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by swyx·6mo ago·view on hn ↗
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.

2 comments
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?