The BIG AI Idea. The Perplexity Report
The Answer Engine Shaking the Throne of Google
Hi, AI Futurists!
For 25 years, Google has dominated the realm of search engine platforms with over 90% market share. This may soon change.
Meet Perplexity. The New Genius Kid in the Search Block
Perplexity may be the most loved and best (and free) AI tool out there after ChatGPT with over 10 million active users a month.
It is the product of a mindshift about what search is, creating clear concise paragraph answers using up to 10 references.
What’s Perplexity?
Perplexity is the conversational factual answer engine that uses Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-4, Mistral, and its own algorithm.
Therefore, instead of Googling and seeing 10 hyperlinks and a bunch of ads to search further, you can receive an immediate and concise answer in 0.65 seconds on average.
No Ads. No Hyperlinks. Freemium
Its freemium business model means you can use Perplexity on your desktop or the Perplexity app on your mobile device for free, without constant ads getting in your way.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
- Understanding Perplexity. The AI-Powered Answer Engine Company
- Understanding Aravind Srinivas. The CEO and Co-Founder of Perplexity
- Understanding Perplexity’s Business. How to Invest in the Business that Can Grow 100-Folds in the Next Few Years
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Missed out on Ring and Nest? Don’t let RYSE slip away!
Ring 一 Acquired by Amazon for $1.2B
Nest 一 Acquired by Google for $3.2B
If you missed out on these spectacular early investments in the Smart Home space, here’s your chance to grab hold of the next one.
RYSE is a tech firm poised to dominate the Smart Shades market (growing at an astonishing 55% annually), and their public offering of shares priced at just $1.50 has opened.
They have generated over 20X growth in share price for early shareholders, with significant upside remaining as they just launched in over 100 Best Buy stores.
Retail distribution was the main driver behind the acquisitions of both Ring and Nest, and their exclusive deal with Best Buy puts them in pole position to dominate this burgeoning industry.
Google was the first technology company that also became a verb. It has become a utility and a daily habit. It was like going to the Amazon website to shop before all else.
Then, came Perplexity’s brilliant approach of using LLMs such as GPT to create direct and conversational answers with a concise paragraph that may pretty soon shake the throne of Google in a few years.
The Perplexity Mission and Vision
The concise and well-designed pitch deck of Perplexity describes the mission and vision of the company so well.
Mission. The world’s most knowledge-centric company
Vision. Conversational answer engines and search co-pilots. The place where people want to be when they want to discover and share knowledge. Give people back their time and make them smarter.
How Perplexity AI Technology Works
- Large Language Models (LLMs). Perplexity AI harnesses advanced LLMs such as GPT-4 and custom models to understand user queries and summarize information accurately.
- Built-in Search Engine. The platform indexes and retrieves relevant sources, ensuring users receive up-to-date information for their queries.
- Contextual Understanding. Perplexity AI’s algorithms provide contextual awareness, delivering precise responses tailored to users’ needs.
How The Perplexity Team Works
Perplexity, a unicorn in the industry as of April 2024, boasts a team of 40 employees with extensive experience in AI, machine learning, and natural language processing, having previously worked at top AI companies such as OpenAI and Google.
The team’s diverse expertise spans research, data analysis, content strategy optimization, professional development, news gathering, and investment analysis, enabling Perplexity AI to assist enterprises in making informed decisions, enhancing efficiency, and gaining deeper insights into complex market dynamics.
According to Sam Altman, there will soon be a one-person billion-dollar company. Perplexity is as close as it gets to that ideal.
- 5 Blog Posts. 1200-word each, optimized for 5 keywords to rank in Google for your specific field. 7-day delivery.
- Social Media Posts. The Awaynear team will create social media content for 3 platforms of your choice for a week. 21 posts. 7-day delivery.
- Custom Landing Page. We will build your stunning landing page with up to 5 sections and 3 call-to-actions so that you can create leads and conversions. 7-day delivery.
Perplexity was founded in November 2022 by Andy Konwinski, Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, and Johnny Ho. Aravind Srinivas is the CEO and the person creating the vision and strategies for Perplexity.
Leaders shape a company. Let’s get to know Aravind Srinivas.
What Inspired Aravind Srinivas
Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, was inspired by the stories of entrepreneurship in the “Pirates of Silicon Valley” and “The Social Network”, as well as the evolution of Google’s PageRank and the development of transformers in deep learning models. He was fascinated by the potential of generative AI startups like Jasper and GitHub Copilot, which convinced him that the time was right to start a company.
Background
Aravind Srinivas is an Indian-American computer scientist, researcher, and programmer who co-founded Perplexity AI. He holds a Master’s in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, focusing on transfer learning and reinforcement learning. In 2021, he earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in contrastive learning for computer vision and transformers for image generation.
Work
Aravind worked as a research assistant and scientist in the top 3 leading AI companies in the world before starting Perplexity.
- Research Intern at OpenAI (May 2018 — Aug 2018)
- Research Intern at DeepMind (May 2019 — Sep 2019)
- Research Intern at Google (May 2020 — Apr 2021)
- Research Scientist at OpenAI (Sep 2021 — Aug 2022)
This should have given Aravind the experience, insight as well as the network of engineers and investors about how he could improve the search engine market.
Work Principles
In terms of work principles, Aravind Srinivas emphasizes the importance of being pragmatic and working alongside the best models available, such as those from OpenAI, rather than trying to build foundational models in-house. He also believes in building a product that stands out in a crowded landscape by focusing on a specific problem and delivering a superior solution.
Aravind’s Vision
Aravind Srinivas is committed to focusing on the problem of search and building a product that stands out in a crowded landscape. He emphasizes the importance of keeping your focus, even when new products and large funding rounds are being announced every day, and building a product that solves a specific problem rather than trying to do too much.
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Perplexity has been funded by 34 investors including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Susan Wojcicki, the ex-CEO of YouTube, and Garry Tan, the CEO of Y-Combinator.
Following the latest Round B investment, Perplexity has become a unicorn, in less than 1.5 years after its founding and with 40 employees only.
With its freemium ad-free business model, Perplexity will surely experience hypergrowth in the next few years considering how useful and time-saving it is to use it for whenever anyone wants to learn things.
Perplexity just introduced Perplexity Enterprise, which may boost its corporate business.
Plans for Ad-Free Growth
- Perplexity Ask. This is the free version of Perplexity AI, which is free to use. It provides users with access to the platform’s core features, such as generating text, answering questions, and summarizing content. This model is suitable for casual users who don’t require advanced features or high-volume usage.
- Perplexity Pro. Perplexity Pro is a paid version of the platform that offers additional features and capabilities. It includes access to advanced AI models like GPT-4 Turbo, Claude 3 (Sonnet and Opus), Mistral’s Large, and Perplexity’s in-house model, “Experimental.” Pro users can also attach images and files for content exploration and have the option to upgrade the default model to their preference.
- Perplexity Enterprise. Perplexity Enterprise is a customized version of the platform tailored for businesses and organizations. It offers enterprise-grade security features, including SOC II Type 1 Compliance and the process of SOC II Type 2 Compliance (ETA June 2024). Enterprise users can choose the AI model they want to use and switch seamlessly depending on their needs.
How to Invest in Pre-IPO Perplexity
There are 3 main platforms, namely, UpMarket, Equity Zen, and Forge Global.
What does an accredited investor mean? Your annual income should exceed $200K or your worth needs to be over $1M.
The Risks of Pre-IPO Investments
IPO uncertainty, limited liquidity, regulatory compliance, potential for total loss, market volatility, and more.
The Potential Rewards of Pre-IPO Investments
Discounted pricing, exclusive opportunities, potential for significant returns, diversification and portfolio growth, equity ownership, and more.
If you are not an accredited investor, there are also platforms for non-accredited investors such as Titan and Equitybee.
In the end, all investment actions require extensive due diligence. However, consider the potential returns if you had invested in NVIDIA a decade ago or Amazon 20 years ago.
We believe Perplexity will be one of the top companies of the AI age when it comes to searching or learning anything. There may be other AI companies that you may keep an eye on also.
You can look into UpMarket, Equity Zen and Forge Global’s Perplexity pre-IPO offers.
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Listen to the Discover Daily Podcast
Prepared by Perplexity AI, narrated by Eleven Labs, Discover Daily explores what is happening in the AI and Tech Space.
That’s it for today. Hope we are expanding your AI Horizons a little every day.
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