Definitions by waterloo guy
LaaS
**LaaS (Larp-as-a-Service)**
*noun, software engineering*
A software company whose primary product is the **appearance of being a real software company**.
Typically consists of a landing page, a waitlist, a Discord, a GitHub repo with 14 stars, and an architecture diagram featuring Kubernetes, Kafka, and “AI agents,” despite having 3 actual users and a backend that is essentially `if (user) return 200`.
LaaS companies are optimized for **demoing, fundraising, LinkedIn posting, and technical LARPing** rather than solving problems. The product may technically work, but nobody can explain why it needs to exist, who uses it, or why it requires 47 microservices.
*noun, software engineering*
A software company whose primary product is the **appearance of being a real software company**.
Typically consists of a landing page, a waitlist, a Discord, a GitHub repo with 14 stars, and an architecture diagram featuring Kubernetes, Kafka, and “AI agents,” despite having 3 actual users and a backend that is essentially `if (user) return 200`.
LaaS companies are optimized for **demoing, fundraising, LinkedIn posting, and technical LARPing** rather than solving problems. The product may technically work, but nobody can explain why it needs to exist, who uses it, or why it requires 47 microservices.
> “Bro said he built a distributed event-driven AI infrastructure platform.”
> “Does it have users?”
> “Nah but check out the Grafana dashboard.”
> “Classic LaaS.”
> “Does it have users?”
> “Nah but check out the Grafana dashboard.”
> “Classic LaaS.”
LaaS by waterloo guy August 30, 2026
