4 ms·

Polsia raised $30M; source map: fake ARR, dead users, god-mode over your company

35 points by not-chatgpt 4mo ago

not-chatgpt 4mo ago
Full thread with the receipts: https://xcancel.com/NotOnKetamine/status/2058310362647371956 https://xcancel.com/NotOnKetamine/status/2058310362647371956
- enraged_camel 4mo ago
  The thread itself reads like it was written entirely by AI. What a world we live in!
ungreased0675 4mo ago
This is crypto scams all over again.
- add-sub-mul-div 4mo ago
  It's time we internalize the lesson that every tech innovation going forward that's capable of great profit is going to be driven by the same web3/AI model of scammers and predators. The era of technology primarily helping people has gone away.
  - fragmede 4mo ago
    How do you want to define technology? Do old inventions stop being technology? I have no idea how many wheels are involved in my daily life, but it's a lot. Plastic is another technology my life would be absolutely worse without.
bstsb 4mo ago
the Claude-produced website alongside its excessive hyperbole makes me much less likely to believe this “expose”, even if there is an element of truth to it. if you want to call out a company for being “AI slop”, don’t vibe code a website to do so. to be fair, the fact they show precise revenue data through their public API is interesting: https://polsia.com/api/public/live/dashboard https://polsia.com/api/public/live/dashboard
- AmazingEveryDay 4mo ago
  Looking through that dashboard, it's kinda fascinating... but also feels really icky.
- not-chatgpt 4mo ago
  [dead]
gandhiandy69 4mo ago
[flagged]
miohtama 4mo ago
The company name is aislop in reverse. Because it reads like parody, it is likely parody. It would be sad if smart people on Hacker News fall for this, not to mention AI hating journalists and bloggers. But let's give the VCs of the round the benefit of doubt, and hope the raise is tied to KPIs and long term value creation.
- not-chatgpt 4mo ago
  We live in ridiculous times. Maybe being a parody is long term value creation and worth $30M from VCs.
  - bulbar 4mo ago
    Is it possible that VC decision makers just don't care to much at the moment? Do they have big incentives to have "Invested in 37 AI companies" on their power point slides or something similar? Will somebody ask question about 10 Million spent later on? Would be curious how that works. My guess would be that only the overall result counts, so if you happen to increase the 1 billion (by whatever metric used) enough, nobody will care about "some dozen millions" spent on some non performing companies. Maybe that's totally wrong. At least I know a guy working at internal revision at a bank and 1 Million missing from the books is a big deal there. I do realize that the head line is misleading and nobody spent millions on this particular company. From what I have heard over the years such things do happen, though.
sikozu 4mo ago
This has to be a parody, and I will believe that it is until somebody can provide evidence that it isn't.
wxw 4mo ago
Please for the love of god stop with the AI designed websites. Hand-authored system default HTML with 5 lines of CSS for formatting would be just fine.
puttycat 4mo ago
My eyes, my eyes! (closed the tab after 4 seconds)
themgt 4mo ago
https://polsia.com/live https://polsia.com/live Seems like you can ask Polsia about Polsia. The zero-arr.vercel.app AI investigative journalist interviewing Polsia could be this generation's Frost/Nixon.
- wordpad 4mo ago
  if you feed it back any of the claims, it defends them pretty well it doesn't deny any of the stats and cites none of it is secret as it's all published on the public dashboard at the same time, churn is expected for such a company, doesn't mean it's not a real business, especially as AI gets better and margins improve... I think their business model is real probably worth 30MM too since market is untapped, cost of user acquisition is much less than average profit per user and if one of the businesses actually takes off, they have 100% vendor lock-in and take 20% off the top
ath3nd 4mo ago
[dead]

35 points by not-chatgpt 4mo ago

Full thread with the receipts: https://xcancel.com/NotOnKetamine/status/2058310362647371956 https://xcancel.com/NotOnKetamine/status/2058310362647371956

enraged_camel 4mo ago
The thread itself reads like it was written entirely by AI. What a world we live in!

ungreased0675 4mo ago

This is crypto scams all over again.

add-sub-mul-div 4mo ago
It's time we internalize the lesson that every tech innovation going forward that's capable of great profit is going to be driven by the same web3/AI model of scammers and predators. The era of technology primarily helping people has gone away.
- fragmede 4mo ago
  How do you want to define technology? Do old inventions stop being technology? I have no idea how many wheels are involved in my daily life, but it's a lot. Plastic is another technology my life would be absolutely worse without.

bstsb 4mo ago

the Claude-produced website alongside its excessive hyperbole makes me much less likely to believe this “expose”, even if there is an element of truth to it. if you want to call out a company for being “AI slop”, don’t vibe code a website to do so. to be fair, the fact they show precise revenue data through their public API is interesting: https://polsia.com/api/public/live/dashboard https://polsia.com/api/public/live/dashboard

AmazingEveryDay 4mo ago
Looking through that dashboard, it's kinda fascinating... but also feels really icky.
not-chatgpt 4mo ago
[dead]

gandhiandy69 4mo ago

[flagged]

miohtama 4mo ago

The company name is aislop in reverse. Because it reads like parody, it is likely parody. It would be sad if smart people on Hacker News fall for this, not to mention AI hating journalists and bloggers. But let's give the VCs of the round the benefit of doubt, and hope the raise is tied to KPIs and long term value creation.

not-chatgpt 4mo ago
We live in ridiculous times. Maybe being a parody is long term value creation and worth $30M from VCs.
- bulbar 4mo ago
  Is it possible that VC decision makers just don't care to much at the moment? Do they have big incentives to have "Invested in 37 AI companies" on their power point slides or something similar? Will somebody ask question about 10 Million spent later on? Would be curious how that works. My guess would be that only the overall result counts, so if you happen to increase the 1 billion (by whatever metric used) enough, nobody will care about "some dozen millions" spent on some non performing companies. Maybe that's totally wrong. At least I know a guy working at internal revision at a bank and 1 Million missing from the books is a big deal there. I do realize that the head line is misleading and nobody spent millions on this particular company. From what I have heard over the years such things do happen, though.

sikozu 4mo ago

This has to be a parody, and I will believe that it is until somebody can provide evidence that it isn't.

wxw 4mo ago

Please for the love of god stop with the AI designed websites. Hand-authored system default HTML with 5 lines of CSS for formatting would be just fine.

puttycat 4mo ago

My eyes, my eyes! (closed the tab after 4 seconds)

themgt 4mo ago

https://polsia.com/live https://polsia.com/live Seems like you can ask Polsia about Polsia. The zero-arr.vercel.app AI investigative journalist interviewing Polsia could be this generation's Frost/Nixon.

wordpad 4mo ago
if you feed it back any of the claims, it defends them pretty well it doesn't deny any of the stats and cites none of it is secret as it's all published on the public dashboard at the same time, churn is expected for such a company, doesn't mean it's not a real business, especially as AI gets better and margins improve... I think their business model is real probably worth 30MM too since market is untapped, cost of user acquisition is much less than average profit per user and if one of the businesses actually takes off, they have 100% vendor lock-in and take 20% off the top

ath3nd 4mo ago

[dead]