The worst ever YC demo and company I've ever seen.
Technology is supposed to make the world better. This is vile, and the script itself shows the founders do not care or understand what they are doing.
Launch YC: Optifye.ai – AI performance monitoring for factory workers
31–40 of 66 posts
Re: Launch YC: Optifye.ai – AI performance monitoring for factory workers
#32[flagged]
Re: Launch YC: Optifye.ai – AI performance monitoring for factory workers
#33This seems like a top signal to me. Some form of institution rot going on?
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Re: Launch YC: Optifye.ai – AI performance monitoring for factory workers
#34This seems like a top signal to me. Some form of institution rot going on?
good way to put it. how do you plan to get rich form this top signal? short a specific company?
Re: Launch YC: Optifye.ai – AI performance monitoring for factory workers
#35[flagged]
Optifye is positioned hard as a way to make it easier for management to squeeze every drop of blood out of workers, it's pretty fucked to try to use the real issue of women's safety as a defense for this. If this had anything to do with women's safety, that video and the website would have been completely different.
Re: Launch YC: Optifye.ai – AI performance monitoring for factory workers
#36We’re CS grads from Duke and because our families run manufacturing companies, we’ve seen more assembly lines than most industrial engineers
Tl;dr; We place cameras in manufacturing lines and use computer vision to show line supervisors who’s working and who’s not in real-time.
Alternative TL;DR: privileged kids turn exploitation into a dashboard feature.
Re: Launch YC: Optifye.ai – AI performance monitoring for factory workers
#37The founders merely translated existing practices into a piece of software. While the demo was a little off, the pain point is pretty valid.
As a manufacturer,I have seen factories loose contracts over 20 cents, while the same goods is retailed 4X-5X margin at $85. At the end of the day factories rarely make margins on COG (Cost of Goods), but survive on the residues of efficiency. Even though volume is the game, brutal efficiency is the rule.
I personally feel it’s a misplaced backlash on the founders or the factories, while the main enablers are the Big retailers. Factories are at the mercy of big retailers, their relationship dynamic akin to mob boss-henchman, where the factories simply follow the orders.
Most factories practice two modes of compensation: 1. Per pc rate - Payment is directly tied to the output, more efficient. Requires skilled workers and can sometimes be a little costlier and impractical. Defects are deducted from the workers pay.
2. Monthly salary - This setup can accommodate semi skilled workers since each worker only handles one part of the whole. It’s a relatively cheaper process. However inefficiencies can easily creep in, defects can pile up which can wipe off the whole margin and ruin the factory.
I don’t believe in running a sweatshop, but even well run humane factories have to battle inefficiencies all the time. The line between marginal point inefficiencies can mean canceled contracts, cancelled goods and financial losses. At the end of the day it’s the workers who have to take the brunt. The upside of efficiency is timely wages; the downside is already obvious. The upside of inefficiency is a little break for workers; the downside is job loss and unpaid wages.
Hence I am not a fan of mass production esp under contract from Big retailers.
Re: Launch YC: Optifye.ai – AI performance monitoring for factory workers
#38We’re CS grads from Duke and because our families run manufacturing companies, we’ve seen more assembly lines than most industrial engineers Tl;dr; We place cameras in manufacturing lines and use computer vision to show line supervisors who’s working and who’s not in real-time. Alternative TL;DR: privileged kids turn exploitation into a dashboard feature.
Duke is such a great fit for this story, lol.
Re: Launch YC: Optifye.ai – AI performance monitoring for factory workers
#39Re: Launch YC: Optifye.ai – AI performance monitoring for factory workers
#40This is getting HUGE exposure on Xwitter right now. YC is backtracking on them and rightly so. I don't blame them, they probably pitched something relatively ok-ish; today's demo is just a disaster from every angle. Incidentally, this also shows why 2020s YC is a different beast than 2010s YC, they don't really care about your startup, they don't even really know what is it about, its just a pure numbers game at this…
"today's demo is just a disaster from every angle." It is not. Lots of exposure. Those who complain were not customers. Those who are potential customers don't care about comments on twitter. Can argue backlash hurts YC but for the company itself probably helps in long run.
Did lots of exposure help PearAI?