Thread

1. johnfn · 1789843452 · focus · HN ↗

   It’s a tale as old as time — people don’t understand that marketing and branding are just as important, if not more so, than the product. Jev is exceptionally-well branded. Anyone can look at the webpage and understand it, and the implications, instantly.

   OPs “marketing” is a single post on Reddit titled “ Predicting sales conversion probability from conversations using pure Reinforcement Learning”. Can you understand what that means? I can’t, and I consider myself reasonably technical. Is it obvious it has the same implications as Jev? Again, no idea. And it was just a single post on a subreddit that I don’t even browse! I see people on this thread saying “Jev is just BERT”. Sure, and Dropbox is just a ftp account mounted with curlftpfs!

   I do feel bad for the author for finding something cool and being unable to brand it. But the full definition of “product” INCLUDES being able to coherently communicate it. In some sense the branding is just as much the “breakthrough” as the model.

   1. rvz · 1789845102 · focus · HN ↗

      This 100%. Engineers really lack understanding in marketing and branding.

      No one cares if you are "first". They only care if your product is known by as many people as possible and is better than all the other alternatives at solving a problem that is worth paying for.

      If you don't market, then no-one will care that you exist even if you solved a problem decades ago. Someone else will use your solution and take inspiration (and credit) off of your discovery because you didn't bother to tell anyone about it.

      This is exactly what happened here.

      1. verdverm · 1789846722 · focus · HN ↗

         another way to look at it, a product is the whole experience (landing, docs, sales, support, code, branding), not the implementation of an algorithm or process
      2. wavewrangler · 1789849262 · focus · HN ↗

         Sorry, but he did tell people about it, no? He showed his receipts. Reddit, arXiv- What I am seeing here is "it's just better marketing". When it comes to prior art, is better marketing sufficient? On one side we can say it's better marketing, but on another side, the side that should actually matter, coming from the direction of him being first, can't we say, it is just better research? Being that he was first and all, and Jev hasn't even published anything according other than what I read. What I am really trying to ask is, is marketing even relevant at this point? So if you have good marketing, you can just steal someone else's work, intentional or not?

         1. malux85 · 1789850613 · focus · HN ↗

            Steal is a loaded word here, and I argue that you cannot unintentionally steal someone's work. Stealing is deliberate, malicious theft. Its an action taken with consciousness of guilt. Other derivations exist but then its not stealing and therefore isnt that word.

            But that is NOT the point AT ALL. The point is, the same point that comes up on hacker news 1000 times a year - ideas alone are near worthless and execution matters.

            Execution includes marketing that gets you enough attention. Because theres 10,000 other similar ideas of varying quality and marketing that others will point go saying "I wAS tHErE fiRsT"

            All of this stems from the human bias of both (a) wishful thinking and (b)thinking people value what what we produce. These are natural human biases and are often dangerously wrong.

            Programmers always think its just the idea and a prototype that is valuable, because they can produce and idea and a prototype (people what what I have) which causes them to massively overvalue ideas and the importance of "who was first" and all of that because they are sanctifying the small thing they produce.

            It doesnt have to be malicious - the plain truth is theres 10,000 other ideas that are close enough that could be considered stealing even if they were truly independently developed, ideas are virtually worthless, get rid of your human biases that are clouding your judgment and focus on what matters if your idea is truly great : execution

            1. wavewrangler · 1789857570 · focus · HN ↗

               [dead]

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.