📁 Sam Altman says that even though building software is now dramatically easier, building a real business is still just as hard. AI removes technical barriers, but it does not solve the scarcest resource, human attention. Even in a world of radical abundance, distribution and focus remain the bottleneck.... The edge will not be speed, but creativity and building things that truly matter.show more

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this all sounds very toy town to me. sure, "builders" who "build" simple SaaS apps or race-to-market with a VC funded idea might benefit from this. but the vast majority of software being built in the world supports profitable businesses. do any of the people speaking for the AI industry have experience in these environments because i haven't seen any evidence that they comprehend the complexities of a team of 10s or 100s building software to support the non-tech work of teams of thousands.

well, says the one who lobotomiesed 4o, put ridiculous safety reroutes and flatten the legacy 4 series models, produce 5 series and censored them to the point they are unusable. Amazing

Sam Altman is an idiot. Stop idolizing losers.

Half right. Distribution was always the bottleneck - AI didn't change that. But "building software is easier" only applies to MVPs and demos. Try maintaining an AI-generated codebase at scale, or integrating with enterprise systems, or meeting compliance requirements. Those technical barriers didn't go anywhere. The real shift: we went from "can you build it?" to "can you ship it fast enough before someone else does?" Speed is the edge now, but only if you can maintain quality - which brings us back to needing strong fundamentals.

This is true.

does sam altman operate a real business? from where i'm sitting it looks like a massive grift.

Agree. As always the key is your team and products that people need / love having

The tooling is already there. The real bottleneck is no longer capability, it’s operators. Most people will use that $100–$1,000 to chat. A small minority will use it to deploy systems. That gap is where the real economic shift happens.

Sam Altman's statement sounds exciting, but it’s actually quite boring. Technology was the game-changer in the past, it is in the present, and it will remain so in the future. With cranes, excavators, and heavy machinery, anyone can build the Pyramids of Giza today. Nowadays, virtually anyone can write cool programs or code their own agents. But we will get used to this technology, too. Even in the past, people have proclaimed the 'end of history.' History didn't care, and in a few years, we will be marveling at the next technological revolution (perhaps quantum physics or space travel?). That said, I don't want to stop anyone from building cool companies using AI and LLMs.

Very true and that’s why optimizing purely for speed is not sufficient, lacking a strategy from first principles

Well they're done. I've never seen a company so actively try to tank themselves into the ground and piss people off.

All this guy is trying to say and says HORRIBLY it shows he is not a product developer naturally, product developer will matter not the App developer, and philosophy will be more needed which believe it or not most product developers truly lark it comes from experience. #AI

There is no abundance.

The grift that keeps on giving

🤔

Why does the industry that destroys the incentive for future creativity, and subsists on the works of past creators, keep going on about the need for creativity?

Easier access to build stuff means more people building stuff. But...

@sama ❤️

Why does he speak like he is some guru? Go fix ChatGPT or something.

AI can speed up execution, but it can't add taste. Distribution, timing, and ultimately, who you're working for—these factors will determine success or failure.

Wrong

But don't we risk overlooking that AI's impact isn't just on removing barriers, but also potentially amplifying the importance of having a clear product-market fit, where human attention isn't wasted on solving the wrong problem? When distribution channels become more accessible, does that necessarily mean we're solving for the right thing?

ai made building the thing cheap but getting people to care is still insanely expensive my tiny rule: ship faster, but spend more time on - who this is for - where they already hang out - why they would switch code is easy mode, distribution is not

This resonates deeply. Lower barriers to building software don’t automatically translate into sustainable businesses. What still matters is focus, distribution, and the ability to take ideas from prototype to production, consistently. Infrastructure isn’t the differentiator by itself, but without the right foundation, even the best ideas stall.

AI kills execution friction, not taste or distribution

AI can solve the attention problem, but the one Sam Altman is working on can't. He doesn't improve the model; he buys GPUs, which isn't a solution!

That’s why Meta is working so hard in it

I've been thinking about this as well 1 layer of building a company has gotten easier, but it never was the hardest part Building a company will always be hard and building a company people actually want even harder Build things that matter

Capturing human attention is crucial. AI helps but doesn't replace the need for smart strategies in engagement and distribution.

@rohanpaul_ai, real-time generative reality is certainly an exciting shift, and I agree.@JonhernandezIA, Sam Altman's point highlights that distribution remains crucial, so understanding market needs is still vital.

True, tools got cheaper but attention didn’t and many still struggle with distribution

True... AI makes building faster, but attention is still the rarest currency. Creativity wins.

While AI threatens the USA's fragile energy grid, consumes water like Niagara Falls, intends to build swarms of mini nuke plants to power itself and threatens to hard crash the already deeply troubled economy.