Comment by htrp
1 year ago
>Character.AI co-founder Daniel De Freitas is also joining Google with some other employees from the startup. Dominic Perella, Character.AI’s General Counsel, is becoming an interim CEO at the startup.
So basically leaving a shell of a company and the GC to try and run it / wind it down.
Is this a cheat code for doing an acquisition without FTC scrutiny?
Yes. Character.ai usage is way down from the peak and it is only getting easier for startups to compete in the space. However, the plausibility of an actual FAANG acquisition is almost zero, so this is the next best option… at least for certain stakeholders. Microsoft did this with Inflection.
What was the peak? I see estimated 211 million visits in June 2024, vs 86 million in Feb 2023.
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This almost seems exactly it, just as the last paragraph of the TechCrunch article hints at.
And screw investors
per The Information -- investors don't get screwed, the board repurchased all shares at $88/share ($2.5B valuation).
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