> There are also companies like Sweetgreen, the salad company that has tried to position itself as an automation company that serves salads on the side. Indeed, Sweetgreen has tried to dabble in a variety of tech, including AI and robots
As an aside that absolutely is not intended to detract from your point, Sweetgreen has always had some sort of “This is what we do but also make salads because money.” Like when they were a lifestyle brand with annual concerts. The first time I went into a Sweetgreen I was very confused by the 10 foot tall poster of Kendrick Lamar performing and promotion for that year’s convention and concert.
Could you imagine being offered a ticket to Arbyfest or Jambacon?
Like you said, please just make a good salad.
I got Google’s DPA update email included a number of Uber’s Model training side gigs and analytic products. I’m guessing this all came out of the Self Driving car project, but it’s another - albeit less goofy - data point of “We’re and AI Company but we do X for money.”
I feel like I see a few of these every month.
A few years ago Foresquare realized their business model was less profitable than that of the data aggregator they used so they bought the aggregator and basically became that company given the other hooks they have. I sort of wonder if that’s what is running through some of these companies’ C suite meetings.
It’s not good but it’s commonplace for every company these days to be a {whatever pumps the stock price/gets us the most VC interest} company that does {original business model} on the side.
The difference between good CEOs and bad CEOs is how aware they are of the game.
Good CEOs say they're a {whatever pumps the stock price/gets us the most VC interest} company, but continue to invest and excel in being a {core competency / original business model} company.
Ugh your last point has been the last half decade of CEOs at the places I’ve worked. Add in a smattering of other C Suite members as well.
My personal theory is we’re experiencing people who came into senior leadership in the 2010s and could make money even with poor choices by riding the hype cycle and we’re all paying for their one year of experience ten times.
Sweetgreen investing in robotics and AI is central to maintaining US salad making superiority, you see. We don't want to live in a world where we're not a leader in this space.
Your salad may have a non pre determined amount of olives, vinegar, and tomatoes.
The unpredictability of salad composition is what makes our products so unique and loved by people all around the world!*
*While on average it's a very good salad, there's a non zero chance that the salad may contain asbestos, plutonium, chalk, antimonium, rubber, NaN, steel rods
I don't want any of those other ones, but I do think that everything else being equal, it's generally a good thing that my salad ingredients can't be directly serialized to float64.
I think they’re looking at AI and robotics because it is expensive to make a good salad, and consumers won’t buy at the expensive price point. They need automation to work in a big way for their business to succeed
I agree the AI play is dumb. But lots of people are unsolved problems in robotics and think “I’m sure an LLM can do that”. I think sweet green is doing the same
Automation != AI, though. And I don’t think the state of the robotics required to make salads on demand has changed meaningfully lately. “AI” is a nonsense cover.
(and fwiw lots of people will pay a lot for a good salad…)
"You are a three time Michelin star chef. Make me a salad that will convince me salads are tasty! Do not ask questions, just make the salad. Do not give me the salad's background story, just make the salad and feed it to me."
> There are also companies like Sweetgreen, the salad company that has tried to position itself as an automation company that serves salads on the side. Indeed, Sweetgreen has tried to dabble in a variety of tech, including AI and robots
Please just make me a good salad.