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pkiv

80 karma · joined April 28, 2016

I'm a code creator and problem solver based out of San Francisco.

browserbase.com

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pkiv··on Show HN: Vibium – Browser automation for AI and humans, by Selenium's creator
If you're already using Playwright, I'd love for you to give Stagehand a try (https://github.com/browserbase/stagehand) - it has compatible-ish API, but built for automation, not testing.
pkiv··on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)
Stagehand is our open source project, but the company behind it is called Browserbase - https://browserbase.com/ where we run headless browser infrastructure as a service. So no interest at this point, Browserbase drives the revenue that funds Stagehand!
pkiv··on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)
I'm working on rebuilding Playwright from the ground up, but focused on automation and self healing using LLMs.

It's called Stagehand (https://github.com/browserbase/stagehand) and we just released v3, which is a total rewrite.

pkiv··on Launch HN: Simplex (YC S24) – Browser automation platform for developers
Hey there! Founder of Browserbase here. If you're seeing any abuse from one of our customers we'd love to hear more. Mind sending more info to paul@browserbase.com?
pkiv··on Show HN: Hatchet v1 – A task orchestration platform built on Postgres
Congrats on the launch guys!
pkiv··on Show HN: AgentKit – JavaScript Alternative to OpenAI Agents SDK with Native MCP
Really love the decoupling of the logic and the runtime for the actual tool calls.
pkiv··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2024)
Browserbase | Multiple Roles | San Francisco | ONSITE

We're building infrastructure that enables developers and LLMs to programmatically interact with the web using our hosted headless browsers.

A headless browser is just like the browser you're using right now, but running on a server. Running a single one isn't too bad, but running many of them becomes a complex exercise in stateful, distributed systems. We handle that, as well as provide great observability and other helpful features (like cookies management) to make developer's lives easier.

While the infrastructure product is how we make money, we also maintain Stagehand (https://github.com/browserbase/stagehand), the AI-powered successor to Playwright. We built it to show how you can use LLMs to build dynamic web automations that don't depend on deterministic code.

We're looking for developers who are interested in working on products that cater to other developers. You're an especially good fit if you're experienced in cloud infrastructure or distributed systems. We're a team of 10, full time in-person in-SF. You can learn more about our work culture here: https://x.com/pk_iv/status/1860762063490158642. We have product-market-fit, and have raised $27M from Kleiner Perkins, CRV, and Okta Ventures.

I've hired several people from HN and I'm excited to continue meeting great people like yourself!

Open roles are here: https://browserbase.com/careers You can also email at jobs@browserbase.com

pkiv··on Show HN: Steel.dev – An open-source browser API for AI agents and apps
I’d recommend checking out Stagehand if you want to use something that’s more AI first! It’s like the AI powered successor to playwright: https://github.com/browserbase/stagehand

(I am one of the authors!)

pkiv··on Web scraping with GPT-4o: powerful but expensive
Good feedback! We'll take a look.
pkiv··on Web scraping with GPT-4o: powerful but expensive
The price and the dashboard are a great start :)
pkiv··on Web scraping with GPT-4o: powerful but expensive
If you're open to it, I'd love to hear what you think of what we're building at https://browserbase.com/ - you can run a chrome extension on a headless browser so you can do the semantic markdown within the browser, before pulling anything off.

We even have an iFrame-able live view of the browser, so your users can get real-time feedback on the XPaths they're generating: https://docs.browserbase.com/features/session-live-view#give...

Happy to answer any questions!

pkiv··on Launch HN: Muddy (YC S19) – Multiplayer browser for getting work done
Congrats on the launch!! Collaborative browsing is something I've been looking for a few use cases of mine. Excited to try it out.
pkiv··on Show HN: PostgreSQL index advisor
The supabase team always delivers. Excited to give this a try!
pkiv··on Show HN: Skyvern – Browser automation using LLMs and computer vision
If you want to build it yourself, you could try using https://browserbase.com/. We offer managed headless browsers work everywhere, every-time. It costs $0.10 per browser session/hour (billed minutely). Feel free to shoot me an email if you want access! paul@browserbase.com
pkiv··on The /unblock API from Browserless: dodging bot detection as a service
They recently increased their pricing quite a bit. We're looking to offer a much more affordable pay-as-you-go pricing model at https://browserbase.com/

Feel free to shoot me an email if you're interested in trying it out! paul@browserbase.com

pkiv··on The /unblock API from Browserless: dodging bot detection as a service
The newest version of headless chrome actually runs the same code as a "regular browser": https://developer.chrome.com/docs/chromium/new-headless
pkiv··on The /unblock API from Browserless: dodging bot detection as a service
I gave a lightning talk on headless chrome here that is worth checking out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs-qzlW9M50&t=726s

pkiv··on The /unblock API from Browserless: dodging bot detection as a service
In the end, the best way to avoid being blocked is to be a good actor. All of these hacks won't stop someone who's determined to prevent access (ie: LinkedIn).

That's actually one of the reasons why I started https://browserbase.com/. Maintaining headless browser infrastructure can be such a pain. I've spent a lot of time managing headless chrome fleets at scale, so happy to answer any questions.

pkiv··on Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio
What a great run. I remember the IPO party in 2016, very early in my career, and being in disbelief that a texting API was used by so many people. It was my first time writing code for systems that operated at _real scale_. While the last few years have been a bit rocky, you can't understate the impact that jeffiel had on the developer tools ecosystem.
pkiv··on Show HN: Pip install inference, open source computer vision deployment
Looks great! Congrats on the launch.
pkiv··on Show HN: AI-town, run your own custom AI world SIM with JavaScript
The AI-town stuff is cool, but the real benefit is how all the backing frameworks are already integrated. I'll definitely be using this as a jumping-off point for my next LLM project.
pkiv··on Goodbye, Twilio
Hey, just sharing my point of view. Appreciate hearing yours as well. Have a good Sunday!
pkiv··on Goodbye, Twilio
(Former Twilion here)

I’ve always described this as “selling features vs selling solutions”. As a startup grows, the buying persona changes. Startups that sell to developers do best when they’re selling features, whereas a product manager/CEO is shopping for a solution (like increasing customer engagement). A neat thing I’ve noticed is that at one point, almost every B2B company will add a “Solutions” page to their website to highlight that.

Wrote about it more here: https://memos.hawkhill.ventures/p/selling-features-then-solu...)

pkiv··on Launch HN: Onu (YC W23) – Turn scripts into internal tools in minutes
congrats on the launch!
pkiv··on “Tinder for Canceling Meetings”
This is no different than using Reclaim.ai or Calendly with your work calendar. Obviously you should do your diligence with what software you give access to your calendar, but this likely isn't the first SaaS that has access these days...
pkiv··on Show HN: Amazon-like product recommendation engine to power open-source eComm
Cool product. Can you explain how it’s different than Algolia?
pkiv··on Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #5
This is cool. I like the idea of using something separate than Notion, because Notion tends to get too distracting.

Have you considered adding some operating templates for startups? I imagine your user is signing up because they need new process, and giving them some inspiration to play with may accelerate onboarding. (I signed up hoping to get that template you used in your demo video)

I'm not a fan of the superhuman interface, I've found that it create a big learning curve for what is could be a simple interface. At the same time I'm glad you guys drew inspiration from Linear, they have some great design too. I feel like they balance the hotkeys + clickable elements really well.

Slack integration is great. I think Loom would be big in my workflow too.

Happy to do a user interview etc to help out. email is in my profile.

pkiv··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2021)
Stream Club | San Francisco | Full-Time, Remote-OK | http://stream.club We are an early stage, venture backed startup building a better way to livestream from your browser. We're looking to hire a full stack engineer. We've hired an engineer from Hacker News before, and we're so excited to add another! Here's a little video introducing ourselves: (30 seconds)

https://www.loom.com/share/5358fbecd222474a93dd83abbe6ed755

Technologies we love: Javascript, Typescript, React, Next.js, Express, Postgres, TypeORM, Puppeteer, Heroku, AWS, Github.

If you're interested, say hi by emailing me paul@stream.club.

pkiv··on OBS Studio 27.0
Streamyard is a great company so I'll take slightly inferior as a major compliment!

We're actually have all the features of their Professional plan ($50/month) at half the cost.

The on-screen participants per live stream is something we've capped at six for usability reasons (livestreams just don't look good with 10 faces on a stream).

pkiv··on OBS Studio 27.0
Great question! We like to onboard each livestreamer personally to understand their livestreaming workflow and goals. Completely understand the disdain for our ambiguous website, and would be happy to send a beta invite directly to your email if you (or anyone else on here) is willing to give it a shot!
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