Gilded Turd and Grubby Truffle aren't the only two combinations.
Gilded Turd and Grubby Truffle aren't the only two combinations. You also can have Gilded Truffle: best of both worlds. You also can have Grubby Turd: worst of b...
Topic: gilded turd
34 chunks · 23 episodes
Topic summary
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A short read on the topic's time range, peak episode, and strongest associations. Use it as the quick orientation before drilling into examples.
- gilded turd appears in 34 chunks across 23 episodes, from 2024-04-15 to 2026-04-20.
- Its densest episode is Bits and Bobs 3/9/26 (2026-03-09), with 4 observations on this topic.
- Semantically it travels with grubby truffle, disconfirming evidence, and llms, while by chunk count it sits between Radagast and paying attention; its yearly rank moved from #63 in 2024 to #9 in 2026.
Over time
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Raw mentions over time. Use this to see absolute attention, not relative rank among all topics.
Observations
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The primary evidence view for this topic. Sort it chronologically when you want concrete examples behind the larger pattern.
Steve Strassmann has a frame, Delicious Poison and Disgusting Cleanup.
...ve Strassmann has a frame, Delicious Poison and Disgusting Cleanup. Rhymes with Gilded Turd / Grubby Truffle. These are two situations where the short-term and the long-term are disjoint. But we tend to pick based on the short-term, even whe...
LLMs do the gilding better than the fundamentals.
...s. Goodhart's law. So vibecoding and other agentic production processes produce gilded turds by default. This mean that the more shiny things are, the more suspicious people are of the underlying quality. Superficial quality is now extremely...
Can you muscle through the process or do you need a compounding process?
...n to "how long is the tail?" If the tail is short and stubby, a linear, heroic, Gilded Turd approach might be viable. If there's no tail, just muscle through as quickly as possible. If the tail is long, then no amount of muscling through wil...
Short time horizons structurally select for Gilded Turds.
Short time horizons structurally select for Gilded Turds. If you have a long-enough time horizon, the benefit of the compounding curve becomes way more common, and the Grubby Truffle becomes a no-brainer.
Selecting for good enough and selecting for great pull you in two different directions.
...ng for great pull you in two different directions. The former pulls you towards Gilded Turds. The latter pulls you towards Grubby Truffles. This creates the process of canalization: when robustness of a good enough outcome is more important ...
Everyone can tell a Gilded Turd has value at the beginning.
Everyone can tell a Gilded Turd has value at the beginning. Only someone with differentiated insight can see the value of the Grubby Truffle at the beginning.
Vibecoding makes software that looks great.
...ocumentation for a piece of shit that doesn't work. Vibecoded software produces Gilded Turds.
Vibecoding to create clones of useful software produces Gilded Turds by default.
Vibecoding to create clones of useful software produces Gilded Turds by default. "I vibecoded a clone of X app" really means "I vibecoded something that looks like that app." The LLMs are great at making it look right...
Google released a CLI for their APIs, gws.
...uth flows. Something only a massive, sprawling bureaucracy could be proud of. A Gilded Turd.
HP was injecting mandatory 15-minute support call wait times.
...lation that is even more in need of hand-holding for support. Classic MBA-style gilded turd logarithmic-benefit-for-exponential-cost.
The way the software business model has worked:
...er software business model is ultimately about holding users' data hostage. The Gilded Turd model of software. Looks great, but the longer you use it the more you realize the deal stinks.
A blog post: As AI Turns Prevalent, UI Becomes Irrelevant.
...iated by having really polished UIs. That matters less than it ever has before. Gilded Turds.[bo]
If you over-polish for the level of underlying momentum, it looks like a Gilded Turd.
If you over-polish for the level of underlying momentum, it looks like a Gilded Turd. The closer people look, the less compelling it looks. This means that it looks like you're "pushing" it further than it would go on its own naturall...
Finding Grubby Truffles is about smell.
...mell. People who can tell the value of Grubby Truffles can't stand the smell of Gilded Turds. Sight is obvious, remote, fast. Smell is subtle, close, slow. If all you're doing is sight, then you can go very fast. You have to go slower to do ...
Other people get excited about logarithmic value for exponential cost curves, since they unlock value in the first few plys.
...ponential cost curves, since they unlock value in the first few plys. These are Gilded Turds. Look great to start but look worse the longer they go on. I only care about Grubby Truffles. Look terrible to start but look better and better the ...
A tweet:
...e definitely missing something."[bv] Grubby Truffles win out in this phase over Gilded Turds.
In cacophony Gilded Turds have an advantage.
In cacophony Gilded Turds have an advantage. No one has time to distinguish between the two.[cc] Modern society is awash in Gilded Turds. Everywhere you look, in every domain...
Two very different kinds of beauty: the Gilded Turd vs the Grubby Truffle.
Two very different kinds of beauty: the Gilded Turd vs the Grubby Truffle. The Gilded Turd is superficially beautiful, but fundamentally disgusting. The Grubby Truffle is superficially disgusting but f...
Beauty can be a superficial signal of excellence
...be a superficial signal of excellence But it's easy for beauty to be skin deep. Gilded turds.