been writing code for 15 years now , agree with the author about this one , open-claw like agents are going to be the future. Already automated away a bunch of routine stuff like checkin FB marketplace if l’m looking to but something , daily stock position brief , calendar management , grocery planning and buying , workout and calorie tracking . Stopped using a bunch of app directly overnight . The “mid-wits” are the one with their head still stuck under that sand
and the "hype-wits" don't realize openclaw is just claude with good mcp. there is nothing new under the sun. its just the first time someone was benevolent enough to open source the codebase to the public or it went viral enough to matter... and yet what people focus on is its "emergence" or "agi" - neither of which are remotely true. but good luck "crushing" those "mid-wits"
Yes claude + scripts without any big corp restrictions / bloat , if i want to connect to a website or api i can just do it. If you expose it to me as a human it is fair game for my assistant to read data the same way i do. Its like the old days of internet . I build harnesses for a living these days , i see why enterprises are slow to even to see what is possible
why would anyone work in startups as early devs anymore. Tell me what is the upside? There seems to be only downsides.
Startup Fails , you loose - Gets acquired - you loose
What is the motivation to perform .
If you want to write new code and have a lot of influence over the overall implementation instead of fixing bugs on a years old steaming pile of tech debt.
Not all places with large existing codebases are that bad, but if you are experienced, it can be very personally satisfying doing something well before it has degraded over time.
I have worked in quite a few. One is a household name down here in Australia. I was the first engineer with the two founders. I worked 2 years 24/7 for half the salary I got when I left. I'll never get my money back but that's ok as I loved the time there.
You can do that at established companies. If the cool thing comes to an end you'll often have a boring job you can keep or stay at while you find something else.
faang has sucked the oxygen in the air. For experienced engineers, the one upside to startups is if you are a founder and you are creating a change you want to see in the world. But this delusion is shattered as time goes by and you realize that you are only a cog in a smaller wheel, whereas, in bigtech you are a cog in a bigger one.
On average, startups tend to have a better culture due to the incentives at play compared to big-tech. And that attracts engineers regardless of the comp.
