Why has software remained so costly? And what happens when coding becomes practically free? Just as the internet prompted an explosion of content by reducing creation costs to near zero, LLMs have sparked a similar software boom by making code accessible to non-technical users. But while LLMs open the floodgates to a tidal wave of new software, we can’t expect all of it to be amazing. In his column in this week’s newsletter, my partner David Peterson shares his thoughts on what we might expect in this new age of software development. You can read the full story at the link in the comment section below. And be sure to subscribe to the newsletter to get exclusive insights into tech, startups, and more in your email every week.
Lior Gerson
8mo
The impact of LLMs on Software development costs will be similar to the shift from on-prem servers to the cloud. Market dynamics will push the LLM price up. Companies will start small and their bill will inflate over time. The big players are brilliant in making that happen. In the end, LLMs as a platform will allow faster and cheaper 0 to 1, enabling more demand, but once these POCs grow, the cost would probably achieve parity with the "old way" of building software. Over time, it will remain to be seen which way of building software will be more financially sustainable. However, my guess that the optimal point would be a hybrid model.
Hassy Veldstra
8mo
We can look to what spreadsheets made possible for an analogy, but Gen AI is that times 100. Excel is the most popular programming environment in the world, with people (who don't even think of themselves as programmers) building all sorts of apps. A lot of the world runs on those spreadsheet "apps". And for one downstream implication of that look no further than https://eusprig.org/research-info/horror-stories/ or https://www.qashqade.com/insights/the-worst-financial-services-excel-errors-of-all-time There's going to be 10x more lines of code written, and our ability to understand the behavior of that code in production is going to be 10x less. Selfish plug here - production engineering is going to become even more important, and it'll have to be packaged to be as user-friendly as possible. We're working on that artillery.io :)
Simon Spurrier
8mo
What will companies do when everyone in their org can and will build software? Sounds like lots of big problems they'll be desperate to solve.
Ersel Aker
8mo
Ahmad Jawabreh any insights here for us?
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