from what I read on some of the administrators on Twitter the program has been (semi privately) running since last fall and there are already 10+ participants
now the decision to take it public may have been motivated by sequoia's launch
when I was younger and I had all the time in the world, I used to enter all these sweepstakes and contests that said you could buy X and then be entered into a prize pool/raffle/etc. the pro tip was to read the fine print, Ctrl+F no purchase necessary, and enter using the "alternative method"
my guess is that there must have been some gambling law requiring that there be a method to enter for free.
never got the top prizes but our mailbox was full of random things that confused my parents.
> my guess is that there must have been some gambling law requiring that there be a method to enter for free.
There is (or at least was) a law like that in Ireland, but not in the UK, leading to promotions with text like No purchase necessary in the Republic of Ireland.
Yes exactly. Stripe built a whole business on this concept by creating an easy to implement, trustable experience for otherwise dodgy looking small shops. Trust is huge, and a sketchy looking form destroys trust.
I agree with the sentiment of lofty multiples, but what do you think happens to good product companies in that scenario? Sure their stock tumbles quite a bit but would it actually affect the business itself?
I heard the dot com bubble "garbage" was full of companies with no revenue, no customers, etc. I'm not sure many of the high growth tech companies burning $$s are cut from the same cloth though as they really do have products and customers in the present; it's just that the market expects an insane number of new services/customers in the near future...
For example, I'm guessing customers can't just cut off Snowflake easily (time wise and effort wise) so the cashflow would remain stable for a while. As long as they don't need to do a secondary offering (and have some cash), wouldn't they be able to weather a storm? Perhaps at the cost of some massive layoffs/refinancing but would still prevent an actual collapse?
I understand where you're coming from in that the technical abilities to create something (someone?) like this may seem like a low barrier to entry.
However, I disagree that this is "quick" money or just a fad. The value of this AI for sponsorships/ads comes more from a team of actual people that scan social media to search for trends, photo styles and carefully helps curate its presence. For example, look at how the first "photo" in the article is created. Notice how the AI isn't looking at the camera? Or how the perspective is somewhat tilted? Overall, the image has many subtle details also very in line with how many millienial/gen-Z Korean girls upload birthday photos from cafes on Instagram.
It feels like Rozy represents a broader movement towards abstracting out the elements that make us resonate with a brand or image more. I think brand strategists and marketers have figured out that the model is more of a vessel to store and convey those elements/emotions and for particular types of ads there is no real need for the model to actually exist in reality. Think about how many ads where you don't know the model in any other context.
Rozy probably adds more value than the nameless models in some sense because there's a persona/brand the team has built up in social media/other ads. Definitely not easy money.
I agree with most points made here. However, I wonder if it's as easy to predict the new high-growth/high-margin units as you suggest that Tesla has none.
Were most people in 2011-2015 aware of the "AWS / Ad explosion" that was about to come? Or did we know ex ante that Amazon was willing to shift their focus towards these units? Likely not, but the high multiples (despite the retail margins dragging down the gross margins) suggest that a large portion of investors were willing to bet that better units with protective moats (i.e. AWS) were coming soon.
I don't follow Tesla as much, but it seems difficult to dismiss that some of their business units won't follow high-growth/high-margin paths. What if their FSD software is licensed out? What if the supercharger network is shared with other EVs for a per-charge fee? Given Musk's personality, I can see investors taking on risk and betting that he'll be bringing something better than just selling cough regulatory credits cough cars. It makes me wonder if Tesla losing market share in the EV market will be the ultimate catalyst for this shift.
That being said, I agree with you that the market has "priced in" all these what-ifs for Tesla with extremely high expectations of success -- which did not seem to be case for Amazon. A slip or trip in car sales these days doesn't seem to move $TSLA much - investors that are long seem to be betting on other stuff and we'll see how patient they are in times to come.
