> every additional partner had the potential to break big, important parts of our stack
...
> our distaste for contractual and technical lock-in grew dramatically
I learned this through osmosis at one financial-adjacent company I worked for. Every senior technical manager was extremely hostile to any third-party integration. I personally saw several product driven initiatives completely dropped because it would require even the slightest lock-in.
When I see posts on HN or Reddit where the startup mentions a tech-stack built entirely on third-party services, I cringe. That is one of my main frustrations with the current AI wave - where most businesses are only viable with a quality of AI that is available only through third-parties. I believe in 3-5 years we'll be reading a lot of blog posts just like this one telling the same story about how their AI startup was forced to fold due to some locked-in provider changing policies.
I learned this through osmosis at one financial-adjacent company I worked for. Every senior technical manager was extremely hostile to any third-party integration. I personally saw several product driven initiatives completely dropped because it would require even the slightest lock-in.
When I see posts on HN or Reddit where the startup mentions a tech-stack built entirely on third-party services, I cringe. That is one of my main frustrations with the current AI wave - where most businesses are only viable with a quality of AI that is available only through third-parties. I believe in 3-5 years we'll be reading a lot of blog posts just like this one telling the same story about how their AI startup was forced to fold due to some locked-in provider changing policies.