zetta

@ZackKorman Only 2? I know someone who made a startup with 4 sales guys. They do AI "education". Like a rebranded efficiency specialist from the old days.

*Sees new cybersecurity startup, checks founders* … 2 sales people, 1 developer

@HackingDave Time flies.

My son is turning 18 tomorrow - senior - graduated. Going to college. What is going on.

@HackingLZ @UK_Daniel_Card Well school is out for summer now... Maybe we'll see some in June.

The bad guys with LLMs take the month off?

“No zero-days were report for the first time since 2024” 🤔👀

🔥

Only our trillionaires can decide the right way to use AI.

@sherrod_im @deedydas couldn't agree more.

@deedydas I cannot understand the society that prioritizes money over being cool. None of these people are cool or fun or interesting. Bankrupt in all but currency.

The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen. Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope AI estimation). Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there. Worse yet, layoffs are in full swing. Many software engineers feel like their life's skill is no longer useful. The day to day role of most jobs has changed overnight with AI. As a result, 1. The corporate ladder looks like the wrong building to climb. Everyone's trying to align with a new set of career "paths": should I be a founder? Is it too late to join Anthropic / OpenAI? should I get into AI? what company stock will 10x next? People are demanding higher salaries and switching jobs more and more. 2. There’s a deep malaise about work (and its future). Why even work at all for “peanuts”? Will my job even exist in a few years? Many feel helpless. You hear the “permanent underclass” conversation a lot, esp from young people. It's hard to focus on doing good work when you think "man, if I joined Anthropic 2yrs ago, I could retire" 3. The mid to late middle managers feel paralyzed. Many have families and don't feel like they have the energy or network to just "start a company". They don't particularly have any AI skills. They see the writing on the wall: middle management is being hollowed out in many companies. 4. The rich aren’t particularly happy either. No one is shedding tears for them (and rightfully so). But those who have "made it" experience a profound lack of purpose too. Some have gone from <$150k to >$50M in a few years with no ramp. It flips your life plans upside down. For some, comparison is the thief of joy. For some, they escape to NYC to "live life". For others still, they start companies "just cuz", often to win status points. They never imagined that by age 30, they'd be set. I once asked a post-economic founder friend why they didn't just sell the co and they said "and do what? right now, everyone wants to talk to me. if i sell, I will only have money." I understand that many reading this scoff at the champagne problems of the valley. Society is warped in this tech bubble. What is often well-off anywhere else in the world is bang average here. Unlike many other places, tenure, intelligence and hard work can be loosely correlated with outcomes in the Bay. Living through a societally transformative gold rush in that environment can be paralyzing. "Am I in the right place? Should I move? Is there time still left? Am I gonna make it?" It psychologically torments many who have moved here in search of "success". Ironically, a frequent side effect of this torment is to spin up the very products making everyone rich in hopes that you too can vibecode your path to economic enlightenment.

@HackingLZ US AI industry isn't even consistent on China. Jensen and gang say it's fine to sell them GPUs cause they say they aren't really a threat. I think they just refer to China when the banks are iffy on signing the loans to build data centers.

The chances of rallying Americans around this are slim after the last couple years of “all your jobs are screwed” I’m not saying people shouldn’t care but PR needs to be fixed in other areas first.

@ZackKorman @_winter_wonders We will for sure have that soon:tm:. It's just annoying watching in real-time how they use China as an excuse for AI acceleration and spend. But in the same breath say that China has no real way to make AI as well as the US AI labs.

@syskage @_winter_wonders Everyone has their way of grifting here. I just want the free opus-level model lol

Fuck off lol

@ZackKorman @_winter_wonders It's their excuse for why people need to spend more money on AI. Cause of the boogeyman. But if you look at Jensen he says we should be selling GPUs to the boogeyman cause only the US can make good AI. (it's all a grift)

@_winter_wonders What the fuck am I reading

@0xcharlie People thought decompilers and fuzzers would destroy the vulnerability scene too.

I agree AI won’t find all the bugs, but the correct conclusion (imho) is there will always be bugs and exploits and so nothing will change. This is the same argument when winxp2 came out and when aslr+DEP came out. Also, AI will be creating bugs and so there will be a new supply.

@BarrettJ @ImposeCost Maybe. I lived in one of the murder capitol of the US for most of my life. I can say with every advancement in LE tech the criminals also evolve and escalate.

@syskage @ImposeCost I would disagree - risk is severity X likelihood. The likelihood of an FBI raid is very low, because it requires a ton of moving parts. If the risk calculus suddenly included "MQ-9 says hi" with moderate likelihood, I would wager it pushes at least some folks out of the game.

There's enough money involved that if people would stop being soft, the right talent would go largely solve the ransomware problem.

@IceSolst @snyksec Do you love cybersecurity (OpenAI Daybreak:tm:)

I love cybersecurity (computers being silly) but I fucking hate cybersecurity (lamp shade on head, grifter bootcamps, 50 cold LinkedIn sales dms per day, soc2 auditors, DNSSEC, “omg Firefox rce, we are so cooked”, “omg Cisco hacked”, 99 billion feet peaks LEEKED, @snyksec)

@ImposeCost Your thoughts are short sighted. People doing this already understand the risks of being arrested or even killed in a FBI raid. It won't stop or persuade people from trying to do the crime.

@syskage I've been a long time advocate for using force against those involved in ransomware. Start with those who target hospitals and see how it goes. This isn't a new take from me, and it's not going to change.

@IAMERICAbooted What other jobs? Asking for a friend.

If I get laid off, which I dont want, I will say thank you for the experience and that I wish I could have proved my value better. Then, I'm going to get another job. It will hurt. But, I will move on. I've learned that some of the most painful experiences are blessings in disguise. I'm not immune to fucking up either.

@0xLupin Homebrew.

People are always talking about npm and pypi. Wait to see how insane are the other ecosystems too

@icanvardar People who use luddite as an insult don't understand what luddites were doing anyways.

how much longer is it gonna take for ai doomers to realize that ai genuinely accelerates everything for high agency people with adhd at this point they’re not even acting like luddites anymore they just completely misunderstand how useful these tools actually are

@bettersafetynet I think a lot of AI bros underestimate the wider and mostly negative effects AI will have on society.

??? I don't think anyone doubts that AIs are useful. The issue is who gets the reward? If we're feeding the engine, helping it grow, and it ultimately causes you to lose your job... I think any reasonable person might ask questions about what actual societal value AI brings.

@_winter_wonders Theo, not even once.

Can someone correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think this is worse than normal? Like this seems pretty normal to me vibes wise as someone whose worked in this industry for a few years Is this a case of just more coverage?

@ThePrimeagen It's because we are abstracting all the layers of learning away from us now. People say you need to understand the code and read it but we are probably the last bastion of this as new juniors will come on and not know anything. Everything will just be LLM.

One of the biggest anit-ai stances I have is that resilience is becoming a lost art. Learned helplessness on full display regularly