OpenAI Hustles to Beat Google to Launch ‘Multimodal’ LLM Read more

SoftBank-Backed Messaging App IRL Says It Has 20 Million Users. Some Employees Have Doubts About That


IRL CEO and Co-founder Abraham Shafi. Art by Mike Sullivan
IRL CEO and Co-founder Abraham Shafi. Art by Mike Sullivan
May 12, 2022 6:00 AM PDT

IRL, a four year old social app, appears to be a fast-growing alternative to Facebook and messaging app Discord. It enables young people to chat in groups about shared interests, such as book clubs and sports, and to plan real-world events around those interests.

In conversations with the press and IRL’s investors, CEO and co-founder Abraham Shafi said the app has 20 million or so monthly active users, nearly double the figure from a year ago—shortly before SoftBank privately valued the company at $1 billion in a $170 million funding round. IRL, which stands for In Real Life, recently shared another impressive statistic with investors: 63% of the people who have begun using the app since the fall of 2020 are still using it as of April of this year—a remarkably high figure for the industry.

But inside the company, some employees recently expressed concern to managers about the usage figures the company has touted, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation. The issue seems to stem from Shafi’s use of a more expansive definition of active users than that of established social apps like Facebook, as well as emerging ones. These people told The Information they felt the company may have used an unconventional definition to make the app appear bigger than it is. Meanwhile, measurement firms such as Sensor Tower, which estimate app usage by tracking groups of mobile app users and other methods, show IRL has between 1 million and 2 million active users of its mobile app on a monthly basis.

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.
OpenAI's Greg Brockman (left) and Google's Demis Hassabis (right). Photos by Getty.
AI Agenda google ai
OpenAI Hustles to Beat Google to Launch ‘Multimodal’ LLM
As fall approaches, Google and OpenAI are locked in a good ol’ fashioned software race, aiming to launch the next generation of large-language models: multimodal.
From left, a Google TPU, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian. Photos via Getty, Google and YouTube.
Exclusive google semiconductors
To Reduce AI Costs, Google Wants to Ditch Broadcom as Its TPU Server Chip Supplier
Google executives have extensively discussed dropping Broadcom as a supplier of artificial intelligence chips as early as 2027, according to a person with direct knowledge of the effort.
Art by Clark Miller.
space Twitter
The Trouble With Walter: In His Elon Musk Tome, the Writer Shows Us the Perils of Access Journalism
Walter Isaacson is the exotic bird of American letters, a charming and convivial bon vivant and raconteur, the life of many a dinner party, a studious biographer and a generous mentor.
Flexport founder Ryan Petersen. Photos via Getty and Flexport.
e-commerce
Can Ryan Petersen Fix Flexport?
Ryan Petersen was getting antsy. This March, Petersen had handed over the CEO job at Flexport—the logistics company he’d founded a decade earlier, which had ballooned to an $8 billion valuation in 2022—to veteran Amazon executive Dave Clark.
Photos via Eiso Kant (left) and YouTube/VMWare Tanzu (right)
AI Agenda startups ai
How GitHub Copilot’s Co-Creator Raised $126 Million to Compete with His Former Employer
Recent interest in artificial intelligence has focused on large-language models that aim to do everything from writing Shakespearean poetry to solving math riddles.
Art by Mike Sullivan.
The Flexicon culture
A Is for Adaptogens, B Is for Body Sculpting: A Trending-in-Silicon Valley Health Glossary
Last month, The Information Weekend conducted our first-ever Brain-Body Investment Survey , asking subscribers about their exercise, wellness and beauty practices.