korrents

← People and their mental models

ThePrimeagen's mental models

2 claims ThePrimeagen made fit 2 mental models. Most often: Craft in the details, Lock-in and switching costs. Everything they said here.

Models they name

Their own words name the idea.

Craft in the details

Care about the parts nobody sees; quality shows in the details.

What an LLM cannot supply is caring about the craft: it completes the task, where a person goes back and makes the thing better.

  1. ThePrimeagen Michael Paulson, known online as ThePrimeagen It doesn't actually care about the craft. But when you work with an intern or you work with somebody else, they care. When they factor something, they actually go over and go, "Oh yeah, this is actually kind of bad. I'm going to come back to that." They finish this, they go back over here and they make this even better. They actually care about the thing itself. ThePrimeagen: Programming, AI, ADHD, Productivity, Addiction, and God | Lex Fridman Podcast #461youtube.com · 22 Mar 2025 · 4:37:42 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    It doesn't actually care about the craft. But when you work with an intern or you work with somebody else, they care. When they factor something, they actually go over and go, "Oh yeah, this is actually kind of bad. I'm going to come back to that." They finish this, they go back over here and they make this even better. They actually care about the thing itself.

Lock-in and switching costs

People stay with what they would not choose again because leaving costs more than staying; watch who sets that cost.

VS Code and Copilot are loss leaders in an embrace-extend-extinguish play, raising the switching cost until nobody can leave.

  1. ThePrimeagen Michael Paulson, known online as ThePrimeagen Whereas something like Microsoft, they made VS Code as a loss leader. Copilot's probably operating on a loss leader. These things are all getting you so tied into, GitHub, remote workspaces, CI, Copilot, you become this trapped in permanent person and if that price rises, the switching cost is so great at some point that you'll never be able to switch. ThePrimeagen: Programming, AI, ADHD, Productivity, Addiction, and God | Lex Fridman Podcast #461youtube.com · 22 Mar 2025 · 5:03:35 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    Whereas something like Microsoft, they made VS Code as a loss leader. Copilot's probably operating on a loss leader. These things are all getting you so tied into, GitHub, remote workspaces, CI, Copilot, you become this trapped in permanent person and if that price rises, the switching cost is so great at some point that you'll never be able to switch.