Neo

Creators are a critical distribution channel for most AI startups. But many don't know how to work with them effectively. I spoke with dozens of the top creators at Google i/o - some lessons learned and tips for startups 👇 1. It’s increasingly creators vs. traditional media for launch distribution. Last year, Google apparently invited ~25 creators and hundreds of press. This year, it was basically flipped: hundreds of creators, very little traditional press. Why? Creators are driving more impressions and more conversion to product launches. Traditional media can still matter for credibility, but a lot of launch coverage now turns into paywalled articles saying roughly the same thing as everyone else. Creators are often much better at making people actually care, click, try, and share. 2. Instagram is weirdly under-discussed for AI distribution. Almost every creator I met - regardless of whether they started on YouTube, X, or TikTok - was heavily investing in Instagram. And a few said they’re now posting AI content there first. The reason: it monetizes well, reaches a broad audience, and seems to drive more product curiosity with less reflexive hate than some other platforms. Also the cringey "comment ___ to get the link" format really works. I’ve seen this myself: a lot of AI product content ends up reaching a much wider mainstream audience on IG. For startups, especially consumer or prosumer AI companies, I’d take Instagram much more seriously than the tech world usually does. 3. Creators are flooded with identical-sounding AI startup pitches. Once creators found out I was an investor, one of the most common questions was: “How do you tell the difference between all these AI startups pitching the same agent / personal assistant / image generator?” That’s probably the biggest missed opportunity. Most creator outreach seems to be written as if the creator is just a distribution slot. But the good creators actually care about the product and need to understand what makes it different. For startups, it may be better to work with fewer creators who genuinely understand your wedge than to spray a generic campaign across a huge list. 4. Technical creators want to hear directly from the team. I talked to several creators with large YouTube channels focused on more technical topics, and many were tired of getting outreach from agencies that couldn’t explain what the product actually does. For the “big hitter” technical creators, founder / engineer / product lead outreach can matter a lot. It doesn’t scale, but that’s partly the point. If someone is going to explain your product to a highly technical audience, they need more than a one-page brief and a promo code. 5. Startups need to get smarter about creator metrics. I also heard a lot about how easy it is to manipulate the top-line numbers on your channel or account. Views and comments can look impressive while driving very little real engagement or conversion. A few metrics startups should probably ask for before paying meaningful dollars: % of viewers in the US / Canada, average view duration, link clicks, audience demographics, and examples of past campaigns that actually drove usage or signups.

We've made the decision to wind down Huxe. The team is moving on to new things, and we won't be continuing development of the product. What this means for you: Today May 21st: We're removing Huxe from the App Store and Play Store. If you have the app installed, it will continue to work for the next 7 days. May 28th: Service ends. If you have the app installed, it won’t uninstall automatically, but the features will stop working at 10AM Pacific Time, and audio will cease to play. May 29th: All user data will be securely and permanently deleted from our systems. The fact that you used it, told friends about it, sent us your suggestions and your ideas, made it feel like we built it together. Thank you for everything. -The Huxe Team

we just crossed 6,000 agent transactions on monid. and here are a few of the stories.

Meta cut 8,000 people today. A survivor wrote about a teammate who slept 4 hours a night for months. Commits at 3am. Commits at 6am. IC4. Strong reviews. No PIP. Cut anyway. Working harder doesn't move you up the layoff list. You don't survive by being valuable to them. You survive by not needing them.

LEAKED AUDIO FROM META ALL-HANDS AHEAD OF LAYOFFS TOMORROW Mark Zuckerberg, in his own words, told Meta employees their devices are being tracked to train AI models. His reasoning? Meta employees are smarter than the contract workers the rest of the industry uses for data labeling. So instead of hiring outside help, Meta is turning its own workforce into training data. "The average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people that you can get to do tasks if you're working through these contractors." He wants the AI to learn how "really smart people use computers" by watching employees work. He says the content is "stripped out" and none of it is used for surveillance or performance tracking. Then he admitted the rollout was botched but said Meta intentionally kept employees in the dark because leaking competitive AI strategy would help rivals. "It is not strategically in your interest for us to communicate everything in all the detail that we normally would on this." Translation: We're watching you, we told you as little as possible, and we did it on purpose. AI is replacing the contractor. Then the employee trains the AI. Then the AI replaces the employee. This story and this company keeps getting weirder.

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Startup founders begging YC and VCs for investment before getting a single user