Phoebe Gates cofounded Phia, an AI shopping assistant, with her Stanford University roommate Sophia Kianni. The shopping assistant plugs into browsers like Chrome and Safari to compare prices and surface deals across tens of thousands of retail and resale sites in real time. It essentially serves as your own personal deal finder: say you’re looking at a $200 dress from Anthropologie, Phia can find and compare prices at second-hand sellers to help customers find a better price.
That’s actually a neat premise. Fashion isn’t my cup of tea, but otherwise that sounds useful (albeit not very unique; shopping assistants are a dime a dozen).
What’s crazier is people thinking it’s a good enough idea to get $185,000,000 in funding for someone who just graduated college…
Like, it already exists, there’s a bunch of those already.
She slapped “AI” on the front of it but because her name is Gates people won’t stop throwing money at it. If she doesn’t understand her name is why she’s getting funding, that just means she’s both ignorant and naive and this is an even worse investment and product than it seems on the surface.
I’m sure the Gates named helped, but AI anything has venture capitalists punching the Fry meme. It feels very similar to the dot com era bubble in a macro sense, except without a large number jobs being created.
There are a million of these out there. Most of them suck. Many are, at best, ethically gray. Even the better ones spy on you in a hundred different ways.
I’d love something that actually didn’t suck, but “185 million dollar AI startup” doesn’t sound promising to me.
The big problem with the concept is that there’s money to be made by gaming the system and nobody is good at that cat and mouse game. AI could theoretically help, but let’s be real: it’s just going to scrape the same 100 identical Amazon referral listicles you’d get in a Google search, with an extra sprinkling of ads.
They just slap the word AI on it so investors pp’s become the big pp.
My little brother works for a supply company, and one of the companies they supply has a new ‘AI’ tool where folks type in the thing they want and it pulls from other companies to find the lowest price, then color codes it and shit. The supply companies have to put their prices in a database for the ‘AI’. All I could think hearing about it is that some C level got absolutely fucking bamboozled.
That’s all they’re for. The last time I heard any executive actually make a good decision - or even anything in the neighborhood of a good decision - was . . . Ummmm. Well, I’m sure it was sometime this century. ? Maybe.
Shareholders will expect their 185 million to turn into “more.” Someone will have to pay for this “more.” The business model will therefore boil down to either selling user data or companies paying to be given preferential treatment by the system. Probably both.
Furthermore, such services do not create any added value for the economy because, like advertising, they merely ensure that money is spent at B instead of at A. They are not productive and can be used much more efficiently by the bigger players.
We already know how things like that can be monetized - just look at the Honey scandal. You rip off both users and business customers… But this time with AI.
What a novel idea, Phoebe. Such Innovation, much wow!
That’s not right economically. If you were going to spend $200 at store B and now spend $150 at store A, that’s an efficiency of $50. You’re saying that looking for deals isn’t a market benefit, and it absolutely is. Now, their cut of it is of no benefit, and fuck AI. But the service is productive.
But then the seller is missing out on those $50, which they can’t spend anywhere else. From an macroeconomic perspective, the effect is zero. Like advertising, it only serves to allocate resources, not to create value. What’s more, it’s mainly large companies that benefit from something like this. Firstly, because of scale effects, and secondly, because they can sustain price dumping for longer than smaller companies.
The same applies to deals. You only benefit from them because someone else is disadvantaged. Unless, of course, you assume that companies have something to give away out of kindness. And, of course, you yourself have been someone who has given someone else an advantage at your own disadvantage. You paid more so that someone else could pay less. The macroeconomic effect was zero because no value was created.
Oh, I 100% agree. I test installed the app, and it seems to be some of both (behavior tracking with a Safari extension, and store sponsorship).
That being said, I hate store monocultures even more, like how Amazon/Walmart can bully their suppliers through sheer critical mass and shoppers don’t even look anywhere else. That’s economic inefficiency. Price aggregators are a good thing.
That’s actually a neat premise. Fashion isn’t my cup of tea, but otherwise that sounds useful (albeit not very unique; shopping assistants are a dime a dozen).
So it’s a price checker extension. That scrapes other websites for better deals.
I feel like this is just a plug piece to spotlight her product tbh.
What’s crazier is people thinking it’s a good enough idea to get $185,000,000 in funding for someone who just graduated college…
Like, it already exists, there’s a bunch of those already.
She slapped “AI” on the front of it but because her name is Gates people won’t stop throwing money at it. If she doesn’t understand her name is why she’s getting funding, that just means she’s both ignorant and naive and this is an even worse investment and product than it seems on the surface.
I’m sure the Gates named helped, but AI anything has venture capitalists punching the Fry meme. It feels very similar to the dot com era bubble in a macro sense, except without a large number jobs being created.
If a random 23 year old can just take any type of plugin that’s been around 20+ years, slap AI in front of it…
And raises $185,000,000…
Why exactly do you think they’re not all doing it?
Thats a rhetorical question by the way, the rest of them aren’t doing it because their last name isn’t Gates so it wouldn’t work
There are a million of these out there. Most of them suck. Many are, at best, ethically gray. Even the better ones spy on you in a hundred different ways.
I’d love something that actually didn’t suck, but “185 million dollar AI startup” doesn’t sound promising to me.
The big problem with the concept is that there’s money to be made by gaming the system and nobody is good at that cat and mouse game. AI could theoretically help, but let’s be real: it’s just going to scrape the same 100 identical Amazon referral listicles you’d get in a Google search, with an extra sprinkling of ads.
They just slap the word AI on it so investors pp’s become the big pp.
My little brother works for a supply company, and one of the companies they supply has a new ‘AI’ tool where folks type in the thing they want and it pulls from other companies to find the lowest price, then color codes it and shit. The supply companies have to put their prices in a database for the ‘AI’. All I could think hearing about it is that some C level got absolutely fucking bamboozled.
That’s all they’re for. The last time I heard any executive actually make a good decision - or even anything in the neighborhood of a good decision - was . . . Ummmm. Well, I’m sure it was sometime this century. ? Maybe.
Yup. Price comparison extensions have been around for decades already.
Shareholders will expect their 185 million to turn into “more.” Someone will have to pay for this “more.” The business model will therefore boil down to either selling user data or companies paying to be given preferential treatment by the system. Probably both.
Furthermore, such services do not create any added value for the economy because, like advertising, they merely ensure that money is spent at B instead of at A. They are not productive and can be used much more efficiently by the bigger players.
We already know how things like that can be monetized - just look at the Honey scandal. You rip off both users and business customers… But this time with AI.
What a novel idea, Phoebe. Such Innovation, much wow!
Honey didn’t just rip off business customers. It ripped off unrelated businesses too.
Guaranteed it’s going down the route of:
“Want your store at the top. We can make that happen” nudge, nudge
But it feels so damned blatant for the grift that it is. The “It’s not about my name” is very blinkered view to take.
That’s not right economically. If you were going to spend $200 at store B and now spend $150 at store A, that’s an efficiency of $50. You’re saying that looking for deals isn’t a market benefit, and it absolutely is. Now, their cut of it is of no benefit, and fuck AI. But the service is productive.
But then the seller is missing out on those $50, which they can’t spend anywhere else. From an macroeconomic perspective, the effect is zero. Like advertising, it only serves to allocate resources, not to create value. What’s more, it’s mainly large companies that benefit from something like this. Firstly, because of scale effects, and secondly, because they can sustain price dumping for longer than smaller companies.
The same applies to deals. You only benefit from them because someone else is disadvantaged. Unless, of course, you assume that companies have something to give away out of kindness. And, of course, you yourself have been someone who has given someone else an advantage at your own disadvantage. You paid more so that someone else could pay less. The macroeconomic effect was zero because no value was created.
Oh, I 100% agree. I test installed the app, and it seems to be some of both (behavior tracking with a Safari extension, and store sponsorship).
That being said, I hate store monocultures even more, like how Amazon/Walmart can bully their suppliers through sheer critical mass and shoppers don’t even look anywhere else. That’s economic inefficiency. Price aggregators are a good thing.
Anyone here old enough to remember froogle?
Ehhhh. Bah! I’m gonna take a nap.
Ah yes, I remember a browser extension about finding coupon codes for the sites you’re on that absolutely didn’t end up being disgusting shit. 🤣
Where does the AI come into the picture though?
Well if AI doesn’t have to be artificial intelligence, I guess it doesn’t matter