Ask HN: My CEO wants to go hard on AI. What do I do?

I'm the lead software engineer at a company building a B2B hardware/software product in the US. Great team, great technology, great PMF and good progress on revenue targets. There are lots of opportunities for how to develop the product further. It's been an extremely hard scale-up but we are finally starting to see it pay off.

I'm struggling with the CEO being increasingly focussed on investing heavily in AI. I'm not opposed to using this tech at all – it's amazing, and we incorporate a variety of different ML models across our stack where they are useful. But this strategy has evolved to the point where we are limiting resource on key teams aligned with core business to invest in an AI team.

The argument seems to be that they've realized the only way to achieve the next round of funding is to be "AI-first". There is no product roadmap for what this looks like, or what features might be involved, or why we'd want to do it from a product point of view. Instead the reason is that this is the only way to attract a big series C round.

I'm not well-informed enough to know if this is the correct approach to scaling. Instead of working on useful, in-demand product features, it feels like we're spending a lot of time looking at a distant future that we'll struggle to reach if we take our eye off of the ball. Is this normal? Are other organizations going through the same struggle? For the first time in five years I feel completely out of my depth.

From what I've seen, anyone giving you definitive answers is blowing smoke. I've seen teams go for AI, do it well, and succeed. I've also seen teams go for AI, f it up, and all get fired as the company shuts down.

The question is whether the key value of your product can benefit from the strengths of AI? If not, don't go there. If so, you then need to determine if your team can actually deliver an AI-driven vision that enhances the existing value prop. Again, if not, don't go there. If so, do it.

But from your description, your CEO is not asking those questions - they are asking, "How do we get more funding?" Which tells me that your CEO doesn't give a crap about building a product, they are just trying to make money and get some nice bullet points on their resume about the size of a company they led.

That puts you in the position of choosing whether you want to go on a VC-driven startup ride just to have the experience, or whether you want a product-driven role. People have their reasons for both directions, but if you want a product-driven role, you are out of alignment with your CEO and probably shouldn't work for them.

17 hours agoby codingdave

Work with them on a product roadmap?

I've seen folks wanting big changes and we sit down and draw things up and surprisingly it looks like the old roadmap. Everyone is happy and I don't say anything about the similarities, and most importantly we're on the same page ;)

Sometimes when leadership asks for big changes, even when they say big changes, you might find if you get into the details it's not THAT big a change.

In the meantime don't let your mind run too wild assuming and worrying about what they might be asking for. I do that too, it's a developer thing I think, we start considering possibilities or even misused terminology and we get into a loop ;)

18 hours agoby duxup

Draw up the product roadmap such that you can claim maximum AI-ness while including as little of it as possible in the actual product. Sounds like the CEO doesn't have any technical objections to not using AI, he just wants the ability to raise on AI branding.

Include as much non-AI work as you can in the AI teams' projects, pitch an "AI efficiency initiative" that minimizes new spend on AI with the justification of other teams picking up the slack, talk up whatever ML you're already doing, etc.

18 hours agoby somesortofthing

It seems like it's worth taking some time to steel-man the AI argument, even if your CEO hasn't made it very well.

E.g. If you don't work on AI now, and AI models keep improving, how likely is it that a competitor who integrates AI well will eat your lunch? If it's >50%, it seems worth it to shift some focus to AI regardless of the series C round.

This post from a few days ago has some great tips on how to integrate AI _well_: https://koomen.dev/essays/horseless-carriages/

18 hours agoby ahussain

Unless you own the business, you work for your investors.

If investors only want AI, then you will either be forced to do that (whatever it means), do something else but make it look to them like AI, convince them they're wrong, or quit.

Things are a little more nuanced if your existing investors side with you but all new investors are AI-driven. Then you don't have to quit, but you do have to run the business without new outside capital. This may or may not be possible. If not, you still have to quit.

17 hours agoby ElevenLathe

I don't know what industry your company is in, but godspeed to your CEO on tanking your company with AI bullshit so that this stupid f**ing bubble pops and everyone can go back to thinking carefully using their brain instead of working on better serving Roko's Basilisk.

Couldn't be more excited for this kind of short-sighted, AI-instead-of-people thinking to become shameful. How many people need to aim the gun at their foot and pull the trigger before they're not bragging as they do it?

17 hours agoby conartist6

Bear in mind there is not always a strong relation between "what will improve the product", "what will attract customers", and "what will attract funding". A big part of the CEO job is to manage all of those at once.

As the engineer you need to support all three, while being the voice of realism (internally). But don't get confused when they conflict -- they always conflict to some degree.

18 hours agoby wrs

> The argument seems to be that they've realized the only way to achieve the next round of funding is to be "AI-first".

This is the argument for virtually every company going AI-first: it's just a way to scam VCs.

It seems crazy but it really works.

17 hours agoby pera

Keep in mind that your company is the product. And the customers are Wall Street.

Your product is not really the product. So the only thing that really matters is how your company is perceived to those who could potentially buy it and give your C-suite an exit.

18 hours agoby supportengineer

Trends come and go: What's important is that your CEO isn't underinvesting in the product.

I once was in a company during the "everyone is going to replace their laptops with tablets next year era." The CEO pushed heavily for mobile, and underinvested in the actual product.

A year later, all of our customers were still using their laptops. We were sold to a private equity firm, the CEO was pushed out, and (almost) everyone who worked on the failed mobile product was out of a job.

In your case, I'd try to decide if your CEO is just following a fad. If so, next year they will follow a different fad. Are you critical to your business? If so, you'll be critical to your business with or without AI. If not, figure out how to make yourself critical to your business without being vulnerable to this year's fad...

(...And perhaps ask ChatGPT for advice. If you can't beat it, join it.)

18 hours agoby gwbas1c

Your CEO is correct that ~80% of VC funding is currently focused on AI. So you have only 2 options basically. You either don't raise VC funding (which means hitting break even, rule of 40% performance). Or, you go all in on AI

If it's not an AI story for your business you need exceptional metrics. Like growing from 8M to 24M in a year for a C round.

18 hours agoby tschellenbach

This is where you need multiple levels of management so that you can create a different reality for the investors than for the engineers and then just chalk it up to “communication difficulties”.

The CEO needs to tell the investors that the company is all-in on AI. At the same time, the CEO needs to tell the engineers to use AI judiciously to support real customer needs, but not go hog-wild with it where it doesn’t make sense. This sort of situation, where you need to tell one group one set of facts to get them to act but another group a different set of facts, is fairly common in business (and politics).

The way big corporations handle this is to have many layers of management and a very diffuse set of responsibilities so that nobody is outright “lying”, they’re just interpreting what they’ve been told in a way that makes sense relative to their job responsibilities. The way startups handle it is to lie and hope that by the time they get caught, their results speak for themselves.

17 hours agoby nostrademons

Relevant anecdote from Bill Gurley's talk: https://youtu.be/7PkWc-IDTHk?si=p8AUBHqXa76HuA6A&t=3228

"If the the average CIO is committing 10 or 15% of their budget to AI. If you're not in that you're getting shrunk."

18 hours agoby data4lyfe

Who will be responsible for figuring out what AI features to build? I think it is reasonable to look into it, seriously, with the point of view of "can we disrupt ourselves before being disrupted." This doesn't mean putting a significant engineering team behind this, but, to put a significant effort in figuring out what is it you could build, and what an ROI on that would be.

You've two outcomes from this, either you do find a disruptive AI angle and move a sufficiently-large part of your team to it, or you don't, but figure out a minimal effort that would satisfy the "investor positioning angle". The third option, to do nothing or aggressively push back against AI and the CEO's desire, would potentially yield to no Series C or a down-round, which is something that you, your CEO, and your customers would not like.

17 hours agoby notfried

Right now, there are too many shovels, but not enough miners. That is to say, very few concrete use cases, but a lot of tool vendors.

Most AI "deployments" I have seen, are glorified knowledge search engines, or query engines. There are some content/code assistants as well. It is also the least intrusive way to be "AI - First". There is too much noise, too little value , but yet a significant pressure to be an "AI company". Most startups are feeling this (including the one I work at).

Unfortunately, VCs are always blinded by the next cool thing to invest in. So I think of it as a marketing feature that you have to build, rather than any real roadmap thing.

17 hours agoby throwaway7783

The problem here is that your company is on the "get the next round of funding" train instead of on the "get revenue from customers" train. It's a bigger problem then irrational love of AI. You will consistently sacrifice the product and your customers in favor of whatever people think will get you the next round of funding. If you manage to solve your current funding crisis by convincing some investor that you have an AI plan, don't worry, you'll have another crisis in a few months.

17 hours agoby danjl

I never understood this obsession with what the underlying technology is. Saying we need to be "AI-first" is like saying we need to be "Blockchain-first" or "Python-first." Who ultimately fucking cares what technology is being used to build a product? You could build it with acorns, and if the customer needs it, you should be able to make money.

15 hours agoby ryandrake

Here's what you should assess:

> Great team, great technology, great PMF and good progress on revenue targets.

Good progress on revenue targets from _your_ perspective sounds like not great growth, but communicated softly.

> The argument seems to be that they've realized the only way to achieve the next round of funding is to be "AI-first". There is no product roadmap for what this looks like, or what features might be involved, or why we'd want to do it from a product point of view. Instead the reason is that this is the only way to attract a big series C round.

This is not a thing a company does when they have good enough growth. Adequate revenue growth when you need a series C must be very good growth. Adequate growth when you'e profitable is a very different thing.

> Instead of working on useful, in-demand product features, it feels like we're spending a lot of time looking at a distant future that we'll struggle to reach if we take our eye off of the ball. Is this normal?

Yes, very normal. If I'm you, I'm wondering if there's really product/market fit. Useful, in demand product features almost don't matter. Building more does not make more money happen.

But also, the AI stuff is disruptive. In a way that the internet was. I think what you should probably judge most strongly here is if there is ANYONE with influence that has a take on how that looks for your company. That take probably includes "how this makes a lot of what we do irrelevant".

Absent that, I'd just write the company off. If you like the job great. If you don't like the work enough to be happy while the company atrophies, I think you're going to have a rough time.

16 hours agoby mrkurt

I had to think of the Dilbert comic strip where the pointy haired boss wants an SQL database and asks Dilbert what colour it should have.

Turns out someone already made a version with AI as the desirable technology du jour.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/1dckq74/so...

17 hours agoby antfarm

If you trust the CEO's leadership, work hard. The CEO has to worry about runway, not engineers.

If not, I'd say make a data-backed case for another course of action, or find another job.

Most CEOs I've worked with would be open to hearing a well-reasoned argument for another course of action.

Also presenting a good case can be a nice career move even if it's not adopted.

18 hours agoby djtriptych

Its normal. Too see it look at the financials. Don't look at the tech alone. Otherwise analysis is incomplete.

"useful, in-demand product features" have to generate revenue greater than cost. If its too low or execs think there are better ways to grow the firm then these decision happen all the time.