"Summly's entire business model seems to revolve around catering to this demographic. Frankly, it pains me."
I reads like a critique of Chubby Checker's "Twist" from a professor a Julliard. Perhaps, and I say that because I can't know what they were really thinking, but perhaps that was the point. This company had successfully "catered to this demographic" (which was defined as young hipster like brogrammers) and while those guys drink their PBR and deck out their mancaves perhaps it is a demographic that Yahoo desperately wants to reach? Maybe the whole point was that Yahoo folks were building things for middle-aged dot boomers and not for the cool kids.
Maybe the goal was to get more people who could quickly assemble a MVP from existing APIs that appealed to the emerging cohort of buyers and trendsetters. Maybe NLP wasn't the point.
Well, I'm not finding a lot inherently wrong with using new and existing apis to make other things. I would in fact argue that that is why we create apis.
However, I feel like people aren't very upfront with the fact that they are building on top of APIs. For whatever reason, there's this perception that arranging existing resources into a more valuable arrangement is somehow not a valid approach.
I've got to say that people who can quickly assemble appealing MVPs from existing markets are exactly the sort of people Yahoo need, but the reported purchasing figures is a hefty price to pay for three staff, especially if all the available evidence points to them being productive startup generalists rather than visionary corporate project managers
Imagine how many MVPs Yahoo's existing staff could create if allocated $30 million of development time for skunkworks projects...
>Maybe the goal was to get more people who could quickly assemble a MVP from existing APIs that appealed to the emerging cohort of buyers and trendsetters.
There is a lot to be said for building the right thing; but the actual ability to assemble such products are very common and even the very premium skills are definitely for sale at market rates much lower than $15MM per year.
The skills are common here, not in general, and $15MM (total, not per year) is a cost of purchasing the assembled infrastructure, not the idea and potential to build. I don't think this is a wise expenditure, but you're attacking it from a poor angle.
"Summly's entire business model seems to revolve around catering to this demographic. Frankly, it pains me."
I reads like a critique of Chubby Checker's "Twist" from a professor a Julliard. Perhaps, and I say that because I can't know what they were really thinking, but perhaps that was the point. This company had successfully "catered to this demographic" (which was defined as young hipster like brogrammers) and while those guys drink their PBR and deck out their mancaves perhaps it is a demographic that Yahoo desperately wants to reach? Maybe the whole point was that Yahoo folks were building things for middle-aged dot boomers and not for the cool kids.
Maybe the goal was to get more people who could quickly assemble a MVP from existing APIs that appealed to the emerging cohort of buyers and trendsetters. Maybe NLP wasn't the point.