The program covers brand building, customer acquisition and launch, fundraising, team building, and more. The selected startups and founders meet each other, and receive the curriculum via workshops and keynote sections from \u201cluminary speakers\u201d such as Zynga founder Mark Pincus, Figma co-founder Dylan Field, a16z\u2019s namesakes Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and others.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Silicon Valley incubators and accelerators are common, but I\u2019ve rarely seen such an unappetizing buffet of bad ideas as Speedrun\u2019s AI-centric 2025 cohort.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last week, I wrote about Doublespeed, essentially a click farm that sells \u201csynthetic influencers\u201d<\/a> to astroturf whatever product or service you want across social media, despite it being a clear violation of every social media platform’s policy on inauthentic behavior. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.\u00a0<\/p>\n a16z\u2019s Speedrun is also backing:<\/p>\n Creed<\/a>: An AI company \u201crooted in Christian Values\u201d which produces Lenny, a \u201cBible-based AI buddy who’s always got your back with wise words, scripture-inspired guidance, and a listening ear whenever you need it.\u201dZingroll<\/a>: The \u201cworld\u2019s largest Netflix-quality AI streaming platform,\u201d which is another way of saying it\u2019s a Netflix populated exclusively with AI Slop.Vega<\/a>: which is building \u201cAI-powered social orbits.\u201d What does that mean? Not entirely clear, but the company has produced one of the most beautiful Mad Libs paragraphs I\u2019ve ever seen: \u201cWe\u2019re building the largest textual data moat on human relationships by gamifying the way people leave notes for each other. For the first time, LLMs can analyze millions of raw, human-written notes at scale and turn them into structured meaning, powering the most annotated social graph ever created.\u201dMoona Health<\/a>: an AI-powered Sleep care app the company says is covered by insurance. \u201cOur AI-powered platform automates insurance claims and scheduling and analyzes sleep data \u2013 providing personalized session guidelines to therapists,\u201d Moona says.Jooba<\/a>: \u201cThe world\u2019s first autonomous recruiting firm.\u201dMargin<\/a>: \u201cThe World\u2019s first AI powered credit card.\u201d Margin says \u201cCustomers earn points, with dynamic rewards that adapt to their preferences in real time.\u201dFirst Voyage<\/a>: A wellness app that gives you AI \u201cmythological pets that turn wellness into play.\u201dAxon Capital<\/a>: billed as \u201cDeepMind for Finance,\u201d Axon says it has \u201cpioneered brain-inspired, low-latency AI for financial markets.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of the strategy for these types of accelerators and Silicon Valley venture capital firms more broadly is to place a lot of bets on a lot of startups with the knowledge that most of them are not going to make it. A million dollars is not a lot of money to a16z, especially when it only needs one of these companies to 100x its investment in order to make the whole endeavor profitable. What makes this Speedrun and the current moment we\u2019re in with generative AI different is that a lot of AI implementations are going to be shoved down our throats before investors realize what AI is and isn\u2019t good for.\u00a0<\/p>\n Are Doublespeed\u2019s AI-generated social media accounts actually going to convince people to use whatever products they\u2019re promoting? The accounts<\/a> I\u2019ve seen lead me to believe that the answer is no, but until then, they will continue to flood social media with garbage. Is Jooba going to entirely replace HR professionals and recruiters? I don\u2019t know, but a whole bunch of people who are trying to get a job to pay rent are going to get caught up in a dehumanizing process until we find out<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n So the next time you find yourself asking why you’re being inundated with AI wherever you go, remember that the answer is that someone with millions of dollars to spare paid for it on the off chance that it will yield a nice return. <\/p>\n About the author<\/p>\n Emanuel Maiberg is interested in little known communities and processes that shape technology, troublemakers, and petty beefs. Email him at emanuel@404media.co\n<\/p>\n
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