As a lowly level 2 who remains skeptical of these software “dark factories” described at the top of this ladder, what I don’t understand is this:
If software engineering is enough of a solved problem that you can delegate it entirely to LLM agents, what part of it remains context-specific enough that it can’t be better solved by a general-purpose software factory product? In other words, if you’re a company that is using LLMs to develop non-AI software, and you’ve built a sufficient factory to generate that software, why don’t you start selling the factory instead of whatever you were selling before? It has a much higher TAM (all of software)
In a lot of ways, Frank Ocean feels like the millennial Brian Wilson. Not sure if any zoomer musicians have had enough time in the spotlight to develop that sort of persona.
Honestly, a solid take! It’s more of an optimization problem — find the best balance of quality, proximity, and price, and you’ve got your favorite slice shop. If you’re at a friend’s or a loved one’s, that solution changes, and you begin to associate the flavor of that slice with them and their home. Sometimes it’s worth it to make a trip out to one of the pizza Meccas—Lucali, Joe’s on Carmine, L&B Spumoni Gardens, etc.—but more often than not, you’re set with your local slice.
Unless you live in Downtown Brooklyn, where there is no good pizza. Then you’re just fucked.