Essays/linkedin/24-04-20 humane ai
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🫠 Few months ago I was shocked by the poor delivery of the founders of Humane. Now that the first wave of reviews by users is out, I see a great correlation between founders and product.
If you haven't seen them, just a quick online search will give you all the information you need. If in doubt, check Marques Brownlee's video no Youtube.
It's easy to leash out on entrepreneurs who under-delivered, but they can also be the protagonists of a cautionary tale. They raised more than 100mU$, and when they finally released the product it does what the founder said over and over again during interviews: "It does nothing".
On the one hand they tried very hard to find "a problem": people don't like looking at their phone. So they invented something you don't have to look at. And they fell very short on expectations: They made a device that can barely tell the time.
The story started with former Apple employees that used their credentials as a golden ticket to gargantuan funding. They went all-in on the story of faking till you make it. They bought the idea that the iPhone was invented in the vacuum thanks to Jobs' vision.
But we must pay close attention to the full story. It was not just a lonely visionary, it was the entire technological context that was slowly converging to make the iPhone possible.
Plus, Jobs had a clear vision of what the iPhone could do, which translated into a clear pitch both to future users and investors. Everything which Humane never had.
And that's what matters: the alignment, the ability to parse a multidimensional reality and understand what the next step should be, before anyone else. Often is luck, but mostly is directly opportunity searching: stacking the deck to increase your chances of getting lucky.
It's definitely not easy, failure is statistically unavoidable. Burning through 100 million U$ to build a useless "AI" pin is another.
-- 👋 Hi! I'm @Aquiles.
I'm a scientist turned entrepreneur. I share insights on the challenges of #scipreneurship
Follow me to get all my latest thoughts and reflections.
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