Perplexity gave $30 million in discounts to reach 50 million users
Ed Zitron · Are AI's Economics Unsustainable? — With Ed Zitron · Jul 23, 2025 · at 54:05
Ed Zitron criticizes AI search engine Perplexity AI and its CEO Aravind Srinivas during a discussion on generative AI business models.
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“Well, first of all, they're an insanely badly run company. They did, like, thirty-five million. They lost, I forget exactly how much they lost, but they did refunds or discounts of, like, thirty million dollars. They're literally giving money away to make people use it. And even then, they only have like, fifty million users.”
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