AI Startups Are Facing a ReckoningRead more

Clubhouse Isn’t Dead Yet


Sure, the onetime social audio star has lost users, creators and Silicon Valley cachet. But Clubhouse raised piles of cash and hasn't blown it on a wild spending spree. Now it just has to figure out how to restart growth before the money runs out.

Art by Clark Miller
Art by Clark Miller
July 12, 2022 6:24 AM PDT

Maybe the eulogies for Clubhouse were a bit premature.

Sure, the social audio app’s star has dimmed since it became a Silicon Valley sensation during the first phase of the pandemic, when millions of people were stuck at home, bored out of their minds. By some estimates, usage of the app is down more than 70% from its peak in February 2021, and popular creators who once hosted lively interactive discussions on the platform are bailing on it. Even the luminaries from Andreessen Horowitz—the venture firm that backed Clubhouse and then flooded its chatrooms with its partners to expound on crypto and other topics—have become far less active personalities on the app.

But Clubhouse is still alive and kicking. It raised boatloads of cash—around $310 million, according to PitchBook—and, more important, it doesn’t seem to have blown the money on the kind of extravagant spending spree that landed so many other tech startups in hot water. Clubhouse has under 100 employees and, at least so far, has avoided the kind of deep layoffs some companies have had to resort to recently—like Peloton, which cut 2,800 employees, or 20% of its corporate workforce, earlier this year. People who have recently left Clubhouse estimated that the company’s cash has given it enough runway to stave off existential questions for several years.

Access on the go
View stories on our mobile app and tune into our weekly podcast.
Join live video Q&A’s
Deep-dive into topics like startups and autonomous vehicles with our top reporters and other executives.
Enjoy a clutter-free experience
Read without any banner ads.
Former Apple design chief Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photos by Getty.
Exclusive
Designer Jony Ive and OpenAI’s Sam Altman Discuss AI Hardware Project
Jony Ive, the renowned designer of the iPhone, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have been discussing building a new AI hardware device, according to two people familiar with the conversations.
From left: Paul Graham, Garry Tan and Michael Seibel. Photos by Getty. Art by Mike Sullivan.
Exclusive startups ai
Y Combinator’s Garry Tan Goes to the Mat
Garry Tan was in his happy place. Surrounded by food trucks and techies basking in San Francisco’s September sun, the CEO of Y Combinator snapped selfies with entrepreneurs as he meandered through a crowd of 2,700 attendees at the startup accelerator’s annual alumni event.
Dave Rogenmoser, cofounder of Jasper. Photo via Getty.
Exclusive startups ai
Jasper, an Early Generative AI Winner, Cuts Internal Valuation as Growth Slows
Jasper AI, an early darling of the generative artificial intelligence boom, has cut the internal value of its common shares 20%, according to former employees who were notified by the company.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Photo by Getty
Exclusive semiconductors ai
Nvidia Deepens Push Into AWS’ Turf
Nvidia’s ambition to compete with Amazon Web Services is growing. Nvidia is best known for designing server chips for artificial intelligence, but it has been running a nascent cloud service for corporate customers that develop AI with those chips.
Dave Rogenmoser, co-founder of Jasper. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.
AI Agenda ai
AI Startups Are Facing a Reckoning
A reckoning may be coming for once-hot artificial intelligence startups. Among the most vulnerable: consumer apps (think Character.AI) and “thin wrapper” startups like CopyAI that merely provide a nice user interface on top of a third-party model from model developers like OpenAI.
Art by Mike Sullivan.
Exclusive apple asia
How a Hidden Bar Code in iPhone Screens Saved Apple Hundreds of Millions of Dollars
Next time you try to wipe a smudge off your iPhone screen, take a closer look. See if you can spot one of the two tiny QR codes etched into its glass.