The Oracle of Delphi

This is The Startup Breakdown, the newsletter where we learn, laugh, and love startups. By joining this growing community of hundreds of future startup aficionados (think i spelled that right?), you're getting a beachside view of the ocean that is the startup and VC scene. This ain’t your grandpa’s newsletter, so prepare yourself for an inbox full of 4/20 jokes and Succession references.

Happy Monday, folks.

So much to say, so little time.

First, I missed you last week. Like more than I miss my morning cold brew by the time 10am comes around.

Secondly, let's talk. No, really. It seems we've arrived at a crossroads, and I want you to be my GPS (but please don’t have me drive into a lake). The Startup Breakdown was designed to be your go-to for all things startup, but judging by the radio silence on subscriptions and the tumbleweed rolling through my inbox, it's clear we need a recalibration.

I had grand visions of alternating between startup spotlights and premium deep-dives into the regulatory jungle. I thought I was onto something Oscar-worthy, but the box office (read: conversion rates) begs to differ.

Frankly, I thought the idea was golden, but the conversion rate tells me otherwise lol. Judging by the radio silence on subscriptions and the tumbleweed rolling through my inbox, it's clear we need a recalibration.

Frankly, I think there are various other newsletters with very similar niches to mine and the free version of The Startup Breakdown. While they might not have my dashing good looks, stunning wit, and heroic humility, they do have something I don’t: lots of readers.

With that, there are a few ways we could take this:

Your vote could quite literally shape the future of this newsletter for hundreds of readers. Vote carefully.

No pressure :)

ChatGPT the Ghost Writer?

Am I writing this, or has ChatGPT become the best ghostwriter since Drake’s?

Luckily, no number of articles pasted as examples in the prompt have allowed me to replicate my tone and style in AI-generated outputs, but if Delphi CEO Dara Ladjevardian has anything to say about it, I might be f*****

The Miami-based startup just raised $2.7 million in seed funding to enable users to upload a massive amount of text in order to train their very own chatbot. The original idea came from a rather benign desire to be able to speak with his own deceased grandfather after having read a book about him, so he did what anyone in 2023 would do and trained his own model to have his Grandpa become his Yoda in his pocket.

Target Audience

Now, the company’s targeting politicians and creators, people with unique voices and perspectives that already have built up bibles worths of content in their unique POV, allowing Delphi to build a digital clone and allowing these voices to scale to deeper, more (seemingly) personal connections with their audiences.

No more need for thinking. All the thoughts have been thunk.

So far, the company is limiting its rollout, only attempting to replace little-known names like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Aristotle, but the idea is to eventually roll out this subscription-based product at scale to allow anyone to create their own AI clone.

How long until some HBS grad starts charging people to have his AI self do some “consulting?”’

Investors

The company is still in very early beta, only testing with just over 100 users so far, but the impressive cap table reads like a 2012 US Olympics Basketball team of investors from the likes of Founder’s Fund, Xfund, and Balaji.

Delphi is eyeballing a market growing at a 40% CAGR and is poised to carve out a significant slice for itself in what is likely to very soon be a trillion dollar industry.

However, if it seems like everyone is launching an ~innovative~ AI tool (wait… i thought you guys started as an nft project? oh, you pivoted. okay), it’s prolly cause they are.

Competition

It’s a very crowded space, and even looking past the players like ChatGPT and Bard, there are others trying to tap into the personal Jarvis space:

• Character AI: conversational model emulating famous characters

• Pi.ai: personal assistant AI

• Personal AI: AI extension of personal or professional brand

Given the competition in the space, why did such prominent investors choose Delphi?

Well for starters, they have arguably the best name for a startup that I’ve ever seen.

Team

But also, this team is legit:

• CEO Dara Ladjevardian - successful exit as founder of Friday, former SWE at C3

• Co-founder Samuel Spelsberg - former Engineer at Apple and OpenStore

The now 5-person team is young and innovative, something investors drool over.

If they have it their way, we might soon live in a world where I don’t even have to sit down and write these; I’ll just tell Trey 2 to write about some web3 company that is prolly gonna commit tax fraud in a couple of years, but only after 300x revenue and making me look like an oracle of my own for a little while.

But for now, you’re stuck with me, overly specific, unrecognizable references and all.

See ya next time :)

TLDR: Delphi, a Miami-based startup, has raised $2.7 million to create personal AI clones that can emulate individual voices for deeper audience engagement. The company is currently in beta, backed by prominent investors and targeting a rapidly growing AI market. While the space is crowded, Delphi differentiates itself with a unique focus and a strong team.

Florida and Texas Are Upset About their Follower Counts

DeSantis and Abbott… why does it always have to be DeSantis and Abbott?

Depending on which side of the aisle you stand on, these two gentlemen might be better or worse than the scaly reptiles from the original quote. But one thing everyone agrees on: their bills have slithered their way up to the Supreme Court. There, our judicial branch (hat tip to 8th-grade American History) will rule on whether states can ban social media platforms from filtering out political misinformation.

While you can form your own opinion on whether their claims that Conservative viewpoints are censored by In-N-Out loyalists are valid (though research suggests not), what cannot be denied is the potential impact that this fight over the First Amendment might have on the future of social as we know it.

If it is ruled that social media companies do have the right to moderate content, it’s likely that we will see more muting, blocking, and suppressing of posts and users deemed dangerous or untruthful at platform moderators’ discretion.

If it is ruled that these companies are NOT granted these rights, we’re going to see wayyy more competition for the role of “Online Town Hall” and champions of total free speech like the mantra of new ownership Twitter.

Unless your views differ from Elon’s, of course 🤷 

Worldcoin Less Popular than Mr. Worldwide

Kenyan officials ran into a nasty surprise when they discovered that Worldcoin isn't Pitbull's new money-themed tour name. Instead, the controversial web3/AI project from Tools for Humanity’s version of "Give Me Everything Tonight" was about collecting Kenyan citizens' biometric data.

Privacy concerns were already buzzing before Worldcoin's tech touched down in Kenya. Yet, it took thousands of people trading their iris scans for quick cash before the Kenyan Parliament dropped a Fireball (lol) and called for the project's termination.

Rumors of a police raid on Worldcoin's local office last month have been swirling, although the company denies any such incident.

Don't think the tensions with national governments are over. Whether Kenyan officials will still get their live performance of "Hotel Room Service" remains to be seen.

Wait, You’re Allowed to Not Invest in Pre-Product, Drunk Idea AI Companies?

In possibly the biggest VC news of this year, a major firm decided not to invest in AI.

Instead, they're responsibly cashing out from their (very successful) earlier investment in Sama rather than letting the bright lights and casino cocktails convince them to bet their house payments on red.

The prominent investor announced that it was avoiding the AI hype of LLMs and foundational models in favor of focusing on startups that build on these base layers and solve real problems with very specific use cases.

As I have been yelling into the void, AI isn't a playground for startups. Major tech companies have data and financial moats that are simply unassailable. Sequoia seems to agree, putting their money where the real action is.

Feeling validated, but also a tad bitter. Thanks to Sequoia's strategy, it looks like the intro of Generative AI will help the rich get richer and the kids learn how not to write their own papers.

If you missed yesterday’s version of Venture Scout, I’m sorry.

I’d have major fomo.

Don’t let it happen again. Subscribe.

Cheers to another day,

Trey