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gk1

25,259 karma · joined March 31, 2011

Former naval architect, turned marketing consultant in 2013, then VP Marketing at Pinecone 2020–2024 where I created the "vector database" category, then back to (positioning & messaging) consulting.

Occasionally commenting about chess and travel.

https://www.gkogan.co

Best email: greg[at]gkogan.co

submissionscomments
gk1··on Anthropic S-1
I thought that's what lockout periods were for?
gk1··on Anthropic S-1
Those are just standard disclaimers.
gk1··on We’re releasing Jev 1.14.0 along with experimental features for dreamers
They’re upfront about their decisions and intentions. All of which make perfect sense. What gives it shady vibes for you?

Eg: Longer context has long been known to reduce response accuracy, so it makes perfect sense why they’d limit it especially at launch. Personal evals are in fact more useful than public benchmarks so it makes sense (and is refreshing) that they’re cautioning against them…

gk1··on Our $445M Series D
Comms can mean outward communication even if it’s not done or filtered by a comms team. In the case of Oxide it almost certainly means that.
gk1··on RIP, vector database
Vector databases were always more about retrieval than either vectors or data storage. But the term stuck all too well and companies held on to it a tad too long. Sorry :)
gk1··on You said no MCP
Props to the team not only for changing their minds from a strongly-held belief but making it very public and not hiding the fact that it's a reversal.

The linked post from Armin is gold:

"... whenever you are confronted with a very strong opinion about a topic, reasonable discussions about the topic often involve arguments that have long become outdated or are no longer strictly relevant to the conversation."

(https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2016/11/5/be-careful-about-what-you...)

And that's from 2016! These days if you're arguing from a position you took even a week ago, you already might be out of sync.

gk1··on Dots
“Agent” is the type of product, like “car.” “Dot” is the name of the product, like “Helix.”
gk1··on Dots: Always-on agents
Some important work is fun to do, some isn’t.
gk1··on Dots: Always-on agents
Of course they are. Why wouldn’t they?

- non-developer

gk1··on Better Vector Search for Long Documents: Chunking Inside Manticore Search
Just so you know, your comment was automatically hidden (“dead”) until I vouched for it now. Same for most of your recent submissions. Actually it’s probably because of your (exclusively self-promotional) submissions that your comments and submissions get hidden.
gk1··on Neki – Sharded Postgres
It doesn’t take a marketing person to submit a link.
gk1··on Neki – Sharded Postgres
Folks, in your launch posts remember to describe what you're launching and what it's for. Ideally in the opening paragraph.

- Intro: Explains problem but not what is Neki or what it's for.

- Why Neki: Explains alternatives and why they suck but not what is Neki or what it's for.

- How does Neki work: Describes the technical components but not what is Neki or what it's for.

- What you get beyond sharding: Explains how to run/deploy but not what is Neki or what it's for.

- What is a platform preview + Try Neki today: 140 words on the definition of "preview" and links to get started... but not what is Neki or what it's for.

Edit: The landing page has 100x more useful information up front -> https://neki.dev/

Edit #2: They've since added a "What is Neki" section. Good reaction time.

gk1··on Nvidia to acquire Hugging Face
I meant the first attempt in 2024, which fell apart: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/23/technology/google-wiz-dea...
gk1··on Nvidia to acquire Hugging Face
Unfortunately not all deals go through. Like Wiz + Google, or Figma + Adobe. A lot can go wrong between “in talks to acquire” and “acquired.” The official announcement is less surprising but still newsworthy.
gk1··on Nvidia to Acquire Hugging Face
Happy for the hugging face team. Many great folks there who’ve waited patiently for HF to find a business model, and finally they get something even better.
gk1··on Just say something people want
What makes you think that?
gk1··on Slack Code
Slack wants to be primary place people do their work. And they're almost there... It's certainly where you "work" (communicate) with people, it's where many engage with and/or control other platform like project trackers, and it's increasingly the place you interact with whatever AI agents your company uses. It makes perfect send they want to bring the coding agent into the fold (into their UI) as well. And, given Anthropic's release of Claude Tag, they're probably not wrong about that.
gk1··on Stripe to Buy OpenRouter for $7B
Stripe isn’t exactly a dumb company. When someone smart does something seemingly super dumb, more likely than not you’re the one missing something, not them. It’s an opportunity to ask, “what am I missing?”, and learn from it.
gk1··on Why hasn't AI increased unemployment?
This is from Peter McCrory, Head of Economics at Anthropic. Calling that out since it wasn't obvious to me at first.
gk1··on Launch HN: Traceforce (YC S26) – Company-wide security monitoring for AI apps
Not exactly. See: https://www.runlayer.com/watch

There's also Bluerock, as yet another example. I've worked with both companies though I get nothing from mentioning them here. My point is this is a (suddenly) crowded market - perhaps more so than you realized - so you should consider what exactly is different about your product and why that matters, and then make that obvious to prospective buyers.

gk1··on Launch HN: Traceforce (YC S26) – Company-wide security monitoring for AI apps
+1

You're facing competition from both the incumbents who can ship these capabilites to their massive userbase, and emerging startups like Runlayer who are running away with the AI-native segment.

What are you offering that people want yet neither of those classes of solutions offer?

gk1··on Ask HN: I am not able to find a job. Should I switch stacks?
I highly recommend you read this classic post from Patrick McKenzie: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

> You are not defined by your chosen software stack: I recently asked via Twitter what young engineers wanted to know about careers. Many asked how to know what programming language or stack to study. It doesn’t matter. There you go.

This is especially true now, since coding agents make it possible to work with any stack.

gk1··on MCP is dead?
Exactly right. Co’s like Runlayer are growing like wild exactly for this reason. Without a central control plane MCP is a minefield.
gk1··on I’ve joined Anthropic
It’s not enough to have unique ideas. You need capital, compute, people, distribution, customers… There’s huge appeal to joining a place that has all those things and lets you pursue your unique ideas without worrying about all that.
gk1··on Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation
If true...

On the one hand: they fooled me.

On the other hand: hey, if the comments are that good, keep going?

gk1··on Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation
Such a good comment from a new account. Please post here more often :)
gk1··on Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation
Was commenting on the quote in particular. It’s just a version of “the future is in your hands” which you can find in one form or another in many graduation speeches. Just seems odd to me to read a cliche line as something cynical.

Ali G’s version of it in his 2004 Harvard commencement speech:

> “You lot will become powerful people who can change de future — and you need to, coz de world at de moment iz totally f—ed up.”

Come to think of it… very appropriate today!

gk1··on Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation
That quote reads totally differently to me.

It seems if you already have negative feelings about AI or the speaker, you’re going to interpret their comments as something that reinforces your negative feelings.

gk1··on Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
> AI tools make great team members even better

This is the predominant (public) talking point. And it’s true.

But along with that: when you have effective people becoming even more effective with AI, it becomes glaringly obvious who the INeffective people are. At which point it becomes hard to justify keeping those people around.

(That often includes people who are otherwise effective but aren’t utilizing agents and are therefore losing their edge.)

gk1··on I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it
Seen from another angle: this encourages you to make new friends locally.

And yes, also one more excuse to visit faraway friends.

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