Disrupting Amazon with @dupeapp | Disrupted invisalign with @livecandid | Grew @wework from 1 country to 25 + $100M in rev to $5 billion | Raised over $250M
New York City, New York
Joined June 2007
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“We used our models to understand where it had come from.” It took me 2
seconds to Dupe the device to figure out what it is and that it came from Amazon 🫠
We discovered a sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices. We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier. We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work.
At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated.
We take protecting our technology, data, and people seriously, and as a matter of national importance. Our security program is designed to protect against a wide range of threat actors, from insider risks to cybercriminals to nation states, and this case is an example of how AI can help address these sophisticated security threats.
Every year Dupe tries to find a product angle that has a shot of breaking the internet. In 2024 we mainstreamed visual similarity search and ended up on The Today Show, in 2025 we launched conversational commerce and went to #1 in the app store, beating ChatGPT. This year we're going to go after one of the (insanely) fastest growing segments in genZ commerce... fragrances, with agentic commerce baked in.
What it looks like, pre-launch, behind the scenes... I test formats for content until we go predictably viral, so that when launch day comes around, going viral is inevitable. Here's an example of a ugc test.
LMK if you've seen content click in the fragrance space recently, or if you have ideas I can try here, publicly 🙏🏼, looking to launch in a few weeks.
Perfumes have had record YoY growth for 7 years straight... after a brief, decade-long lull post the 2009-2011 recession and its showing no signs of slowing down. It's a category I love because the youth are buying frags faster than any other cohort, they're buying them compulsively as prices get hiked up every year. And they're putting out millions of hours of content about fragrances every week which shows attention demand. It's a good example of the type of growing, underserved niche Dupe can target while growing that cohort's usage beyond fragrances into other categories like fashion and home goods.
Dupe’s policy is to add a “🥩” emoji when pasting AI copy to show that you’re acting as a meat proxy for AI content. This has been an extensive discussion within our company over the past two weeks. Varun is touching on a live wire inside every company right now and I think his recs are genuinely good.
🤯 Doing a data dive on how people shop on @dupeapp from the last couple of months. Absolutely mind boggling number: Above $2,000, 98% of shoppers paid less, with a median saving of 93%
🤯 But it isn't all about saving money either. People "dupe up" a lot too, meaning they come to us with a low cost alternative and then we guide them to a better, more expensive product. About 25% dupe up. Median multiple: they spend 2.04x the original. A quarter spend 4.2x or more; a tenth spend 10x or more.
Narrative violation: Dupe isn't just a place people come to save money, they use it to discover better products in order to feel confident in spending more money.
My design industry and designer pet peeve has always been designers who dress theatrically to fit the "designer" moniker... just so there's absolutely no doubt what they do at the company.
In my 41 years i've come to believe that the measure of a man is the weight of responsibility he willingly carries for others without collapsing, abandoning them, or needing credit for it.
Men like this earn my deepest respect.
Should've saved this tweet for father's day.
For folks into parfums, edp, edt, what are some grail scents and parfum houses? Doing research for Dupe. Thanks!
I have an idea @i8ramin
.@dupeapp’s team grew daily revenue by 600% this quarter, so Ramin and I in the mountains planning our way to get to the 10x benchmark by end of year. Get yourself a cofounder you like vacationing with ❤️
