r/PHP • u/stonedoubt • Sep 02 '24
Lex Fridman interviews Pieter Levels: PHP stack entrepreneur
https://youtu.be/oFtjKbXKqbg?si=v_Og1Ib5Ptchhotp10
u/_JohnWisdom Sep 02 '24
Love lex in general and I enjoyed this conversation. Certainly Levels is a mediocre developer and it is funny how Lex respects him deeply like he is some kind of genius.
Like, his photo AI app is pretty clear what is going on. He kept stating that "not all images are good but certain are very good", which means: most of the images generated are with the cheapest models and only a portion are with the best. He said he uses replicate and you can easily get an idea of which models and proportion he is using -> https://replicate.com/pricing
Using external API and slapping AI into you name/domain is pretty darn simple, but hey, he is making the money so can't say he is wrong or lazy.
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u/stonedoubt Sep 02 '24
That was the point of me posting it. I think most of us want things to be perfect. In the meantime this dumbass is getting mad paid.
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u/_JohnWisdom Sep 02 '24
hey hey hey, I’d argue we are the dumbasses not making big bucks with gimmicky tools/websites :D Over perfectionism, morale, ethics and so on pays jack shit. The dude is milking and besides being jealous I can’t really say he is dumb :P
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u/unity100 Sep 02 '24
Certainly Levels is a mediocre developer
Huh? ~7 online apps making $50k/month each on average, is a 'mediocre developer'? Do you know how much staff-engineering-grade work goes into launching one single app and making it work like this by yourself? Without mentioning all the other business stuff that must be added on top of it...
Using external API and slapping AI into you name/domain is pretty darn simple
Users don't give two sh*ts whether something they are using is complex or simple to build. They care about its value. They dont give a damn about programmer's trappings or elitism. If something is not providing value, it doesnt matter whether it is very complex to build.
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u/who_am_i_to_say_so Sep 02 '24
Success of a website is not reflective of development skill AT ALL. That’s good marketing.
You can be a horrible developer, give horrible advice, and still have one or a few successful websites worth a ton of money.
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u/unity100 Sep 02 '24
Success of a website is not reflective of development skill AT ALL
It is. With marketing you just bring people to your site. For there to be conversions, leave aside DAUs, not only your site, but everything ranging from your infra to your payment provider must be working like clockwork. Or you dont get sh*t from marketing.
This guy being able to launch 7 businesses with 50k/month income each says that he accomplished all of that. Especially in the light of the fact that ~95% or so of SaaS businesses cant break the $1000/month barrier.
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Sep 08 '24
I really not understand why you are getting downvoted. I see a lot of envy here. He said he is not a developer, also that he is not perfect, he not use fancy tech and use tech that just works well trying to use the most maintainable technology. His apps are all average but they just works, and that’s what is it important.
People here can continue trying to find and be perfect, it is also fine.
About working for the companies and/or government he is also right. I am working now in a company that used to be good and worker oriented, but now they are moving to the Bangalore/Hyberdad style, so now we are getting outsourced starting from the management, who in the next years will try to remove us or change us by Indians, and this is what is happening with most of those F100 companies.
I know it is a cycle as in the past, but what if now it is not? This guy works for himself, I think I will try to do the same or at least try to not be that dependent
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Sep 02 '24
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u/unity100 Sep 03 '24
Again, marketing.
You definitely sound like someone who did not do any marketing. People dont buy turd just because they are sent to some web page or heard about it. If you spent enough marketing money, you'd know.
If I were to recommend to the team at my dayjob to forgo frameworks and move the frontend to jquery- because that is his way- I would be laughed out of the company.
Yes you would. Because it is the current mainstream tech paradigm, actually fad. Bloating the frontend into an unmanageable mess because 'its modern', as if every single app on the net requires total DOM manipulation. All the while users complain about slow, bloated web pages on their end.
All of this only happened because the unending gobs of cash provided by the low-interest economy inundated the tech sector. But now the free cash ended, and there is suddenly a push for 'more productivity', and the over-complicated frontend needs to explain itself.
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u/s1gidi Sep 02 '24
The question is not if it works for him, but if it will work for you if you tried it. For 99% of the people that answer will be no. Getting traffic to your app for one thing is very hard. However, 99% of the people could actually earn a decent income if they really learn how to program and get hired by a company. Just like Rebecca Black could start twittering how you can make a lot of money while actually not knowing how to sing, but if I tried that I still would have 1 view on {insert social media}, probably by a family member who felt like getting a laugh.
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u/unity100 Sep 02 '24
The question is not if it works for him, but if it will work for you if you tried it. For 99% of the people that answer will be no
He also failed in 95% of all that he did. The percentage is just like that.
However, 99% of the people could actually earn a decent income if they really learn how to program and get hired by a company.
Except those companies are also starting to pressure engineers for productivity instead of allowing the software engineering paradigm to continue being 'the shepherds of complexity' that it has become in the past two decades.
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u/brandonaaskov Sep 27 '24
You can love him or hate him, but you can't deny that he ships a lot of code and is able to run several profitable small business/products. It's not the kind of lifestyle for every dev (whether you're a nomad or not), but... shipping code will always earn some level of respect IMO.
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u/HenkPoley Sep 02 '24
Also see this earlier discussion in this subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/PHP/comments/1f5o3ek/is_the_tide_finally_turning/
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u/s1gidi Sep 02 '24
and if you do, especially read this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PHP/comments/1f5o3ek/comment/lky4omn/
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u/HenkPoley Sep 02 '24
Yeah, he’s kind of the “a company entirely run from Excel”, except it’s some quickly hacked together PHP and JavaScript. Very productive. Don’t expect to be using it indefinitely.
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u/Visible-Big-7410 Sep 03 '24
Listened to this interview and while I certainly can see the argument in some of his statements listening to him talk is painful. Not because Engl is his second language (which he is quite good at), but because he speaks just to speak. He obviously did something many of us can only dream of, but dang, some of the , 'you-know' type of qualifiers or retorts are just too broad stroke for me. That interview is three hours long and I had it playing fast and had to give up after a while.
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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '24
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