A quick thank you from a baker (and hobbyist dev)

[sgerner]

Hey Tibo and the Codex team,

I’m writing this while covered in a light dusting of flour, which is my natural state. I’m a baker by trade, but since November, I’ve been moonlighting as a developer thanks to what you all have built. What you're doing really maters.

I recently saw the news about other labs testing "limited access" for their $20 plans, and it made me realize how much I’ve taken your openness for granted. I know you’re out there solving the world’s biggest problems and probably curing cancer in your lunch breaks, but I wanted to share the small ways democratized intelligence makes the world so much better. For $20 a month, Codex has been transformational for my two little projects that would otherwise be impossible to build or maintain.

Bridging the gap for safer streets
I serve on the board of 3fp.org (3 Feet Please). We’re a small Cycling non-profit that operates on a few hundreed dollars a year and many volunteer hours for safer streets. With Codex, I've been able to revamp 3fp.org into a tool that connect cyclists to local resources, but the project I’m most excited about is our upcoming safety feature. The fact our mini organization can build this resource on a non-existent budget is because of you!

It’s designed to help advocates collect crash-site data like GIS, satellite views, and police reports. and identify the smallest immediate improvement we can make for safety and the biggest long term opportunities. We then translate that raw data into politician and engineer. All parties usually have the same goal, but they speak different languages. Codex allows us to build a scalable system that empowers community advocates across the US to bridge that gap. This tool literally would not exist without codex

Empowering the little guy in food service
The other project is farin.app, a free ERP for my bakery and a dozen others in the Bread Bakers Guild. In the bakery world, we make a lot of dough, but we don’t make much dough. We’ve never had access to the high-end automation tools that institutional bakeries use. And now I can spin up fully integrated systems in a weekend. Running a small bakery is a passion project. I don't know a single other owner who works less than 70 hours a week. And with Codex I'm able to automate all the crappy stuff I hate doing like a full double entry accounting system that automatically ingests and processes all of our bookkeeping. It gives all of us bakers a few extra hours a week to be with our families, create new recipes, or in my case, teach a few extra youth learn-to-ride classes. There is no economically viable path to provide software like this to small food service operations, but accessible AI makes us our own developers.

The recent loss of the 2x promotion was an interesting lesson in efficiency. It’s been impressive to see what 5.4-mini can do when you’re forced to be thoughtful about your logic, and I’ve really enjoyed diving into tools like RTK to keep things lean. But, ultimately, especially in comparision to the other labs, it's made me so grateful Codex exists with generous limits that even a baker like me can make use of.

While you’re changing the world at scale, please know that your work is also felt in the "small" things:

• A sidewalk that’s a little safer for a pedestrian.
• A 6-year-old finally losing their training wheels.
• A tired baker having one extra hour to come up with a new pastry recipe.

Thank you for keeping the door open for the hobbyists, the non-profits, and the small business owners. What you do matters.

Stay awesome and keep up the great work!
Steven

[etraut-openai]

Hey Steven, thank you so much for taking the time to write this. I shared your note with the broader Codex team, and it meant a lot to all of us. It’s really motivating to hear how you’re using Codex to build things that matter!

On the Codex team, we like to ask “what do you want to build?”. That question is not just for big companies or professional engineering teams, but hobbyists, nonprofits, small business owners, and people with deep expertise in the real-world problems they want to solve.

Thank you for putting Codex to work in such meaningful ways. We’re grateful for the note. ❤️