Comment by gradus_ad
1 day ago
The killer app is AI coding. Claude Code had first mover advantage, was a genuine revolution, and has diffused through the industry with incredible speed. I would imagine most of the huge revenue increase over the last year is due almost entirely to AI coding spend.
There are three issues with this. First, the rapid diffusion of the technology means it is very unlikely to continue at the rate of adoption seen over the past year, so it's very hard to extrapolate based on what we've seen so far. Second, many companies are reigning in AI budgets after an initial honeymoon phase. Third, all of the other labs are trying to take a bite of the coding pie, and the price war is already heating up.
Add these simple dynamics up and it makes perfect sense why Anthropic would want to IPO now. Things look about as good as they ever will.
> Things look about as good as they ever will
Anthropic looks like Wylie Coyote spinning their legs in open air at the moment. They are fucked from so many angles it is hard to comprehend how anyone would buy their bags.
Simple question: What is their IP? What are you actually buying? They didn't invent anything. They have no IP. They copied other people's IP and did a mediocre job of it.
There are a half dozen Chinese companies who can build the same thing, better, for a tenth of the price, and will give it away just to fuck with the US. If you are buying Anthropic you are buying a ticket to a hurt box where you are going to get relentlessly pummeled from all sides until your capital turns to ash.
On top of all this, the company is run by an incompetent psychopath and a bunch of dumb cultists, who are blacklisted by the US Military, and have at least another 2 years of the current admin doing everything possible to cripple their company.
What is the story for how you succeed in the most important strategic technology of all time when you are blacklisted by your government's military? There is no story because you simply don't exist in that scenario.
Just like Alta Vista and Netscape put there first mover advantage to use?
Claude Code is a commodity at this point though.
Codex is just as good if not better. And theres 3-5 other options out there just as good too (harness + model).
Opus 5.5 is the best deal in doing rn. It will change soon. But its not the case that codex, etc are equivalent
I don't use claude-code and like to use the harness of my choice.
I disagree. I've tried Codex, and two of the provider-agnostic harnesses (Pi and OMP), and I strongly prefer Claude Code.
"I prefer Claude Code, so it must be the best"
Truly a developer mindset.
I disagree. I've tried Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and Pi, and I _strongly_ prefer Pi.
I suppose it truly boils down to personal taste? My take[0] on AI including harnesses.
[0]: https://a.l3x.in/ai
1 reply →
Yeah why?
I bounce between codex and cc all the time. There is no moat there.
That's quite surprising, of the set {Claude Code, Codex, Pi, OMP} I must say I find CC to be the worst.
They all have some annoying downsides and I use CC the most, but it's gotten to the point where I'm for sure actively shopping around for better harnesses.
Huh.. well maybe... but I can only assume you are not a developer
I tried the Claude $20 plan for two weeks and burned the rest of it due to how much token anxiety it gave me. And I'm not ready to keep throwing money at it for it to become usable. Gemini models are actually fine for me as an amateur+ I found especially since they have regional pricing and a very generous side items package.
I use the models but not the "harness" though. Not directly anyway. I am still handicapped by the CLI when running in Paseo. Both antigravity and agy are toys compared to what has been available for at least two years.
Why though?
View them as a successful SAAS company deeply embedded in tech company processes like Atlassian. I don't see Anthropic or SpaceX actually having a market on all the software in the universe but I don't know that the market won't buy them like they do.
My brother in christ, there is no first mover advantage. I use claude code daily and if the open ai copies it 1$ cheaper per seat my company is switching immediately.
I've never heard anyone in real life discussing what model is better in some benchmark. Money talks.
That last sentence is a great point. We are probably in a bubble here just by virtue of regularly visiting HN. Even at work in an AI department at what I think is a typical company, there is little to no opinion on models beyond correctness and cost.
underrated comment