I take the point, but I think the author picked a poor analogy. Cooking even an excellent steak is actually not that hard. In fact, I'd argue that it's among the easiest things to master/make at a top level quality at home. Does it require some modicum of attention and understanding? Sure. But starting with a high quality cut, owning a meat-thermometer, and knowing about reverse searing is about all it takes to reliably and easily get a near perfect steak every time.
There are far, far better cooking examples out there.
I'm more of a coffee nerd than a steak aficionado but I've often made the comparison between those two. In both cases, the enthusiast considers their skill in making coffee/cooking steak to be a differentiator and they immerse themselves deeply into the process, skills, and tools. But for both coffee beans and steak the most important factor for a good end product is starting with high quality inputs. In other words, most of the work is being done by the farmers, the processors, and the quality of the raw stock (the cow or the coffee plant). Your job at the very end of that long value adding chain is to not ruin the hard work that others have put into it.
I'm not sure if this analogy holds up in the AI software metaphor that the author of the blog post is making.
I strongly disagree with this on the steak part and maybe the coffee too. Many people pride themselves on buying expensive ingredients and thinking they have the best steak but it actually sucks.
To get good steak you don't need USDA Prime dry-aged steak. You just need USDA choice, picked for a bit of marbling, salted the day beforehand and dried out uncovered in the fridge, then a ripping hot heat source (grill or cast iron etc) to get a good sear on the outside (reverse or not) and a thermometer to hit medium rare on the inside.
Even a modest steak made this way tastes better than a prime steakhouse steak that was doused with salt right before cooking, where you're going to get hypertension immediately yet the meat tastes weirdly unflavorful.
To extend this analogy further, consider making BBQ brisket Texas style. Brisket is a cheap cut of tough, fatty meat. The input quality matters even less there, and it's all dependent on chef skill. Same thing with sourdough bread — 4 ingredients, all outcome depends on skill.
Source: we make an app that teaches people how to cook (www.parsnip.ai)
One way to phrase that would be to say that you have a vested interest in supporting the idea that end user skill is more important than ingredients since you sell a means of improving end user skill. Not sure if that's a source or a conflict of interest. I'm not saying cooking a steak is easy or hard, I'm saying that you are not creating quality when you cook a steak; the maximum attainable quality is capped by the ingredient. It's like the "I made this" meme.
You're arguing against a strawman on your other points since I didn't make a generalization about all cooking and wouldn't have listed sourdough or brisket in the analogy.
MostlyStable · · focus · HN ↗
There are far, far better cooking examples out there.
MerrimanInd · · focus · HN ↗
I'm not sure if this analogy holds up in the AI software metaphor that the author of the blog post is making.
mizzao · · focus · HN ↗
To get good steak you don't need USDA Prime dry-aged steak. You just need USDA choice, picked for a bit of marbling, salted the day beforehand and dried out uncovered in the fridge, then a ripping hot heat source (grill or cast iron etc) to get a good sear on the outside (reverse or not) and a thermometer to hit medium rare on the inside.
Even a modest steak made this way tastes better than a prime steakhouse steak that was doused with salt right before cooking, where you're going to get hypertension immediately yet the meat tastes weirdly unflavorful.
To extend this analogy further, consider making BBQ brisket Texas style. Brisket is a cheap cut of tough, fatty meat. The input quality matters even less there, and it's all dependent on chef skill. Same thing with sourdough bread — 4 ingredients, all outcome depends on skill.
Source: we make an app that teaches people how to cook (www.parsnip.ai)
MerrimanInd · · focus · HN ↗
You're arguing against a strawman on your other points since I didn't make a generalization about all cooking and wouldn't have listed sourdough or brisket in the analogy.