“Even now, post-SVB, AI companies with no revenue can raise tens of millions — or $150 million, in the case of Character.ai — because they resemble what’s “hot” without any consideration as to whether they’re real businesses.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
As of mid-2023, AI companies with no revenue can raise tens of millions of dollars (Character.ai raised $150 million) because they look like what's hot, with no thought given to whether they are real businesses.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Ed Zitron wrote it
Where's Your Ed At, Broken Things, paragraph 30.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment wyea-broken-things-e158d4-a1
We recorded 2 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2023-06-28. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Causal claim
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
Conditions
- post-SVB (qualifier, stated by the speaker)
From the speaker
- post-SVB
- AI companies with no revenue
- raise tens of millions
- $150 million, in the case of Character.ai
- because they resemble what’s “hot”
- without any consideration as to whether they’re real businesses
Our interpretation
- Assess both the financing example and the asserted reason investors supplied the money. Funding announcements alone cannot establish the causal claim.
- Read no revenue as the company's status when it raised the cited round, rather than a claim that Character.AI remained without revenue on publication day.
- Read real businesses in context as businesses with a credible route to sustaining operations through sales.
- The target period is the post-SVB portion of March 2023 through publication on June 28, 2023. Month precision reflects the period described; later June events are excluded.
- The financial scope records the explicitly quantified Character.AI example. The post links to press reporting, so its financial basis is estimate.
Counts as supported if: Evidence establishes the cited pre-revenue financing and shows that perceived AI popularity drove the investment without substantive consideration of commercial viability.
Counts as contradicted if: Reliable evidence disproves the cited financing or pre-revenue status, or contemporaneous investment records show substantive consideration of commercial viability inconsistent with the categorical claim.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Does the evidence support the cause?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
The records corroborate the Character.AI financing example. They do not establish the stronger claim that investors funded it because AI was fashionable while giving commercial viability no consideration. The lead investor publicly described product and market reasons for investing, but that announcement is not a record of its actual diligence. The causal claim remains unresolved.
Limitations
- Financial corroboration is context rather than basis-matched evidence of the causal outcome.
- The revenue-status evidence comes from reputable reporting of a company statement, rather than public financial accounts.
- The assessment preserves the causal wording instead of grading only the easier financing fact.
Evidence (4 items)
Context only: Gunderson Dettmer,
Series A financing
Why it matters here: Direct transaction-party disclosure corroborates the financing amount. It does not establish investor motives and is not the press-report basis specified in the contract.
- Publisher
- Gunderson Dettmer
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Measures
- Character.AI, capital raised in the cited funding round, USD millions, company reported, 2023-03 to 2023-03
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: The Wall Street Journal, republished by Fox Business,
doesn’t generate revenue
Why it matters here: Confirms status.
- Publisher
- The Wall Street Journal, republished by Fox Business
- Kind of source
- News report
- Measures
- Character.AI, revenue, USD dollars, company reported, ? to 2023-03-23
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Andreessen Horowitz,
the better Character.AI becomes.
Why it matters here: The investor's announcement describes a product-improvement mechanism and discusses users, technical capabilities and market value. This weighs against the claim that popularity alone mattered, but promotional language cannot establish the diligence actually performed.
- Publisher
- Andreessen Horowitz
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Character.AI,
an opt-in subscription plan
Why it matters here: A subscription offering existed before the post. This makes the distinction between revenue status at financing and at publication material, although launching subscriptions does not itself establish receipts.
- Publisher
- Character.AI
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
Contemporaneous investment records or well-corroborated reporting showing whether commercial viability was substantively evaluated and what drove the relevant funding decisions.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Where's Your Ed At, Broken Things
Even now, post-SVB, AI companies with no revenue can raise tens of millions — or $150 million, in the case of Character.ai — because they resemble what’s “hot” without any consideration as to whether they’re real businesses.
- Where
- paragraph 30
- Published
- 2023-06-28
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment wyea-broken-things-e158d4-a1: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.