When Tokens Flow Like Electricity (S2E3)
These names come from one source each and are not confirmed yet.
“I think in, say, half a year, the price of GPT-5, 6 levels of intelligence will be dirt cheap compared to right now.”
Thorsten predicts that within six months the cost of advanced models like GPT‑5 will become extremely low.
“Intelligence is getting cheaper and cheaper, and anyone who thinks there's going to be a rug pull, the quote-unquote subsidies will end— there's no evidence that subscriptions, which is what people usually mean, are actually unprofitable.”
Quinn believes AI subsidies won’t disappear and that subscription models remain viable.
“And for the longest time, everyone said, oh, you can't make any money in it. And now people have completely changed to the point where it feels like everybody is building dev tools. And that also is probably not correct.”
Quinn challenges the notion that building developer tools is now universally profitable.
“You can get like 80% of the way there, but what we found is the 20% makes a lot of difference.”
The last 20% of development effort is crucial.
“In the age of, I take a screenshot and I say, build this for me, that equation has changed. That scale has been tipped.”
AI agents are shifting the build‑vs‑buy equation.
“I built a bug tracker into Amp last week, right? And it was one-shot and it was deeply integrated into our system.”
Thorsten added a custom bug tracker to AMP quickly and tightly.
“If you want an integration, you can just ask, you know, Puck or AMP in a thread to go set up a webhook.”
Use Puck or AMP to create webhooks via chat.
“I do think that people will be doing that more and more, but there's this view.”
He predicts that more teams will build their own custom software instead of using large packages.
“I do not want to think about authentication. I do not. I just don't want to do it.”
Thorsten prefers not to handle authentication himself and wants it provided by others.
“you want someone to have thought about that so that you don't have to think about it.”
Advice to rely on a solid core that already handles infrastructure concerns.
“the biggest blocker right now, I would say, is our deployment pipeline.”
The main current obstacle for AMP is its deployment pipeline.
“shout out to Ian. He was like, hey, can you build this for me? I sent off the prompt, it did it. And then it was like my 8:30, I had to put the kids to bed and whatnot.”
Thorsten recounts quickly building a feature for Ian with an agent before bedtime.
“in the past, software was boring. It had to be mediocre. Because of that principle of the software business, you build it in year 1 and then you milk it for the next 10 years by—”
Quinn argues that legacy software was intentionally mediocre to maximize long‑term profits.
“if you trust us, then use AMP and we think you'll have a great time.”
Quinn encourages listeners to adopt AMP if they trust the team.
“intelligence is cheap and tokens are cheap and thus labor, like intelligence labor is cheap.”
Thorsten notes that while compute is cheap, human insight remains valuable.
“Tim Culverhouse, for those who don't know, he built his own terminal emulator. He built his own, I think, Wayland compositor window manager. He built his own email client. He built like everything he uses, he built himself. He owns shell. He has his own shell running in his own terminal.”
Thorsten shares a story about Tim Culverhouse building his own entire toolchain, illustrating deep customization.
“And everything is changing faster. So if you are someone who has thought X and then you found X to not be true, I mean, we have, and it's very humbling, then you just get your mind to a place where you permanently are more open of crazy changes out there.”
Quinn advises staying open‑minded as rapid changes overturn previous assumptions.