MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: How are devtool founders getting their paying users in 2026?
by yasu_c | 2026-01-30 00:51:13+00:00
I’ve been looking at a number of devtools and AI tools launched over the last 12–18 months, and a pattern keeps repeating:
- Strong product, clear technical value
- Early users from friends / Twitter / communities
- Then things stall when it comes to converting paying users

Things that seem less effective than expected:
- Content that ranks but doesn’t convert
- Community posting that generates discussion but no revenue
- “Build in public” without a clear path to payment

Things that might be working, but inconsistently:
- Integrations / ecosystems
- Very narrow ICP + outbound
- Founder-led sales lasting far longer than planned

For founders actively shipping devtools today:
- What’s actually getting you your first 10–50 paying users?
- What looked promising but turned out to be a dead end?
- If you were starting again in 2026, where would you focus first?

Curious what’s working now, not what sounds good in theory.
by defrost | 2026-01-30 00:52:08+00:00
No, it isn't - it's an asset owned by the company and shareholders - a CEO is an appointed or elected officer.

> To be clear, I’m referring much more to CEO/owners

Owners are what you are talking about. CEO / Owners are Owners and can act like owners.

That said, even owners need to be herded like cats when they are making bad decisions that impact tens of thousands of people on the basis of hubris and feels.

Somebody has to toss them shiny keys until the moment passes and they can make rational choices again.
by mrcwinn | 2026-01-30 00:53:05+00:00
>To put this in perspective, our peer-reviewed model shows that a fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph. This significant reduction in impact speed and severity is a demonstration of the material safety benefit of the Waymo Driver.

Our car hits better is a win, I guess?

Glad the child is okay.
by JumpCrisscross | 2026-01-30 00:53:05+00:00
> If the speed limit was 15 mph, and the Waymo vehicle was traveling at 17 mph before braking, why do you believe the Waymo vehicle would honor a 12 mph speed limit?

+/- 2 mph is acceptable speedometer and other error. (15 mph doesn’t mean never exceed under any legal inteprerstion I know.)

It’s reasonable to say Waymo would reduce speed in a 12 versus 15 in a way most humans would not.
by ricksunny | 2026-01-30 00:53:13+00:00
Actually that link was helpful, thanks. The fact that CHM's early progenitor was called Digital Computer Museum in a 1979 out of Boston actually explains a lot. They were fundamentally distinguishing lineage from the likes of differentia analyzers, and (to a more muddled degree), from Rapid Selectors / Rapid Comparators.
by js8 | 2026-01-30 00:53:31+00:00
It's a bit odd requirement, but.. OK. I mean who is the malicious actor here, the AI, the human user or the AI provider?

If the AI, then we shouldn't give it an agency (user should always vet the output).
If it's the user, the AI is irrelevant to the question. And if it's AI provider, why would they train AI on such materials in the first place.

The whole enterprise of this kind of safety doesn't make much sense to me. If the AI is not able to follow so clear user instructions it's not ready for prime time and must be under human supervision at all times. (And subtle hallucinations on topic seem to be both more dangerous and more of a problem than blatant random production of explicit images, anyway.)
by Forgeties79 | 2026-01-30 00:55:03+00:00
He was face down on the ground and they already pulled his gun off him. They clearly do this regardless of which angle you’ve seen. He was not a threat.

I am more understanding of the pressures that LEO face and how unless I actually experience it I can’t fully get it despite my political leanings. But that video was truly something to behold and I regret seeing it frankly.
by zamalek | 2026-01-30 00:56:21+00:00
I'm surprised that metastudies are inconsistent. Vit D and O-3 probably do have a large effect in a deficient populace (so, like, Seattle or landlocked areas respectively). Metastudies should be good at mitigating that (but I guess you can choose the studies that coincide with the outcome you want).

Either way, the conclusion to this whole debate is incredibly simple: get a blood panel done and go from there - it might not even be one of these that ails you.
by jbmilgrom | 2026-01-30 00:56:27+00:00
> Perhaps the key to transparent/interpretable ML is to just replace the ML model with AI-coded traditional software and decision trees. This way it's still fully autonomously trained but you can easily look at the code to see what is going on.

For certain problems I think thats completely right. We still are not going to want that of course for classic ML domains like vision and now coding, etc. But for those domains where software substrate is appropriate, software has a huge interpretability and operability advantage over ML
by creatonez | 2026-01-30 00:56:34+00:00
> privacy

ICE is literally buying all your data right now, paying surveillance contractors to rapidly install vastly more CCTV cameras than we've ever had before, purchasing malware to target citizens, and filling secret watchlists with thousands of innocent people. And you're sitting here angry that EFF is opposing exactly what they've been against this whole time.

You stopped donating to EFF because you stopped caring about mass surveillance, because your ideological allies wanted it. Keep on folding like a lawnchair.
by subscribed | 2026-01-30 00:57:36+00:00
Actually I am, and I do not support OSA, I despise it's subversive, toxic nature on par with Snooper's Charter. It was intentionally written in such a nebulous ways OFCOM makes idiots from themselves, and it somehow "accidentally" creeps up further and further and further.

Nothing will result in the stated goal except for the complete ban of ALL platforms other than licenced/blessed by the UK government (meaning full 1984 and no privacy at all).

Notice looming VPN bans and advanced approach to banning private communications.

And conversely parents have second thoughts if they hear how their intimate photos will all be scanned, every conversation effectively bugged, and sometimes I'll sprinkle with a story of an innocent parent with blocked Google account and reported to the police because he had a private conversation with a GP (or so he thought).

Social media ban is a COMPLETELY different thing.
by Sohcahtoa82 | 2026-01-30 00:57:39+00:00
> Insurance here is mandatory here for all motorists.

You do know that insurance being mandatory doesn't stop people from driving without insurance, right?

> If you are hit by an underinsured driver, the government steps in and additional underinsured motorist protection (e.g. hit by an out of province/country motorist) is available to all and not expensive.

Jolly good for you.

If I don't carry underinsured coverage, and someone totals my car or injures me with theirs, I'm basically fucked.
by piloto_ciego | 2026-01-30 00:59:58+00:00
I literally quit my job because of how much I hated working in ServiceNow. It's the worst platform I've ever had the misfortune to be forced to used. I was trying to get people to let me build replacement tools - there was so much stuff that we were paying out the ass for that we absolutely did not need with ServiceNow. It's really expensive and extremely poorly designed and you need specialized people just to maintain it. At a certain point, it makes a lot more sense to roll your own, maintain your own, and not let some company bleed you dry.
by vulcan01 | 2026-01-30 01:00:11+00:00
> the flood of obviously not qualified at all applicants we got was insane

From speaking to folks looking for jobs in tech over the past few years, this is a natural result.

1. Companies write requirements on the job posting that are a little beyond reasonable for the role and salary.

2. Applicants learn over time, and start applying to jobs for which they only meet most of the qualifications.

3. Companies adjust and write even more ridiculous requirements.

4. Applicants start applying to jobs for which they only meet some requirements.

5. Repeat.

As evidence that the applicants are, at every stage, correctly reacting to the situation: I have received positive responses (and, later, job offers) by applying to roles for which I am only mostly qualified, and I know many people for whom this is true of jobs they are only barely qualified for.
by naet | 2026-01-30 01:00:34+00:00
We should all think twice before taking a company PR statement completely at face value and praising them for slowing down faster than their own internal "model" says a human driver would. Companies are heavily interested in protecting their bottom line and in a situation like this probably had 5-10 people carefully craft every single word of the statement for maximum damage control.

Surprised at how many comments here seem eager to praise Waymo based off their PR statement. Sure it sounds great if you read that the Waymo slowed down faster than a human. But would a human truly have hit the child here? Two blocks from a school with tons of kids, crossing guards, double parked cars, etc? The same Waymo that is under investigation for passing school busses illegally? It may have been entirely avoidable for the average human in this situation, but the robotaxi had a blind spot that it couldn't reason around and drove negligently.

There's the classic "humans are bad drivers" but I don't think that is an excuse to not look critically into robotaxi accidents. A human driver who hit a child next to a school might face real jail time or at the least be put on trial and investigated. Who at Waymo will face similar consequences or risk for the same outcome?
by gerdesj | 2026-01-30 01:01:34+00:00
"from behind a tall SUV, "

I look for shadows underneath stationary vehicles. I might also notice pedestrians "vanishing". I have a rather larger "context" than any robot effort.

However, I am just one example of human. My experience of never managing to run someone over is just an anecdote ... so far. The population of humans as a whole manages to run each other over rather regularly.

A pretty cheap instant human sensor might be Bluetooth/BLE noting phones/devices in near range. Pop a sensor in each wing mirror and on the top and bottom. The thing would need some processing power but probably nothing that the built in Android dash screen couldn't handle.

There are lots more sensors that car manufacturers are trying to avoid for cost reasons, that would make a car way better at understanding the context of the world around it.

I gather that Tesla insist on optical (cameras) only and won't do LIDAR. My EV has four cameras and I find it quite hard to see what is going on when it is pissing down with rain, in the same way I do if I don't clean my specs.
by Atlas667 | 2026-01-30 01:02:06+00:00
Just cause knowledge can be reduced to predictive capabilities and judgement calls does not mean systems are defined arbitrarily. Everything is defined as to its relative function in/to society and our material endeavors and the social forces that limit or expand on areas of these systems.

First we have to live. That has implications; it's the base for all knowledge.

Knowledge is developing all the time and can be uncertain, sure, but the foundations aren't arbitrary.

You are doing an idealism.
by stephenitis | 2026-01-30 01:04:07+00:00
doesn’t that bacteria strain need to colonize your mouth somehow? how would that happen if we are constantly exposing our mouths to various foods, liquids, and dental products?

citing the discovery from 1987? synthesis of the strain in 2002, and then moving onto the product recommendation without going into the mechanisms that allow such a bacteria to persist after just one magical application feels very snake oil to me.

we can use metagenomics to test the rna and dna of our oral microbiome. (testing is somewhere around $200-400 a swab currently)

show me the data even with a low N value of test subjects that give a oral microbiome analysis weeks, months, and years out after just 1 application and you’ll have my curiosity, maybe my money.

also give recommendations about if and what habits and behaviors would wreck this expensive bacterium’s viability in our mouths.

*
this is coming from a father whose tested their child’s poop with inhale every 4 weeks or so several times to debug a believed to be rare (but science doesn’t truly know) staphylococcus aureus & eczema issue

i’m skeptical but i’ll stay open minded

found this explanation on why they went the probiotic route rather than seek FDA approval.
from their subreddit that
https://x.com/yishan/status/1780131552615420189

> 1. Move forward with manufacturing and distributing this as a probiotic supplement
> 2. Once a critical mass of biohackers and early adopters take this treatment, other third-party research can get involved

https://www.reddit.com/r/lanternbioworks/s/01haEdviDz
by djoldman | 2026-01-30 01:05:14+00:00
The basic calculus is that if you decrease the number of minutes of doctor time enough, it doesn't really matter if they are 100% correct (0 minutes of 100% correct = 0 advice).

Patients are substituting 15 minutes of 100% correct information for 2 hours of 80%, or whatever percentage the AIs are.

Additionally, they're pretty much free at the moment and available 24/7 with no travel required.
by metalman | 2026-01-30 01:05:32+00:00
OK
Its like this!, If I hit a child in a school district, I loose my licence for many years, and if I dont or cant show remourse, it could be longer, I pay fines, etc
Therefor waymo, must have it's algorythm terminated, ie: totaly destroyed, all the hardware smashed, and they never get to try again with any derivitive of this technology, as there is no reasonable, understandable path towards repentence and rehabilitation, it is litteraly a monster running over children.
or was it carrying an ICE team, then nevermind.
by bityard | 2026-01-30 01:05:42+00:00
I bought a bambu p1s recently and it can be used entirely offline.

You can import models to orcaslicer (open source), do your slicing, and export the g code file to SD card.

If you want to skip the SD card, block the printer's mac/ip address at the firewall and set up WiFi. Then send the print directly from orcaslicer.

That being said, my gut says bambu is going to slowly require a persistent connection to the cloud at some point. Maybe they think they are an EV car company.
by rgoulter | 2026-01-30 01:06:47+00:00
Chatting with an LLM resembles chatting with a person.

A human might be "empathetic", "infinitely patient, infinitely available". And (say) a book or a calculator is infinitely available. -- When chatting with an LLM, you get an interface that's more personable than a calculator without being less available.

I know the LLM is predicting text, & outputting whatever is most convincing. But it's still tempting to say "thank you" after the LLM generates a response which I found helpful.
by JumpCrisscross | 2026-01-30 01:06:58+00:00
> Don't you see the same problems with Ukraine and Ethiopia?

Not commonly.

> I've seen if you don't 100% agree with a Ukraine supporter they call you a Putin bootlicker

I’m sorry. Fuck those guys.

They’re doing damage to the cause in exchange for self aggrandizement. Ersatz therapy through others’ misery is ghoulish.

Perhaps it’s a problem of degrees and segregation. I see much less of that with those fronts. And to the degree it exists, it sequesters itself online and away from the people doing anything useful for the folks on the ground. (My work in Ukraine involved some arms early and then purely political help. In Ethiopia it’s been humanitarian.)

When it comes to Palestine, I see basically zero people quietly focused on the work. (I’ll grant this may be due to ignorance. But it’s exhausting to trawl through shit. And I don’t think I’m alone in disengaging on that basis.)
by kvntrnz | 2026-01-30 01:07:36+00:00
Hey HN,

I built a Chrome extension that auto-labels LinkedIn connection requests based on who's sending them.

Chrome Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/Request%20Radar/pmp...

THE PROBLEM:

I receive 50+ LinkedIn requests weekly. About half are recruiters with legitimate opportunities. The other half are MLM pitches, life coaches, and "passive income" schemes.

Sorting through them manually took 20+ minutes weekly. Worse: I missed 2 recruiter messages from companies I actually wanted to work for because they were buried.

THE SOLUTION:

Request Radar scans invitation text and adds visual badges:
- Green: Recruiters/talent acquisition (don't miss these)
- Red: Spam (MLM, coaches, scams)
- Blue: Normal professionals

TECHNICAL DETAILS:

- Vanilla JavaScript content script
- MutationObserver for dynamic content
- Chrome Storage API for settings persistence
- Keyword-based classification (simple > complex)
- Zero external API calls - entirely client-side

Performance:
- 15ms average per invitation
- Runs on page mutations (doesn't poll)
- Lightweight: <50KB total

PRIVACY:

- No data collection whatsoever
- No analytics or tracking
- Settings stored locally via Chrome sync storage
- Read-only - doesn't auto-accept/reject anything
- Source code could be audited (considering open-sourcing)

ACCURACY:

~85% with default keywords. Users can customize to improve.

False positives: "Sales" roles sometimes flagged as spam (working on better context detection)
False negatives: Generic titles like "Consultant" without other indicators

WHAT I LEARNED:

1. Chrome extensions are underrated for distribution
2. Simple keyword matching works better than I expected
3. Privacy features are a selling point
4. Users prioritize speed > accuracy (instant feedback matters)

FUTURE:

Considering:
- Open-sourcing it
- Analytics dashboard (local-only, shows patterns over time)
- Premium tier with advanced features
- Port to other platforms (Twitter DMs?)

Would love feedback on:
1. Classification accuracy improvements
2. Other platforms where this would be useful
3. Feature requests
4. Technical implementation critiques

Built this over a weekend after getting frustrated. Clearly I'm not alone - 1,000+ installs in the first week.

Happy to answer questions!
by Terr_ | 2026-01-30 01:07:40+00:00
Treating humans differently makes sense because the "badness" of a judgement isn't just the correctness of an outcome, but also the nature of the process that created it, and humans are a different process.

For example, if two humans get the same correct answer, we naturally favor the one that reached it through facts and reasoning as opposed to the one that literally flipped a coin.
by jaredklewis | 2026-01-30 01:08:19+00:00
> I understand that recruiters/hiring managers/whatever get a lot of junk applications, but frankly, it is your job to sort through them. You are paid to do this.

Recruiters, hiring managers, and whatevers are humans too, with ordinary human limitations. Just because they are paid to do something doesn't mean they gain superhuman capabilities.

Even if I am a recruiter with nothing else to do, if I get 5k applications for a role each week, I won't individually review 5k applications in a week. It's not possible. So I will have to rely on some automated system that filters out most of those applications. Who knows how good that system is.

On the other hand, if I get 100 mail applications for a role each week, that I can review that.

I'm not in love with this proposal, but I definitely see the appeal. Adding a little cost/effort on the applicant side automatically filters out a ton of applicants that have not bothered to learn anything about the role or company.

In the past I've had success with adding things to the job description like: "please include a link to your favorite gif in your email." And that filters out about 95% of applicants who don't read the job description and don't have a gif link in their email. But with LLMs I imagine those kinds of filters work less well than before.
by pornel | 2026-01-30 01:08:52+00:00
Rust's generics are entirely type-based, not syntax-based. They must declare all the traits (concepts) they need. The type system has restrictions that prevent violating ODR. It's very reliable, but some use-cases that would be basic in C++ (numeric code) can be tedious to define.

Generic code is stored in libraries as MIR, which is half way between AST and LLVM IR. It's still monomorphic and slow to optimize, but at least doesn't pay reparsing cost.
by gnabgib | 2026-01-30 01:09:32+00:00
This was in the original announcement[0] (1038 points, 17 days ago, 654 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46589675

[0]: https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/company-annou...

> After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users. Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple's industry-leading privacy standards.
by ryan_rudd | 2026-01-30 01:09:53+00:00
I keep running into the same thing across different teams and it’s starting to bug me.
Non-technical people leave feedback like:
“move this up”
“this looks weird on mobile”
“can you tweak the spacing”
“this copy feels off”
And then that feedback ends up:
half in Slack
half in email
a screenshot with an arrow
or someone just describing it from memory
Nothing breaks, but it’s annoying. Engineers have to guess context, ask follow-ups, recheck the page, and small changes somehow take longer than they should.
I don’t know if this is just the teams I’ve seen or if this is universal.
I’m messing around with a Chrome-based thing that lets people leave feedback directly on the site instead of explaining it in words. Mostly just to see if it actually reduces back-and-forth or if it’s a solution looking for a problem.
Before I go any further with it:
Is this actually painful for you?
Or do you already have a clean way of handling this?
If anyone wants to try it when it’s usable, I’ll give a free month in exchange for honest feedback. Not trying to sell anything here — genuinely deciding whether this is worth continuing.
Curious how others deal with this.
by cujo1234 | 2026-01-30 01:11:09+00:00
In addition to the reasons already mentioned (natural difficulties in translating results from animal models to humans), even attempting to achieve the same results in vitro and in animal models is complicated. They estimated that the reproducibility of these studies is approximately 50%. See Errington, T. M., Mathur, M., Soderberg, C. K., Denis, A., Perfito, N., Iorns, E., & Nosek, B. A. (2021). Investigating the replicability of preclinical cancer biology. elife, 10, e71601. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71601
by elgertam | 2026-01-30 01:12:28+00:00
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