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AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand

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11–20 of 71 posts

Re: AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand

#11
post #4

lots of people joke about how their jobs is "just attending a bunch of meetings", but can you imagine how horrific your job would be if you were this guy and your job actually was just "attend a bunch of meetings"? AND you didn't have context or interest in the content? AND you were required to write an essay at the end proving that you paid attention?!

AND you got a billion dollar valuation out of it?

Wait...

Re: AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand

#13

If this wasn’t related to software, it’d simply be called fraud. Selling an AI service that has no AI is lying. But when it’s a SaSS product it becomes an inspirational hustle culture story.

A business charges for a service and the service was met. what’s the problem here? I would bet the TOS mentioned manual reviews.

"I'll get you to the moon safely" = NASA "I'll get you to the moon" = me with a wood chipper and a very powerful potato gun The startup charged for "AI note- taking", not simply "note taking".

Re: AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand

#14

If this wasn’t related to software, it’d simply be called fraud. Selling an AI service that has no AI is lying. But when it’s a SaSS product it becomes an inspirational hustle culture story.

A business charges for a service and the service was met. what’s the problem here? I would bet the TOS mentioned manual reviews.

IMO the real fraud was against the investors.

If I invest in your AI startup and find out it's really people doing the work, I'm going to be pissed.

Re: AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand

#15
This is fraud. Their exposure here is not just being sued by clients, though there's that as well, but being charged with one or more crimes, convicted, and going to prison. This was an incredibly stupid scheme, made even more stupid by publicly confessing to it.

Re: AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand

#16
Reminds me a lot of Theranos, but without the jail time (yet).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes

Also, there was this, which also originally claimed to be AI:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/untold-history-of-ai-mechanical-tu...

Re: AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand

#17
post #4

lots of people joke about how their jobs is "just attending a bunch of meetings", but can you imagine how horrific your job would be if you were this guy and your job actually was just "attend a bunch of meetings"? AND you didn't have context or interest in the content? AND you were required to write an essay at the end proving that you paid attention?!

On the other hand you can make goofy stuff up and people will think it was "the AI".

https://youtu.be/85fx0LrSMsE?si=D5WU1DEtBeHvjVaN&t=115

Re: AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand

#19

Isn't that something the startup people always advocate, to do things by hand till you proved there's a market? Sounds like they did

Not sure if this is what PG had in mind, but yes, the famous "do things that don't scale at first" advice to startups

Re: AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand

#20

> "Sitting in someone's meeting uninvited is violation of privacy. They wanted a bot in the meeting, not an uninvited person," said automation expert Umar Aftab. "This way you sabotage trust and could incur legal implications." > "Good luck with all the lawsuits," added another. "This might read like a gritty founder hustle story," said software engineer Mauricio Idarraga. "But it's actually one of the most reckless…

Unless there was a violated promise of an on-prem notetaker app, there's absolutely no difference between having a third-party AI and third-party contractor listening to your meetings. You should ALWAYS assume their engineers have access to stored data for maintenance and debugging.
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