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Absolutely baffles me how you can blow $500m on a website builder without anyone noticing. What the hell happened? Unless it was an actual defrauding of invest

by zpeti 1y ago

Absolutely baffles me how you can blow $500m on a website builder without anyone noticing. What the hell happened? Unless it was an actual defrauding of investors, but how were the investors so stupid?

mattlondon 1y ago
Perhaps they blew it all on "research" and GPU costs? The current Gemini canvas implementation is pretty wild and can create you an app or website very very easily. Not as easy as ordering a pizza sure, but still even with just a few iterations you have something truly decent. Occasionally you luck out and the "one shot" is precisely what you want, but that typically requires an extensive prompt so you're beyond pizza range then. Perhaps they were just too ahead of their time in that regard... But then if they'd waited then Google and OpenAi and Anthropic would have just eaten their lunch anyway (provided Claude was not too busy blackmailing you anyway!)
- thw09j9m 1y ago
  nah https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805676/engineer-ai-artificial-intelligence-startup-app-development-outsourcing-humans https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805676/engineer-ai-arti... (same company, before rebranding to builder.ai)
  - mattlondon 1y ago
    I mean it's kinda amazing, this was just in 2019 that this company was basically lying about being able to do this to get investment, yet now I can actually do it myself, right now, for free*. Incredible - where will we be in another 5 years?!!! * - with AIStudio at least...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
lm28469 1y ago
Some people have so much money they don't mind investing 10-100m here and there in the hope of making a 10x return. Greed and hype explains a lot of the juicero type of investments. It says a lot when public services are deteriorating pretty much everywhere while investors blow hundred millions on fruit pressing machines and LLM wrappers
- bojan 1y ago
  The public services are deteriorating because that's what the people are voting for.
  - lm28469 1y ago
    Could that be because 99% of mass medias who make or break politicians are owned by a small elite of hardcore capitalists who have their own interests in mind? Democracy isn't just about showing up every few years and putting a name in a ballot, it's a framework that requires a whole bunch of other things. A lot of EU countries and the US are getting closer and closer to oligarchies
  - AJRF 1y ago
    What do you mean by this? Do you mean in the UK, where this company was based. How are UK citizens voting for deteriorating services?
    - justinclift 1y ago
      Did you miss the Brexit thing?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - ath3nd 1y ago
      > How are UK citizens voting for deteriorating services? - Voting Tory, you get cutting of public health services (e.g NHS) and and Brexit. - Voting Reform, you get the same plus a healthy dose of xenophobia and nationalism (it's thinly veiled-fascism, really). - Voting Labour, you get the same cuts but with a nice label of "progress", so you can feel good about yourself. All the while flat prices are skyrocketing and your doctor's appointment might not ever happen, but there is always money for militarizing police and for sending abroad some bombs to kill Palestinians. If people did want improved public services, they should have voted for somebody like Jeremy Corbyn, who had the decency to distance himself from the absolute disgrace that Labour has become, or at least for the Greens/Socialists. But people did not, in fact, want improved public services, not really. They preferred to either vote for the xenophobe thugs of Reform, the xenophobe elitist Tories, or the pretend-liberal oligarch/capital-loving "Labour", none of who have any incentives to improve public services. You get what you vote for.
benbojangles 1y ago
If you look at some youtube videos of Sachin Duggal over the last year he is draped in lvmh labels, the finest tailoring, super expensive turkey teeth, and doing news interviews from expensive Dubai suites. My guess is he will make those things his mainstay from now on. I notice a common theme in dodgy ceo's; they all do the carrying-an-invisible-ball thing with their hands when they are presenting.
rsynnott 1y ago
I mean, have you not been paying attention to the current AI bubble? Hundreds of billions are being blown on all manner of implausible nonsense.

by zpeti 1y ago

mattlondon 1y ago

Perhaps they blew it all on "research" and GPU costs? The current Gemini canvas implementation is pretty wild and can create you an app or website very very easily. Not as easy as ordering a pizza sure, but still even with just a few iterations you have something truly decent. Occasionally you luck out and the "one shot" is precisely what you want, but that typically requires an extensive prompt so you're beyond pizza range then. Perhaps they were just too ahead of their time in that regard... But then if they'd waited then Google and OpenAi and Anthropic would have just eaten their lunch anyway (provided Claude was not too busy blackmailing you anyway!)

thw09j9m 1y ago
nah https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805676/engineer-ai-artificial-intelligence-startup-app-development-outsourcing-humans https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805676/engineer-ai-arti... (same company, before rebranding to builder.ai)
- mattlondon 1y ago
  I mean it's kinda amazing, this was just in 2019 that this company was basically lying about being able to do this to get investment, yet now I can actually do it myself, right now, for free*. Incredible - where will we be in another 5 years?!!! * - with AIStudio at least...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

lm28469 1y ago

Some people have so much money they don't mind investing 10-100m here and there in the hope of making a 10x return. Greed and hype explains a lot of the juicero type of investments. It says a lot when public services are deteriorating pretty much everywhere while investors blow hundred millions on fruit pressing machines and LLM wrappers

bojan 1y ago
The public services are deteriorating because that's what the people are voting for.
- lm28469 1y ago
  Could that be because 99% of mass medias who make or break politicians are owned by a small elite of hardcore capitalists who have their own interests in mind? Democracy isn't just about showing up every few years and putting a name in a ballot, it's a framework that requires a whole bunch of other things. A lot of EU countries and the US are getting closer and closer to oligarchies
- AJRF 1y ago
  What do you mean by this? Do you mean in the UK, where this company was based. How are UK citizens voting for deteriorating services?
  - justinclift 1y ago
    Did you miss the Brexit thing?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - ath3nd 1y ago
    > How are UK citizens voting for deteriorating services? - Voting Tory, you get cutting of public health services (e.g NHS) and and Brexit. - Voting Reform, you get the same plus a healthy dose of xenophobia and nationalism (it's thinly veiled-fascism, really). - Voting Labour, you get the same cuts but with a nice label of "progress", so you can feel good about yourself. All the while flat prices are skyrocketing and your doctor's appointment might not ever happen, but there is always money for militarizing police and for sending abroad some bombs to kill Palestinians. If people did want improved public services, they should have voted for somebody like Jeremy Corbyn, who had the decency to distance himself from the absolute disgrace that Labour has become, or at least for the Greens/Socialists. But people did not, in fact, want improved public services, not really. They preferred to either vote for the xenophobe thugs of Reform, the xenophobe elitist Tories, or the pretend-liberal oligarch/capital-loving "Labour", none of who have any incentives to improve public services. You get what you vote for.

benbojangles 1y ago

If you look at some youtube videos of Sachin Duggal over the last year he is draped in lvmh labels, the finest tailoring, super expensive turkey teeth, and doing news interviews from expensive Dubai suites. My guess is he will make those things his mainstay from now on. I notice a common theme in dodgy ceo's; they all do the carrying-an-invisible-ball thing with their hands when they are presenting.

rsynnott 1y ago

I mean, have you not been paying attention to the current AI bubble? Hundreds of billions are being blown on all manner of implausible nonsense.