Why Adept Went Looking for Amazon

Jiang Wu · 2024-08-03

*Originally published in Chinese on August 3, 2024.*

Adept's position and why it sought a buyer

Adept, an AI agent startup, began in early 2022, before agents were a consensus, with two authors of the Transformer paper as co-founders. It ended up seeking to be acquired by Amazon.

Adept was for a time the earliest and most persistent team on this path. To a degree they believed AI could iterate on, even upgrade, the future of software work, and they stayed on a long technical path and kept trying. As things stand, though, they face enormous difficulty.

Uncertainty and the risk of losing customers

First, how far away the era they imagined is, and when it will arrive, is unknown. Second, the uncertainty they face along the way is not about technology or product. Another provider that owns customers could harvest their customers at any time. So selling to a company with channels, and adding new products and capability to its existing channels, is the choice that maximizes the product's utility.

The next round of acquisitions

Why customers and scenarios matter

The next acquisitions will center on companies that own customers and scenarios, buying technology leaders. Pure technical leadership cannot get venture funding to carry you through the cycle of turning technology and product into a business, and that cycle no longer exists.

A return to traditional business logic

Today we are back to traditional business logic: whoever has customers in hand has every possible opportunity. Those customers can be enterprises, consumers or ordinary users. Together they make up the largest consumption side. Without that side, none of the value from any technology system can last. So for a long time to come, only a few strong leading companies will keep a technology lead and jump into the next technology cycle to look for structural opportunities. For most founders and startups that hold technology in a narrow area, being acquired is already the best outcome.

Technology has to be consumed

Without consumption of the technology, that era never arrives.

Home · All articles · Topics · 简体中文