Fair point on the vertical integration. That’s definitely a real difference from the CPU era.
At the same time, I’m not fully convinced that owning the primitive automatically means owning most of the value on top of it in the long run.
Nvidia owns the GPU layer, but it doesn’t own the majority of the software built on top of GPUs. AWS owns infrastructure, but SaaS value still fragments heavily across vertical domains. Infrastructure providers often try to move up the stack, but specialization and domain depth tend to create space above them.
It’s possible that frontier labs will capture more horizontal value than chip companies ever did. But I’m not sure language-native compute completely collapses the stack. It might just reduce friction and lower the barrier for building vertical systems.
The interesting question to me is whether this really eliminates the ecosystem layer — or just reshapes it.
You’re fair to call out the wording. I agree some of it reads more buzzword-y than intended.
My point wasn’t that thinking fast is inherently good or that coding is “drag.” Quite the opposite: the friction of implementation used to be a form of thinking time for me. Typing forced pacing and reflection.
What I’m noticing now is that when iteration becomes extremely cheap, the bottleneck shifts from “can I build this?” to “should I build this?” That’s not about hyperactivity. It’s about decision quality.
The “dopamine” part wasn’t meant as a brag but as a caution. Fast feedback loops can encourage shallow iteration instead of deeper design if you’re not careful.
So if anything, I’m arguing for more deliberate thinking, not less.
At the same time, I’m not fully convinced that owning the primitive automatically means owning most of the value on top of it in the long run.
Nvidia owns the GPU layer, but it doesn’t own the majority of the software built on top of GPUs. AWS owns infrastructure, but SaaS value still fragments heavily across vertical domains. Infrastructure providers often try to move up the stack, but specialization and domain depth tend to create space above them.
It’s possible that frontier labs will capture more horizontal value than chip companies ever did. But I’m not sure language-native compute completely collapses the stack. It might just reduce friction and lower the barrier for building vertical systems.
The interesting question to me is whether this really eliminates the ecosystem layer — or just reshapes it.