find the advice detrimental).

Halvar's Guide to Entrepreneurship

tdullien — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 11:00:47 +0000

Article URL: https://thomasdullien.github.io/guides/entrepreneurship/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48643137

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by tdullien in "Utilyze measures how efficiently your GPU is doing useful work"

tdullien — Sun, 03 May 2026 15:01:40 +0000

The readme says that unless you're using vLLM you're largely out of luck with it?

New comment by tdullien in "Safer vibecoding via old hacker habits"

tdullien — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 11:58:49 +0000

That's a clever and intriguing idea. I have to think through the security implications a bit though - I don't actually know much about how git operates with regards to hooks etc.

I'd imagine you lose the ability to have the coding agent do the commits for you? E.g. if you just mount the code directory, then an agent running on the remote side can't commit anything, right?

So you'd have to mount the .git directory from the remote side to then push?

Safer vibecoding via old hacker habits

tdullien — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:03:08 +0000

Article URL: http://addxorrol.blogspot.com/2026/03/slightly-safer-vibecoding-by-adopting.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47513092

Points: 1

# Comments: 3