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- Hacker News
- Very good idea. For every company that is valuable because of software + knowledge + service + loyal customers there are a dozen that only exist because of weak competition and inertia.
Easy to imagine there are a lot of software products that could be cloned and out-competed by taking 15% profit margin instead of 50%.
by xnx - So a dedicated team of engineers creates a functional product, and you plagiarize it so you can have all the profit for yourself?
Only a "good idea" if you're a thief with no original ideas.
by RIMR - I mean, this is just basic smart investing today. Software is now very easily replicable, and you wouldn't want to invest in software that has absolutely no moat.
At a minimum, this gives Bain more leverage when negotiating with these companies.
by peder - > Software is now very easily replicable
How?
Do you mean by AI? I haven't seen any evidence of this.
It was always possible to get code generated at large volumes for low cost (offshore/outsource market) but we didn't see this upend or replace many (if any) software companies. In my experience it had the opposite effect - companies that replaced talented internal teams ended up suffering.
LLM generated code is similar, but arguably more expensive and lower quality.
We don't see LLM generated product replacement at scale because code generation is a problem, but it's not the only problem. Low quality can kill a product, but high quality doesn't guarantee success.
There's an entire ecosystem around a successful software offering. An ecosystem that depends on adequately functioning code.
LLMs may be useful for certain tasks (...maybe... - we've always had good options for repetitive code generation) but I certainly wouldn't describe it as "very easily replicable".
- This seems incredibly logical if the application is claiming its IP has value without accounts/revenue that justify that value.by etchalon
- Somewhat fitting that we just got the Backrooms movie which is about making Uncanny Valley copies of locations (and people) and here we have Uncanny Valley copies of software...by xg15
- If only Bain could use their AI skills to fix their website. It's a horrible and convoluted mess!by su8898
- How would the AI fix fix that?by Jensson
- Is the future of software really vibe coded by management consultants..?by rich_sasha
- "Make my web app secure."by rectang
- In the article, they explain the goal of vibe coding prototypes is not to rebuild software, but to test the defensibility of businesses based on their software so they can decide whether to acquire them or notby jameslk
- it's not, no, but some groups will try. Paying for corporate software is mostly about delegating responsibilityby dgellow
- I am not sure it is the management consulting partners or their associates that are doing the vibe coding.
The more likely scenario is that they "consume" the output of designated offshore teams.
by vitorsr - The future of software is the past of software is the future of software - ping pong between in-housed money furnaces and out-sourced predators.
A quick addendum: The in-housed money furnace can produce material to reinforce and extend the foundations of information technology
by bla15e - Software consulting has been around for a very long time. Decades.
It has always been overpriced and had huge margins.
I think what management consultants are really afraid of is being replaced. By AI.
by danesparza - Basic CRUD apps? Sure, why not.
Anything substantially new will still require an engineer in the loop. Specifically, if a new design pattern, archtecture, etc is required. AI can only build on its training material - it can't yet have original thoughts.
by alistairSH - the ease of making a prototype is not at all related to the ease of productising/releasing/bringing to market and that, in turn, is not at all related to the ease of maintenence/maturization/scaling.
You didn't even want the same kind of guy or team doing each one before ai. Turns out, AI is great at prototyping, ok at productizing and terrible at maintenence and scaling
by RugnirViking - The point about prototyping and vibecoding in this manner is to wargame and think about workflows and whether or not they are defensible.
A product where the secret sauce is basically a distribution play is going to need a different strategy and demand a different valuation compared to a product where the platform itself is successfully monetizing on a workflow.
by alephnerd - Hard to see it'll help them much. There's so many other aspects to a successful software business vs just ease of build.by mmarian
- Customer already pay management consultancies for software - certainly BAH does a bunch of that here in DC (some .gov, some private sector).by alistairSH
- That's the point of why they're doing it. From TFA:
"Private equity investors are turning to AI-generated replicas of software to assess whether acquisition targets have a competitive advantage
[...]
'We are leveraging vibecoding to show what a software company can and can’t do, to understand where it fits in the value chain and to understand whether it is the actual code that is the defensible part of the business or something else,'"
by jameslk - This is like saying Twitter isn't worth much because every web framework tutorial produces a "Twitter clone."
- I CALL FOR ANTIARCHY AGAINST AI!
ALL PROGRAMMERS and VIBE CODERS use AI against itself ... vibe code systems that forces AI to pay all of humans for our content! Without our content AI is irrelevant! Why are we giving our content/souls to it freely now so it thrives and we do not??
by paul7986 - IDK. The internet is full of examples of platform max exodus's. This may actually be a killer idea that will finally challenge the tech oligarchy power. I think we are in for a turbulent future. The FANNG/MANGO companies have essentially never had any real challenge to their dominace. We are about to enter an era where they will be challenged for the first time. I don't think they will be nice about it and we will see their true non altruistic colors. Especially Google and Apple which have lost their halos but are still considered "good actors" by many.by citizenpaul
- From TFA:
“We are leveraging vibecoding to show what a software company can and can’t do, to understand where it fits in the value chain and to understand whether it is the actual code that is the defensible part of the business or something else,”
by jameslk - Well, Twitter isn't worth much, or at least not what Elon paid for it in 2022, it just carries on like a zombie under a different name and investors got bailed out by being rolled into xAI and then the SpaceX IPO.
Though your point that Twitter's value was never in the code stands.
by Thrymr