Came here to comment on this line: it completely changes the tone of the article. It's fairly reasonable and neutral until we get here, upon which the antagonism is jarringly clear.
In fact I would posit this is the central crux of the post: OP does not believe those LLM evangelists were ever good programmers.
As others have already noted[1], many well-known excellent programmers - including yourself! and now even Linus! - would beg to differ.
> But for now, I want to emphasize a broader point: I’m hoping 2026 will be the year we stop caring about what people believe AI might do, and instead start reacting to its real, present capabilities.
> So, this is how I’m thinking about AI in 2026. Enough of the predictions. I’m done reacting to hypotheticals propped up by vibes. The impacts of the technologies that already exist are already more than enough to concern us for now…
SPOT ON, let us all take inspiration. "The impacts of the technologies that already exist are already more than enough to concern us for now"!
> Does HBO+Netflix have a 25% share of the streaming market? I've no idea, but possibly.
No, not even close. According to Nielsen from this year, Netflix has only 7.5% of total TV hours and "Warner Bros + Discovery" clocks in at 1.5% ("HBO" as an independent entity is not tracked), for a total of 9%. A whopping 16% to go before crossing that 25% threshold.
Those percentages are of total TV hours, which isn't quite what I was talking about. Still though if you include YouTube (I personally wouldn't as I don't think they're providing a directly comparable product) they're still below 25% which is interesting.
"Amusement Park" has to be one of the worst headline choices here. So these people are amused by building killing machines? They are amused that their work is directly related to death & destruction? They are monsters if so.
I hoped someone had hijacked that name for an actual "amusement park for engineers", coincidentally hitting all the right key words, but in terms of trademark protections occupying a completely unrelated commercial domain. Would be really, really funny if Anduril (not the amusement park) sales and marketing folks would have to append "not the amusement park", when speaking about Anduril (not the amusement park).
In fact I would posit this is the central crux of the post: OP does not believe those LLM evangelists were ever good programmers.
As others have already noted[1], many well-known excellent programmers - including yourself! and now even Linus! - would beg to differ.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46610143