Jack Ellis

@JackEllis

Software engineer. Building usefathom.com since 2019. Sharing all the technical details from behind the scenes.

usefathom.com

Joined May 2008

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Jack Ellis
@JackEllis
Jul 13
I’ve spent nearly seven years documenting how we built Fathom: outages, DDoS attacks, migrations, $100k AWS savings, my cofounder’s retirement, and a divorce. I write transparently because I want other people to learn from my mistakes. These 18 posts tell the story:
Jack Ellis
@JackEllis
Aug 30
There’s been a lot of cope from people on why ChatGPT is only 5% of their requests. As a Cursor power user, my guess is that Michael is speaking about today. GPT 5.5 used to be my daily driver. OpenAI woudlve been 50%+ in the past. But now we have Grok 4.6 so OpenAI isn’t needed.
Michael Truell
@mntruell
Aug 29
We’re sorry to see that OpenAI put out a note saying they plan to block Cursor users from accessing OpenAI models in three months. OpenAI models serve about 5% of Cursor user traffic, and we’re speaking with the OpenAI team to resolve this. Cursor was one of the very first
Jack Ellis
@JackEllis
Aug 29
TIL: If you use Cursor, you’re not “technically savvy” 😂
Jessie Frazelle
@jessfraz
Aug 29
I get that this was supposed to be a dig, but I think it actually reflects the type of user that uses cursor where they are just not as technically savvy as the people who understand that sol is the best model on the market And no OpenAI doesn’t pay me it’s just facts.
Jack Ellis
@JackEllis
Aug 29
I can't remember the last time I used OpenAI's models for programming. I used to use GPT-5.5 Extra High daily but then Grok 4.6 launched and changed the game for me. Everyone on Cursor should be using Grok 4.6 as a base now, don't waste your money on OpenAI models.
OpenAI
@OpenAI
Aug 29
We’re ending our partnership with Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX. Under our proposal, Cursor’s direct access to our models would end on November 12. We know that the people most affected by this decision are the developers who rely on OpenAI models in Cursor. We care
Jack Ellis
@JackEllis
Aug 26
Coding is solved. I haven’t written a single line of code since 2025. But software engineering is more alive than ever. If you’re building something that matches a known pattern, AI will deliver perfection. But as soon as you get into deeply complex, novel work, it produces slop.