When you consider the cross section of the tech community posting on HN, is it really that surprising?

It’s mad for sure, but I’d bet 99.9% of people spending money on AI aren’t spending their own hard earned sooo… “YOLO it’s a business expense/investment”…

I had a similar opinion a couple of years ago, content with more of an autocomplete.

Now I'm happy with agents as the models and harnesses have improved significantly but the token usage comes at a cost.

some are spending 100/day or even 1000/day. they must really be mad :)

Drunk on perceived power

Your ignorance is our opportunity :)

To get the equivalent of a junior developer that would cost $80,000/yr + benefits?

$200 for Claude, $50 to Open AI, and maybe $100 for Openrouter, and a second Claude account paid by a client... Likely to increase.

It easily pays for itself 10x over.

Hearing my "before I die" math and code ambitions, a psychiatrist friend tried to convince me to hire a full-time programming assistant. Then came AI.

Money is relative. I retired at less than the average professor salary (all ages) at a not-rich school. I would have made more in tech. I still have weeks where the market goes up 8000x my AI budget. Anyone who isn't living in a van and eating peanut butter if they must, to save the max toward retirement, isn't recognizing how profoundly our system is rigged to favor saving.