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$200 / mo is leaving a lot of money on the table.

there are many who wouldn't bat an eye at $1k / month that guarantees most powerful AI (even if it's just 0.01% better than competition), and no limits on anything.

y'all are greatly underestimating the value of that feeling of (best + limitlessness). high performers make decisions very differently than the average HN user.


at 1k/mo I suspect people would get quite upset if the product doesn’t deliver all the time. and for something as vague as an LLM, it will fuck up enough at some point.

$200/mo is enough to make decision makers feel powerful and remain a little bit lenient on widdle 'ol ChatGPT


> So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too.

I'd disagree with "half" here because I can't imagine it being anywhere close to 50/50. I expect a power law distribution: most won't be able to write well. The ones who do will have a massive advantage, in the same way that those who can concentrate in our age of distractions have a significant advantage over those who can't.


Look at the situation now: I don't think 25% of the population can write a single paragraph on some non-banter non-gossip topic that does not appear as if it were written by a 4th grader. Look at the business communications actual people write, it's jargon and very simple directives like "did x happen?" Look at the logical flow of the sentences in technical white papers and wish the authors had more basic writing, basic communications practice, because their sentences do not flow.

We're already in a poverty of quality communicators. All that nonsense with Bitcoin was fast talking nonsense that sounded plausible. This is what happens when real communications breaks down: fraudulent technical products surrounded by a word salad of abused language and people afraid of looking stupid so they never ask for clarifications of the gobbledygook.


Congrats!! This is super neat. I've been looking for good ways to have AI browse the internet on my behalf - the way I normally do, and give me a presentation / summary of the highlights, so that I don't have to open myself up as much to social media and the chance for doomscrolling, etc.

I'm going to be playing with this.


Agreed.

It's the crazy ones that push humanity forward. We lose far more than we can imagine by not enabling even just one of them. This is one of the most important problems for us to fix.


We shouldn't need crazy people to push the boundary. Rather, the crazier you are, the more likely you will flame out.

People who are "weird" and yet are entirely functional are the best of both world and a much rarer combination.


Neat! I'd love to play with this, but site doesn't open (403: Forbidden).


Might be a Cloudflare flag. Can you email me your IP address and we'll look into it? emma@usevelvet.com.


> This type of attitude sometimes makes the world a worse place. If everyone has this attitude, the system can break down

Or: bad actors speed up the rate at which the system improves to not rely on the goodness of individuals in order to operate.


Or: systems that tolerate bad actors contribute to a society that tolerates bad actors, and therefore increases the number of bad actors.


Too many people fall into the trap of over consuming knowledge.

The only knowledge that matters at the end of the day is experiential: the kind that is learned by doing.

The kid who ships a product to a dozen users, learns and iterates with determination and focus, will have learned far more than the intellectual reading and waiting for the right opportunity to strike.

Of course there is value in intellectual knowledge, but most are far from the optimal balance - too skewed towards the intellectual vs. engaging with, and learning from, reality.


Books are an efficient way to transfer the experiential experience others have already gained over into your own reality.

I agree that direct experience is more powerful, but with zero reading, you don't know what you don't know. People can over-read, and I've seen inexperienced management teams pass books around like candy instead of leading and doing, but there is a healthy balance where you read some, do more, and grow.


Agreed. My point was that most of us are far from the optimal - in the direction of overconsumption vs. actually doing.

Ofc this is difficult to show with clear evidence. It's my intuition based on observing myself and conversations with other builders.


If you've read the right books, you will be motivated. I started a startup after binging through Paul Graham's essays and The Startup Owner's Manual; it made the whole idea of a startup seem like an easy step-by-step process. Some people do the same after reading CTCI and applying for FAANG.

I'd argue too many read the simple books. You have to slog through the tough content, actually apply the content to your work, and find a book that fixes the next problem you hit.

Action is the spark that ignites the fire, but knowledge is the fuel. I've worked almost 10 years in startups and I wish the people who ran them read books other than Rich Dad Poor Dad.


Teams like Cursor remind me of the importance of excellent execution.

To many, a product like this was almost obvious, esp after Github Copilot gave us a glimpse of what an AI powered coding experience could feel like. And there have been many attempts to do this right. But this team got the hundreds, if not thousands, of product / engineering micro decisions right, and seem to move quite fast.

Well deserved. Congrats, and all the best!


This is so creative and super useful!


"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.” - Einstein


The problem is though, that with half the data, your mind considers glueing another base to the seasaw, to balance things out and restore symmetry and intuitive beauty.


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