Comment by swyx
8 days ago
Author here. You guys are reacting like engineers - it's not the raw features, it's the critical mass that only a rare few like openai can attract. I don't care that someone else is already trying to build a slack killer. They do not have critical mass.
> A lot of success relies on network effects and familiarity, and the product looks deceptively simple. It's unlikely you can build one that is better than Slack
i agree that you and i can't build one. openai can. article argues that because it can, it should.
There's network effects and then there's core competencies. OpenAI has not demonstrated their ability to create software that is not a primary use case for LLMs. Chat is absolutely not a primary use case for LLMs, and so far LLMs have been sold as a value-add for traditional software.
The argument that OpenAI has the critical mass to dethrone Slack can be made for just about any other product with an 800-pound gorilla market leader. Windows, Office, Photoshop/Premier, Search, GMail, Figma, etc. Thus far, we have yet to see OpenAI build anything like these at scale, and there's no reason to assume their successes in the LLM space will translate.
I agree that they should build killer apps like these, because they are at extreme risk of being commoditized by smaller, better, faster genAI systems, but I don't think anything they do currently shows that they can.
"You guys are reacting like engineers" is a very wave-y dismissal of the many practical questions raised about why exactly OpenAI should expand into a product that's tangentially related (at best) to their core competency of AI.
The chain of logic in the article is explicitly spelled out as: Sam Altman said OpenAI will grow into new products -> Altman says to tell them what these products should be -> You say: Slack sucks so.... how about Slack?
I think most people, engineers or otherwise, reading the article have an understandable reaction of mostly bafflement as to why we are even talking about this, specifically, to begin with?