Good Stuff 44 - Is this the death of Software?

The Good Stuff, Episode 44: Is This the Death of Software?Pete and Andy revisit the death of SaaS thesis from episode one. and is it really playing out?**Key Moments:**- [00:40] Andy's hot take: everyone's having opinions on the death of software- [01:05] Callback to episode one: "Where does the value flow?" — they called this two years ago- [02:08] Client realization: "People could just build their own stuff, can't they?" - [02:54] The thesis: software development is now a commodity, value distributes- [03:55] "I've never talked to a Trello engineer. What's the chance they accidentally build something perfect for me?"- [05:04] The Claude Code catalyst: everyone suddenly noticed software is dying- [06:18] Lawyer holdouts still judging AI based on ChatGPT from two years ago- [07:35] The old model: harvest complexity, amortize across millions of users. "You don't need to do that anymore."- [11:11] "Is SaaS dead?" — Big SaaS is dead. Local SaaS is thriving.- [12:10] Rise of the farmer's market: your local dev shop is better than it's ever been- [17:23] Not one-man unicorns — "way more people being a one-man band making one to ten million dollar businesses"- [19:07] "You don't want to be a billionaire. You want to be a 21 millionaire."- [19:55] Sacks defending Salesforce: "A million patches therefore no one can build it" — completely missing the point- [20:22] "There's nothing hard about having a list of customers and a list of tasks, which is what it is."- [21:03] Excel analogy returns: Rolls-Royce ran on spreadsheets and macros before SAP- [25:05] Steel-manning big corp: trust, procurement, compliance gravitates to established vendors- [28:40] "Most people don't use it. They take opinions from people that don't use it."- [29:14] Swimming analogy: "It's hard to stay dry while learning to swim."- [35:02] Elite programmers saying they don't write code anymore — "both can't be true, guys"- [37:14] THE PARENTING ANALOGY: Getting a 10-year-old ready for running practice = prompt engineering- [39:45] "Quarter past five, we're leaving" = one-shotting. Breaking into tasks = prompt engineering.- [41:02] "This is how you explain to people how to work with AIs. It's going to hit so hard if they're parents."- [42:00] Set and setting: telling Claude it's an elite engineer "weirdly makes a difference"- [42:21] Andy throws in "great work, excellent" between tasks — performance management for models- [43:54] Research: getting aggressive makes AI nervous, hides mistakes, won't self-correct- [46:02] Overload problem: "Shit, this thing works so much quicker than me"- [48:03] Stream of consciousness mode for writing — removes the AI-isms- [50:06] "Everything will be software. It really will eat everything. It just won't be delivered by one set of people in Silicon Valley."- [50:38] Hot take: vibe coding is actually NET POSITIVE for cybersecurity- [51:03] "Information wants to be free. The most ridiculous thing you can do is put it all in one place."- [52:25] Much more software. Many more people will build it. More boutique businesses.- [52:49] The 21 millionaire era: "Deca millionaires"- [54:15] Marginal gains plug: "Like a business gym where I get leaner and stronger every month"- [55:22] "Like, comment, subscribe. We're not great at responding but we'll get better."- [56:06] Why they do the podcast: "50 hours of content on this subject that anybody can listen to and vet us"**Quote:** "It's like the rise of the farmer's market. People are going to go back to buying local. Your local person that you can talk to probably understands your problem better than the other person. It's so quick to resolve things that you're going to get a better service by someone that's closer to you."