everything you write is like the lid on a rabbit hole for me. and once i open for a peek, i'm always digging out gems––new ideas to explore, new people to follow. thanks for that.
I think Cluely is making a bet that controversial = attention = scaling. Meaning that in a world where every GPT wrapper and AI agent looks the same, the one that is most popular, gains user traction, and scales, wins. They grabbed people's attention better than any other GPT wrapper.
It's an interesting way to build a moat in a world of short attention spans. Algorithms promote the most controversial things, and therefore, they promote their startup. “We’re earlier than the latest YC batch of companies. Yet, we’re generating more views than every single one of them.”
Yeah, I think that's definitely the bet, though there is an interesting question tucked in there (and i'll probably get into this more this week): What exactly are they betting to win? So they have our attention; now what?
Like, the point of Cluely wasn't to sell software to make salespeople better. That's what it's become, because that was the most adjacent business to the brand they created, though it was all sort of by accident. Which, maybe makes a good business, and maybe doesn't, but if nothing else, it lets the interesting idea - cheat on everything! - get captured and sterilized by the sellable one - make a sales tool for b2b bdrs.
Thanks! And I'm so mixed on it too. The thing they released yesterday was sorta weird, because, on one hand, it's still got this whole "cheat on everything, reinvent how life works" messaging, and the interaction paradigm - a live AI, telling you what to say - does feel very...disruptive? On the other hand, the demo was all about using it for sales calls and to transcribe meeting notes?
Yeah, it feels like you can't really distill actual real life use case. And if transcription is what they're after, they're in for a serious red ocean. I tried installing it but dropped when they asked permission for screen recording. That's one step too far for me..
I might write a bit more about this next week, but that seems to be what happens when you make these things businesses so quickly. Suddenly some crazy idea (to the extent that cluely was an actual idea at all) becomes enterprise b2b saas. Nothing stymies invention quite like a quarterly pipeline target.
everything you write is like the lid on a rabbit hole for me. and once i open for a peek, i'm always digging out gems––new ideas to explore, new people to follow. thanks for that.
I think Cluely is making a bet that controversial = attention = scaling. Meaning that in a world where every GPT wrapper and AI agent looks the same, the one that is most popular, gains user traction, and scales, wins. They grabbed people's attention better than any other GPT wrapper.
It's an interesting way to build a moat in a world of short attention spans. Algorithms promote the most controversial things, and therefore, they promote their startup. “We’re earlier than the latest YC batch of companies. Yet, we’re generating more views than every single one of them.”
Yeah, I think that's definitely the bet, though there is an interesting question tucked in there (and i'll probably get into this more this week): What exactly are they betting to win? So they have our attention; now what?
Like, the point of Cluely wasn't to sell software to make salespeople better. That's what it's become, because that was the most adjacent business to the brand they created, though it was all sort of by accident. Which, maybe makes a good business, and maybe doesn't, but if nothing else, it lets the interesting idea - cheat on everything! - get captured and sterilized by the sellable one - make a sales tool for b2b bdrs.
Great piece! I really want to take Cluely for a spin, but don't want to contribute to the guy's narcissistic cult..
Thanks! And I'm so mixed on it too. The thing they released yesterday was sorta weird, because, on one hand, it's still got this whole "cheat on everything, reinvent how life works" messaging, and the interaction paradigm - a live AI, telling you what to say - does feel very...disruptive? On the other hand, the demo was all about using it for sales calls and to transcribe meeting notes?
Yeah, it feels like you can't really distill actual real life use case. And if transcription is what they're after, they're in for a serious red ocean. I tried installing it but dropped when they asked permission for screen recording. That's one step too far for me..
I might write a bit more about this next week, but that seems to be what happens when you make these things businesses so quickly. Suddenly some crazy idea (to the extent that cluely was an actual idea at all) becomes enterprise b2b saas. Nothing stymies invention quite like a quarterly pipeline target.