Inside the AI startup frenzy: ‘Everyone's pivoting, then pivoting again'
I've been covering AI a lot at The Verge, and I'm excited to start sharing some of the conversations I regularly have with leaders in the space here. The plan is for each episode to focus on a specific theme, from the rise of deepfakes to how AI is reimagining the browser.
This week, I'm focusing on how AI companies talk about what they're building. My guest is Ellis Hamburger. He's the founder of Meaning, a marketing firm that works with a lot of buzzy AI startups. Ellis actually used to work at The Verge shortly after it first launched in 2012, when he covered the early mobile app boom.
Now, he's in the trenches with a lot of AI startups, helping them figure out how to present their products to the world. That gives him a pretty unique perspective.
First, some disclosures: Ellis has a lot of clients that we cover at The Verge, including Nothing, Raycast, Readwise, Daylight, Friend, Mainframe, Tolan, and more. He also previously worked at The Browser Company and Snap. We recorded this episode together in Los Angeles, and as you'll probably be able to tell, Ellis and I have been friends for a long time.
I've always found Ellis to be an original thinker, and I hope you find our conversation as interesting as I did.
If you'd like to read more on what we talked about in this episode, check out the links below:
Questions or comments about this episode? Hit us up at decoder@theverge.com. We really do read every email!
A podcast from The Verge about big ideas and other problems.
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Takeaways for CMOs Navigating the Taboo Sexual Wellness Industry Lioness's GTM strategy invariably created very passionate consumers. When traditional digital marketing channels shut the door to Lee's ambitions, she created a window and strategically used her $1.2 million fundraise to launch Lioness. Unable to buy attention with advertising, she earned it instead through thought leadership backed by scientific credibility. Bootstrapping led to disciplined spending and creative problem-solving – such as her sharing very personal data very publicly, winning over Gen Z in the process, and their passion for audacity in sexual wellness education. For CMOs navigating restricted markets or taboo categories, here's how to copy her blueprint: 'As someone that was so scared of her own body growing up, the one way I found comfort in understanding my body was through science,' Lee confessed. 'There's a big mission drive for people purchasing the Lioness beyond just being like, 'Hey, this is a really cool vibrator.' They also feel that really big passion of what we have is to change the mission around sexual health and research.' Lee's arc from anatomy-phobic engineer to orgasm-data sexual wellness influencer is how taboo markets reward orthogonal thinking. In building a vibrator cum research device, she reengineered the narrative around female pleasure and redefined for women the passionate pursuit of luxury as the ability to own both their power and their pleasure.
