Hey, all. I really don't know what to do with a post like this.
I'm being sincere when I say (as I've said on two threads here) that this genre of posts --- "I'm leaving this company I've been very publicly associated with, and here's the new thing I'm doing" --- is deeply cursed. There's no way to say anything interesting without it just stinking like an ad for the new thing.
Obviously, anything at all you say about a commercial project you're working on is easily read as promotional. And you're right, this kind of writing almost always is promotional. But there's a way to do it where at least you're trying to be in conversation with your peers, rather than hitting people over the head with how awesome you think the project is.
But I don't know how to do that in a post like this. I think the only way to read it is as, like, an investor memo. Not my goal, but I don't make the rules.
So my strategy here is just to stay kind of vague, and talk about where I think the world is going, rather than the specific thing we're doing. I can talk your ears off about capability systems, datalog, models driving hardware, virtualization, whatever. Those are fun conversations and I'm very psyched to have them; it's what lights me up about the work we're doing now.
But I don't think it can work here. I didn't submit this post and I didn't upvote it. I wrote it because I didn't want the whole thing I'm leaving Fly.io for to be wrapped up in some dumb Twitter thread.
If you're unsatisfied with the post, I don't blame you, but it's less a bid for the front page of HN than it is an update to my "about me" page. I'd literally rather talk about HN meta, and how to write for HN, than I would about operating systems at this moment. I truly appreciate the interest though.
Circa 2005 I was thinking about "sessile robots" and how even smartphones of the time had enough sensors to know you were putting them in your bag and then riding on the bus and acting appropriately.
The model I see is that it is like a butler instead of a home computer, like you are driving into a strange town and looking for food and you are not going to open the McDonald's app but instead your agent does a search and through a conversational recommender you get sent somewhere. It might be sitting in your pocket the whole time and you are talking to it through something like AirPods. Maybe you put on smart glasses and it can show you things.
Apple can't give you the A.I.-native phone because it is too dependent on the app economy. For a few months I've been asking "Who is working on this?" and figured it was one of those cursed ideas that Silicon Valley would be unable to fund much like the pharmaceutical-industrial complex of Cambridge was unable to fund Facebook. I was expecting it to come out of some hungry Chinese manufacturer so I'm happy to see another horse in this race.
(e.g. I love the image that Meta has developed around Muse which makes it look like it is a "butler" when it is really much more like the old Kraftwerk song where "I program my home computer")
tptacek · · focus · HN ↗
I'm being sincere when I say (as I've said on two threads here) that this genre of posts --- "I'm leaving this company I've been very publicly associated with, and here's the new thing I'm doing" --- is deeply cursed. There's no way to say anything interesting without it just stinking like an ad for the new thing.
Obviously, anything at all you say about a commercial project you're working on is easily read as promotional. And you're right, this kind of writing almost always is promotional. But there's a way to do it where at least you're trying to be in conversation with your peers, rather than hitting people over the head with how awesome you think the project is.
But I don't know how to do that in a post like this. I think the only way to read it is as, like, an investor memo. Not my goal, but I don't make the rules.
So my strategy here is just to stay kind of vague, and talk about where I think the world is going, rather than the specific thing we're doing. I can talk your ears off about capability systems, datalog, models driving hardware, virtualization, whatever. Those are fun conversations and I'm very psyched to have them; it's what lights me up about the work we're doing now.
But I don't think it can work here. I didn't submit this post and I didn't upvote it. I wrote it because I didn't want the whole thing I'm leaving Fly.io for to be wrapped up in some dumb Twitter thread.
If you're unsatisfied with the post, I don't blame you, but it's less a bid for the front page of HN than it is an update to my "about me" page. I'd literally rather talk about HN meta, and how to write for HN, than I would about operating systems at this moment. I truly appreciate the interest though.
PaulHoule · · focus · HN ↗
The model I see is that it is like a butler instead of a home computer, like you are driving into a strange town and looking for food and you are not going to open the McDonald's app but instead your agent does a search and through a conversational recommender you get sent somewhere. It might be sitting in your pocket the whole time and you are talking to it through something like AirPods. Maybe you put on smart glasses and it can show you things.
Apple can't give you the A.I.-native phone because it is too dependent on the app economy. For a few months I've been asking "Who is working on this?" and figured it was one of those cursed ideas that Silicon Valley would be unable to fund much like the pharmaceutical-industrial complex of Cambridge was unable to fund Facebook. I was expecting it to come out of some hungry Chinese manufacturer so I'm happy to see another horse in this race.
(e.g. I love the image that Meta has developed around Muse which makes it look like it is a "butler" when it is really much more like the old Kraftwerk song where "I program my home computer")