I have 15 Codex Pro 20x subscriptions. When I tell some people about this, they look at me funny. Are you ok? What are you building? What’s the ROI?
Well, I say – first of all, the return on creating art is immeasurable. ROI doesn’t matter here, software is just one of my creative outlets, and a monthly budget of $3k seems quite reasonable to me.
But, I continue – if you really want me to measure ROI: we must treat the token spend as capex, because it replaces human engineers. Software companies split engineering time into R&D (new products), COGS (operating existing products), and G&A (internal tools). Capitalized software becomes an intangible asset and amortizes over 3 years. EBITDA never sees that cost, so my ROI is unaffected by token spend. Q.E.D.
The funny look in their eye is beginning to fade, I think. I continue – another way to look at it is that I spend $3k/month on tokens. A fully loaded engineer is $25-40k/month. About a tenth of the price. Fifteen subscriptions, fifteen times the output. 150x software capex efficiency. Not bad. Plus, the token subsidies mean my $3k nets me $62k in API-equivalent value. Also, you must remember, high quality software is a durable store of value. Great software can even age like a fine wine, bottling the spirit of the times... my eyes glaze over with a faraway look.
I grab their arm. There’s a glint in my eye. I whisper maniacally – there’s a once in a lifetime discount happening at the OpenAI Intelligence Depot, and I brought 15 shopping carts. You have to go buy more shopping carts right now.
I begin to shout. Come with me! You must learn how to quickly load your shopping carts with tokens! You must race between the aisles, fill up your truck, and unload the tokens into your software factory! You must build your factory so that it consumes tokens efficiently, like a well-oiled machine! You must efficiently utilize all the tokens you have access to! Dream big! Dream more! More is more!
They begin to back away, slowly.
