{"id":5444,"date":"2025-09-24T13:12:29","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T13:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/former-facebook-exec-ai-vibes\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T13:12:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T13:12:29","slug":"former-facebook-exec-ai-vibes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/former-facebook-exec-ai-vibes\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Facebook Exec Warns AI Industry Is Entirely Built on \u201cVibes\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The deluge of speculative tech investments<\/a> unleashed by artificial intelligence is unparalleled in history. Never before has a technology which promises so much \u2014 but currently <\/strong>does so little \u2014 managed to capture enough funding to threaten the US economy<\/a> should it fail.<\/p>\n

With that kind of cash on the line, one would assume that <\/strong>tech startups have done their homework on the complicated reality<\/a> of AI development before courting untold millions of dollars from overzealous investors \u2014 that\u2019s sort of their job, after all. But according to Facebook\u2019s former head of design turned tech entrepreneur Julie Zhuo, the hottest AI companies on the market are getting by on \u201cgood instincts and good vibes\u201d alone.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview<\/a> with podcast host Lenny Rachitsky that was spotted by Business Insider<\/em><\/a>, the tech industry veteran laid out the remarkable reality of the recent explosion in AI investment: tech companies are growing fast, with no interest in understanding why.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think a lot of the fast-growing companies are using data well at this point,\u201d Zhuo explained. \u201cAnd, the main reason why is because, traditionally, things just don\u2019t grow that fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhuo outlines what could become an grim irony <\/strong>if the near-infinite well<\/a> of venture capital ever starts to dry up, a major anxiety<\/a> for companies like OpenAI. Essentially, she tells Rachitsky, AI startups that got by on vibes and hype alone will find themselves screwed when it comes time to function like an actual business \u2014 precisely because of their explosive growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we see companies that are growing insane,\u201d the former Facebook exec continued, \u201cand they\u2019re still about ten people, or two people, or however many people, but they\u2019ve got hundreds of millions [in revenue], and hundreds of millions of users, and they don\u2019t actually have all of that infrastructure\u2026 to be able to do that data analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s not a question of \u201cif\u201d the music stops; experts have been hollering for months that the current AI funding boom<\/a> is financially unsustainable. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn my mind, [data] helps us reflect back on what is reality\u2026 what always happens is eventually, things stop growing,\u201d Zhuo cautions. \u201cGrowth does not happen forever. And usually when growth stops, everyone has this question like, \u2018what\u2019s going on, what happened?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking data and analytics seriously, Zhuo explains, makes it much more likely that a company will diagnose the root cause of slowing growth, or even that a company can predict the inevitable financial slowdown in the first place. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have good observability over how your business runs, then you will be scrambling,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Zhuo isn\u2019t necessarily concerned with the broader economic fallout of AI hype. As a businessperson, she\u2019s more interested in value from the point of view of a startup\u2019s overall longevity.<\/p>\n

That said, she doesn\u2019t have to be: some 33 US-based AI startups have raised over $100 million<\/a> in 2025 alone. A handful of those funding rounds were in the billions. So far, none of them are even close to turning a profit on AI, something even the leading big tech giants<\/a> can\u2019t seem to figure out.<\/p>\n

When the cash inevitably stops flowing, the cautious, data-driven AI startups may be the only ones <\/strong>left standing \u2014 if any of them survive at all, that is.<\/p>\n

More on AI hype:<\/strong> Data Shows That AI Use Is Now Declining at Large Companies<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The post Former Facebook Exec Warns AI Industry Is Entirely Built on \u201cVibes\u201d<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The deluge of speculative tech investments unleashed by artificial intelligence is unparalleled in history. Never before has a technology which promises so much \u2014 but currently does so little \u2014…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,3121,3842,2936],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-finance","category-future-society","category-investing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}