Founder | AI Solutions | AI Strategy | AI Recruitment | AI Engineers | Fractional Leadership | Microservices Consultant | Go Engineers | Angular Engineers | Singulatron® | janos@singulatron.com
Today Y Combinator deleted this announcement post (see image), partly because of my comment. Their post was about Optifye, which uses AI to performance monitor factory workers. Nothing against YC as they shaped a big chunk of my life positively. But I just wanted to let you know that this kind of thing (removing posts at the slightest pushback) happens.
Seems like the story is developing, someone raised the incident on Hacker News (Y Combinator's forum): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43170850
ugh. my lord this was the worst "commercial" for a product I have seen. That said...a lot of developing countries are ok with running sweatshops. And developed countries are ok with buying massive amounts of products made in sweatshops. The problem is obviously ethical. constant monitoring creates a high-pressure environment for workers. Workers definitely wont' feel like human beings. The tool is marketed as a way to "boost efficiency" and "lower cortisol levels" for factory owners, but zero mention of how it might improve conditions for workers. The intent of the tool is obvious. Tools like this should be designed with worker well-being in mind, not just efficiency and profit. But this is our world now.
This is why founders should be learning basic sales skills. Could have been framed in a much different way, with a different outcome. Wish YC spent more time teaching founders core business skills
Founder | AI Solutions | AI Strategy | AI Recruitment | AI Engineers | Fractional Leadership | Microservices Consultant | Go Engineers | Angular Engineers | Singulatron® | janos@singulatron.com
1moNew: the thread "Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers" on Hacker News got removed from the front page despite having 242 points.