I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit

Re:I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit by peteforde on Wednesday May 27, 2026 @07:41PM (#48302308)

> It won't be a total wreck.

Honestly, I think it's very short-sighted to assume that all of this will be seen as any kind of wreck in the long term.

Normies are still catching up and reacting to chat-based LLMs.

HN types are further ahead of the curve, but still catching up and reacting to agentic coding and design workflows.

What often gets completely ignored is that entirely new modalities for how the underlying tech can be applied will continue to be demonstrated, and those will once again cause new ripples of excitement and disgust.

There are companies building world models and systems for protein discovery. Comparatively speaking, these approaches are barely in the zeitgeist today.

Deciding that we already have the data points we need to extrapolate how all of this plays out is like someone in 1974 deciding that microprocessors are just for accounting and inventory. Don't be that someone.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit by HerbManic on Wednesday May 27, 2026 @10:15PM (#48303555)

I think the big issue isn't so much a technology thing, I mean that will improve for a long while yet, but it is an economic one. My whole concern over the rapid expansion of LLM's is the massive build out on a technology that hasn't found its feet in a big enough range of markets yet that are willing to pay top dollar. Yes, world models for protein discover is very cool stuff and I kind of hate it gets lumped in with these other companies efforts because it has a very clear path forward that doesn't rely on massive IPO's just to keep the lights on.

This stuff is here to stay but I'm not sure how many of the current front runners will be able to stay solvent if they cannot turn these things in to massive money spinners. Revenue is fine-ish but spending is out of control. I see the debt in hundred of billions of dollars and start to wonder "Who is going to pay for this?" and "Will the people be willing to pay that much?". It just all feels forced rather than organic growth.

This is why I think Google may end up being one of the leaders in this field. They have their custom TPU's that seem to be fairly efficient at these tasks, they are slowly but surely improving their training and inference tech using their massive data set and most importantly, other parts of the business can subsidize this stuff for a decade if needed until it is genuinely profitable.

I am not against the industry but I do worry that many are rushing in with no means of genuine sustainability other than jump out for a golden parachute and let someone else clean up the mess.

I do hope I am wrong.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit by peteforde on Wednesday May 27, 2026 @10:39PM (#48303722)

I think that is a reasoned and well-articulated reaction, thanks.

No question that there are some players who need a good weekend in Vegas to make it across the chasm of sorrow.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit by HerbManic on Thursday May 28, 2026 @03:30AM (#48305807)

I mean optimistically I hope there is a big reduction of hardware requirements in future. One of those technological jumps that nobody sees in advance but looks obvious in hindsight. If the need to the amount of compute goes down enough,that is a brilliant path through.

It could happen, I hope it does.

[ Parent | on HN ]