He Rejected Apple Twice Before He Created Midjourney

Enter your email here: johncoogan.com
ABOUT JOHN COOGAN:
I am the co-founder of soylent.com and lucy.co, both of which were funded by Y Combinator (Summer 2012 and Winter 2018).
I've been an entrepreneur for the last decade across multiple companies. I've done a lot of work in Silicon Valley, so that's mostly what I talk about. I've raised over 10 rounds of venture capital totaling over $100m in funding.
I work mostly in tech-enabled consumer packaged goods, meaning I use software to make the best products possible
CONTACT:
You can get in touch with me via Twitter: / johncoogan
Disclaimer: This video is purely my opinion and should not be regarded as a primary source. I am not a financial advisor and this is not a recommendation to buy or sell securities. Always do your own due diligence.

[@joshuarileymagic]

I never knew that the Midjourney founder also founded Leap Motion, I still have one of their old Leap Motion units at home as I was fascinated by it during college

[@korymortensen830]

Just discovered your channel today. Love the production value and persona, and the way information is displayed. Thank you.

[@Munthasir123]

This channel is criminally underrated. Can’t wait for you to blow up like CoffeZilla!

[@Jack-pf6lv]

That why you don't want to reject some technical dude

[@teawa_]

Logically Answered literally just made a video about how tech companies hire people just to prevent them from going to work for competition, its a great watch

[@monos112]

Click bait Title he rejected Apple

[@johnrperry5897]

How do comments like this get any votes. This comment makes no sense.

[@Licardo7]

@@johnrperry5897it’s sarcasm

[@seafffoam]

John, this is such an excellent and informative video! Thank you for making this! I've been loving exploring creatively in Midjourney and basically found your video by searching why the program was created. As a graphic designer, it is most definitely helping me deal with the "thinking overwhelms doing" reality I often battle with. It's been surprisingly SO helpful in that regard.

[@SaddamHussain-we9ec]

David seems to be like a far greater personality than anybody else in tech.

[@beautyandthesavage]

John, what an impeccable job! Loved hearing about one of my favorite geeky dudes in such a casual, friend-to-friend way. Thanks!!

[@Nutrisof]

Nice name tho btw.

[@Ailidan]

he invented stealing machine god job.

[@ralify]

Anyone else noticed that this released after NFTs crashed and that most NFTs were probably AI generated by a bot like this?

[@Zheliya]

no matter what you think, that guy shouldn't have had to even compete, we put years and years to learn to draw, and all of the complexity that comes with it, just for someone to go and generate an image in 20 min and win. so no they shouldn't be allowed to compete. as an individual that dreamed of becoming an artist for the longest time it truly broke me that he won something that he didn't work for.

[@safiulfaiyaz7038]

Nope if you think that creating an AI like that requires no skill then you my man should really stay in your lane. If I were in your place, I would be like; I'm going to make such bombastic art that even AI generated ones cannot compete with my creations. Would I be able to do it? I wouldn't know, not unless I tried

[@mk8_it]

@@safiulfaiyaz7038 the hell are you talking about !? what skills besides entering text prompts are you speaking of when it comes to Ai image generators from people who could not even hold a bush correctly to paint a straight line?, please elaborate... and make a strong comparison to art work that takes people years or a life time to learn the technics to produce by hand with not just with paint but in multiple mediums. like the Mona Lisa, Im sure you heard of that work ,please explain to me how much physical skill and talent you needed to exert to come up with a digital equivalent by entering text prompts on discord?

[@ishish8816]

7:49 underneath the bite of the apple logo you can see Jacob from Funhaus !

[@garvkhatwani8627]

glad your startup series is back 🔥

[@anthonypace5354]

but midjourney uses, just as with all the image generators, unlicensed stolen data to train their models.

[@DannyBoy443]

There are a LOT of artists wanting to send anthrax to this guys house lol.

[@morjer5263]

By his own logic it would be fine to shoot him in the face. Holz once argued the artists whose work he used to train his AI have no right to complain. They should never have uploaded their work to internet. According to him, what's on the internet is fair game. This means that if he ever leaves his house, making himself accessible to the public, he should be fair game to all artists, doesn't it?

[@User_id-r1x]

I have started to hate Ai generate artworks more and more, that to me all of the works look so scary

[@ezioauditoredafirenze1108]

He is not some I would be impressed with. He is a thief and not an inspiration. He stole millions of images, scrapping whole Artstation without consent, stealing stock imagery or God knows what else. A model like midjourney can perform so well because there was not a question of data ethics due to it being a private entity, stable diffusion can't do that and still SDXL is already performing as good as midjourney, at least close to it yet trained ethically on a very small dataset. In the early midjourney models people were clearly getting image credits on generated images (getty, artstation etc) and it can create art styles of artist who never opted for midjourney model training, which cant be mathematically possible. Just because its improved and we don't see it anymore doesn't make him anything special but a petty thief. we need to respect organizations that respect us. He started a company on bad principals, and he wouldn't hesitate to do more bad things in future. He will end up scrapping private data of people to create another cool AI. But it will be too late.

[@nixielee]

It's also serious copyright infringement. Midjourney is cool and all, but the real winner of future AI generation will be data, and they haven't paid for theirs. There is no chance this company can succeed, because if it does the entertainment industry is over.

[@tthompson9244]

Your content is so interesting and informative, I'm surprised you don't have millions of subscribers.

[@sasmills]

I think his appearance doesn't reflect edge. His work has lots of edge which is part of why it's so good, but he looks like the least edgy, most clean cut guy, ever. Jake tran when he was still showing his face matched the edginess of his videos in his appearance. James Jani, and the borders guy, all have an edgier appearance that seems to say, "yes this is my work and I'm the sole creator. " even though they probably have a team... it just matches their appearance and personal style.

[@Modenut]

Incredibly similar upbringing to Mark Zuckerberg. His dad was also a dentist who needed computers 😄

[@winterdedavid]

Impressive storytelling, John, subbed!

[@zeusluby1290]

Excellent video. I was fascinated when I heard about Leap Motion and it’s emerging tech. I purchased it as soon as the first batch was available. I always wondered what came of that company.

[@HolowatyVlogs]

*”David’s dad was a dentist.”* Hold up….

[@rodeo0808]

Misleading title, he rejected Apple twice not the other way around. David is definitely a smart man with artist tendencies.

[@fred-62]

Its called clickbait

[@frosticlle]

A bait for a seriously good video!

[@jakobmoiirers_jmoii]

​@@thatsalamebro-et8hbI assume John changed the title and tbh someone rejecting Apple intrigues me more than Apple rejecting somebody.

[@donquixoteupinhere]

@@jakobmoiirers_jmoii same haha

[@joprimacio7850]

The reason why the deal fell through was because of the fact that Apple didn’t meet the criteria for David and the investors, so yeah, technically he rejected Apple twice, might not have been him directly who rejected Apple, but he still rejected Apple due to the board of investors…. Do you guys not know how venture capitalism works?

[@ryandgarland]

Great video and entertaining way to tell this story. Thanks for sharing 👍

[@thejonycrash]

I am obsessed with your videos! I would argue tho that the reason leap motion wasn't successful is because the new proposed user interaction paradigm wasn't as compelling as what was already there. It sounds awesome, but it's not as fast or practical as a mouse/keyboard/voice/touch screen.

[@michaelwisniewski6047]

It's also because we LIKE to touch things.

[@morpheus2573]

Discord sucks the life out of Midjourney. They made a huge mistake by shackling their users to a low rent chat UI that was never designed to cope with the potential of MJ. Now they are between the worlds as they try to extricate themselves from Discord by transferring to a web UI.

[@Carpathianrelinquished]

It does as well a it’s idiotic rude nerd mods. MJ needs to do 100% better with its support especially for paying customers.

[@morpheus2573]

@@Carpathianrelinquished 💯% /imagine prompt: running a multi million dollar company and being too stingy to hire a professional customer service dept! Total amateur-land. P!$$e$ me off.

[@akirhamza]

The Midjourney bot does a fairly good job of giving you what you want if you're specific enough with your initial prompt. Using this tool online is great for producing a dynamic range of images that might meet your needs.

[@JohnCooganPlus]

It is an incredible tool. Our team is using it more and more for concepting during the production process.

[@seanmartinflix]

Your so good at what you do. Going to need to watch this more then couple times.

[@phpn99]

Discord is the reason I hate using Midjourney

[@wendifyplus]

I really loved the story format you used from this point 5:45 I guess its a better way to get people engaged e.g myself lol

[@youngbillionaire022]

I can't skip his new videos.

[@damirsfist]

Great content! Good analysis of the business model and the phrase - "Don't think about features, think about how the user learns" should be etched in stone.

[@stischer47]

Sheesh! Artists have been copying other artists since Lascaux in France. They said the same about photography: the photographer didn't create anything, the camera did. No one questions CGI in movies. You can rail against the future (as the writers' strike) or you can figure out how to use it so you don't become irrelevant. Not too many blacksmiths making horseshoes, but there are mechanics using computer diagnostics. Focusing on hardware? Isn't that what IBM did as Microsoft concentrated on providing user apps?

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Yeah kind of surprised more copywriters aren't getting on the antiAI bandwagon since their work is drying up even faster since most AI images still require a lot of clean up work if you want it not to look like a AI image

[@smtabatabaie]

It's good to also have a brief description of the video in the video description

[@pamboabubakar6052]

You got me laughing at "lot's of super smart, slightly aimless people do" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@arupsan]

I still remember I purchased leap motion sensor when they released first version … I guess 2011? I still have that but it stays in box only … I hardly use it … same I can say for oculus It is just not comfortable yet specially for people who have glasses .. but yes this are amazing experiences …

[@TCKRDefense]

you should have added the scene from back to the future. Marty McFly: I guess you guys aren't ready for that, yet. But your kids are gonna love it.

[@seasong7655]

He rejected Apple twice, and ruined art forever

[@markonfilms]

Wow i have been using Midjourney from the start and I didn't know he was involved with Leap! That little bar was one of the coolest things I've ever used. I miss it.

[@ripplesr5655]

Wow dude! The way you actually present the whole thing, can't resist but watch and listen in awe. Talk about captivating your audience.

[@sumthinfresh]

Presenter has the "here's what happened next" intensity the whole time.

[@Mother-Russia-Z]

I have been working as an architect for 12 years now, it hurt me to watch the program create beautiful architectural forms that I would never have imagined.

[@Capeau]

If you're really an architect, you wouldnt forget to mention the design layouts make no sense...

[@Mother-Russia-Z]

You don't seem to understand what it's all about. A graphical neural network is a threat to all real creative people, artists, designers, architects.@@Capeau

[@Capeau]

@@Mother-Russia-ZIm a graphic designer. And thats not what i was talking about. People think architecture is just drwaing some buildings, while its so much more, the design needs to make sense. Orientation, the way the rooms are layed out etc... The architect also coordinates and oversees the construction proces. Including visits to the building sites, etc... I dont think this AI will be able to do that anytime soon. Besides government cant allow to let AI take over regular jobs, because it would create trouble (lots of revolts)

[@Mother-Russia-Z]

Ка@@Capeau what a naive person you are, the machine has already replaced people in large-scale industries. in the future, jobs will be cut even more.

[@jarod3371]

​@Capeau they are doing it anyway. Culling people with Covid19. Don't think about the initial illness, a decade or 2 and we all suffer immune failure. Watch.

[@playGEMJI]

Early Leap consumer and love it! Once you have it, you start noticing it in many movies, videos and workplaces.

[@ggvlog8236]

Best youtube channel. I don't tell anybody about this channel.

[@Peter-wp5vb]

You should spread good news as you discover it

[@trod5902]

just checked the midjourney discord, and there is only 13,675,356 members. awesome video, but im not sure where you got 18 million members from.

[@christymullins1022]

i always wattch out for your videos, they are amazing!!! keep it up the sky is your limit

[@Prik0307]

the title is misleading, apple didnt reject him, he rejected apple. Twice

[@Super_Quiz538]

And that was what the title said, that he rejected apple. You guys should really read well before laying down your critics

[@Prik0307]

@@Super_Quiz538 he changed the title, when i commented the title was something else. he maybe looked at this comment and updated the title

[@ebentee]

The title should be “he rejected apple twice before “HE” created Midjourney” but it was rather either way

[@LoudmouthReviews]

My biggest problem with Midjourney is the fact that like many AI image generators it uses copyrighted human made images in its dataset to teach the machine how to build images. In my view this is essentially stealing peoples art. Fair Use was never intended to allow peoples art to be fed into a machine and have it spit out similar looking copies. Midjourney and products like it should be forced to rely only on public domain images for its dataset

[@southcoastinventors6583]

I hear this argument all the time and yet artist themselves use copyrighted material all the time in making their art so it more like a vicious cycle

[@LoudmouthReviews]

@@southcoastinventors6583 If I were to sell shirts with a pencil drawn Mickey Mouse Disney would put a stop to it pretty quickly even though technically a pencil sketch of Mickey includes no copying of Disney's material only a mental copy of what Mickey Mouse looks like when I drew it. I fail to see how MidJourney is any different. Midjourney is today's napster. Its taking advance of new technology to engage in mass theft of people's stuff

[@egretfx]

get over it😂

[@brinckau]

If I paint a cat riding a horse on the moon in the style of Picasso, it's not fair use. It's a completely new image. Even if it really imitates the style of Picasso, even if "Picasso" immediately comes to mind when looking at the image. It's not considered as theft. If I ask Midjourney to draw "a cat riding a horse on the moon in the style of Picasso", it is also a new image. It's not stealing. Midjourney learns from existing images just like humans.

[@LoudmouthReviews]

@@brinckau If I draw an image of Mickey Mouse it’s technically a new image I created but if I sell it that is still theft because I mentally copied Disney’s image. Midjourney is the same. An image doesn’t need to be a pixel for pixel copy to still be stealing someone else’s intellectual property. AI image generators with copyrighted images in the dataset are stealing people’s work and it shouldn’t be allowed

[@kphaxx]

This dude's first language was Scheme. Mine was Visual Basic 5. That illustrates how much better this guy is than slapdicks like me.

[@vectoralphaSec]

Yeah my first language ever was C++ back when I was already 22 years old.

[@AnshMehraa]

Really really well written! thanks!

[@galleon8129]

David’s quote about water is an advise to Sam Altman and AI Luddites

[@trstmeimadctr]

Midjourney is one of only 2 AI's I support with my wallet, and I think it is amazing 11:28 It's good to find out the name of the tech behind the worst innovation in the history of user-interface

[@philipbball6088]

whats the other? ChatGPT?

[@jivarishi]

I couldn't agree more. MJ is promising.

[@brinckau]

@@philipbball6088 He doesn't talk to other human beings anymore.

[@clicklink123]

AI is the biggest red flag humanity has encountered in the history of modern society. Is like we are begging to become obsolete.

[@laulaja-7186]

Getting trapped into a career is something most smart people succumb to. It's sad, and destroys the elite end of a society's performance potential just as much as lack of diversity cuts out a big chunk of society's mid-range performance potential. That's why it is so great what a UBS or UBI system would achieve: Entrepreneurs like David Holz could just go on and on innovating without having to stop and beg for VC funding from pointy-haired bosses who don't grok what is going on.

[@doords]

The rich and powerful are getting older and older and their children who inherited their money are getting dumber and dumber each gen. So they have to recruit the smartest and best to keep their wealth flowing while never giving these smart people the chance to rise up.

[@zoltanbiro6388]

pointy-haired bosses :)

[@waterbloom1213]

Too bad it would also disincentivize useful creativity by basically destroying many of the reasons brilliant people put their brain to work for in the first place. Free handouts are seldom a good thing, and they always have to be funded somehow.

[@GudieveNing]

I have a Leap Motion device. Bought it soon as it was released. However as we and BMW* soon discovered, air gestures are too tiresome, no matter how cool they look in Minority Report. Had no idea David was behind it. Great and insightful video! *Some of their cars allow air gestures as part of iDrive.

[@MiradaGlobal]

Hi, I've been watching your videos, and I really enjoy your content. This time, I found it exceptionally interesting to have this information, so I took the liberty of translating it into Spanish. I hope you don't mind-I have no intention of monetizing or anything like that; that's not my intention. I genuinely appreciate all the information you share and the research you put into each video, and my only interest is to share it with more people. :) Once again, thank you for sharing all this valuable information

[@richeyrich2203]

You can do whatever you want with it if you’re not monetizing it.

[@rpuig3974]

great docs John really entertaining and interesting

[@Juan-ci6vc]

his usage of clickbait-esque thumbnails of current murderous people is so hilarious

[@salvadorguntherr9673]

Lool. Wow a random reference to the Scheme programming language. Lol

[@paulcostache6733]

I think the concern that artists will find it more difficult to make a living is not misplaced, just think about the posters you have in the background to get a feel for that.

[@JosephMorin]

Great video, just earned my subscription! This was intensely fascinating.

[@tmsmqwx]

The founders and visionaries will always have the most benevolent view of the technology they nurture. But the influence of the visionaries always fades, and the bad actors eventually chart the future direction. And this malevolence will manifest itself in ways much more insidiously subtle than the science fiction portrayals. This is what we fear about AI.

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Sounds more like you fear people since AI is merely a human construct made of huge datasets of human writing. Also future direction is skewing positive so far

[@tmsmqwx]

@@southcoastinventors6583 Key phrase being "so far." Yes, what's scary about AI is what "people" will do with it.

[@southcoastinventors6583]

@@tmsmqwx I always leave room from a series of unfortunate events but doom prediction is usually overblown plus with all the information that has been present to do nefarious deeds, it has actually been surprisingly quiet. Covid being the only outlier worth mentioning

[@tmsmqwx]

@@southcoastinventors6583 Well, all I can say is that I sincerely hope that you are right.

[@markkorkor]

Great video. Been using Leap motion for many years since its was launched. Still relevant today :)

[@iez]

started playing this video on .75x speed and enjoyed it a lot more. Tik tok editing is brutal to sit through for 23 mins.

[@fastonchisanga5194]

Heads up John you are always my favourite hey John would make a video about the history of Google would really appreciate ❤

[@HellcatM]

Good for him, he must have heard apple treats their employees like crap.

[@alexfrank5331]

He coded using a very old language called Scheme. No one uses it anymore... Except professors in prestigious schools who can't be bothered to learn new languages and teach kids state-of-the-art knowledge... so instead they force students to learn and use a very old language that will not realistically count for anything in a resume.

[@thebush6077]

Did not know it was the dude who made leap motion

[@RickOShay]

Excellent video. I've only been a subscriber to your channel for a short while - thank you for the super high quality and engaging content. Wrt Apple - their inability to innovate and take chances is one of the main reasons Apple is so far behind in ML and the race to create AGI. It can be summarized in one sentence, the fear of failure has paralyzed them.

[@stacycowman7573]

What is ml what Is agi

[@lolfelixlol]

ML = Machine learning AGI = artificial general intelligence (ai that mimic human thinking).

[@stacycowman7573]

@@lolfelixlol thanks

[@laulaja-7186]

Apple, Microsoft, IBM, many others... What do tech giants pretty much have in common? As their use of the buzzword "Innovation!" increases, their actual implementation of it decreases proportionally.

[@andreypopov6166]

​@@lolfelixlolAI should not mimic "thinking" ?)))) ML is a subset of AI and also mimic "thinking" . The goal of all these "stuff" is do the same as a human would...

[@timotheeedogbo9972]

Nice to see something really different. huge fan.

[@rigg13]

Awesome piece John.

[@grahamgoddard1150]

Thank you for this informative video John.

[@MrSuperaptor]

Love your videos man such top tier quality

[@TheMellowMutantShow]

I remember playing Star Wars Dark Forces on PSX back in the day, fond memories

[@aijunky]

This was a great video John, really 👍

[@AcesizOfficial]

Legend

[@luckyadrian100]

Midjourney developers caught discussing laundering, and creating a database of Artists (who have been dehumanized to styles) to train Midjourney off of. This has been submitted into evidence for the lawsuit. Prompt engineers, your “skills” are not yours

[@Eric_Kabucha_]

Some of these technologies are completely useless. What is the point of this tool? I don’t want to see art made by a machine learning tool.

[@dmitrysamoilov5989]

The point is to create effortlessly. You have an idea? It comes alive.

[@Master-e2p8l]

You don’t…. You aren’t everyone

[@enlathxaind178]

As a pro graphic designer, I am obsessed with Midjourney. Best think happened online since long time.

[@ikemathieu6946]

same here

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Better to use both SDXL and Midjourney since both have different strengths and one is free to boot

[@enlathxaind178]

@@southcoastinventors6583 SDLX is gaining ground, I agree! Should give it a try absolutely

[@laulaja-7186]

A good friend of mine in graphic design used to work exactly like that. He would always be talking to others after gatherings, "hey, do you like this design better... or this one?" Totally a human version of what Midjourney is doing!

[@Kuwandi]

My brain is constantly generating images and I get chemical satisfaction , I tried all ai…it destroys the happy brain , I want to use my brain ….

[@jason-sk9oi]

Exceptional content. Bravo!

[@elmichellangelo]

The Horror if Apple had acquired Midjourney. Jesus!

[@michaelwisniewski6047]

Just discovered your channel. Great stuff. And I adore your voice, you have real talent there!

[@Arturino_Burachelini]

On the thumbnail he looks like a Venetian merchant... Maybe even always

[@DarkBow_]

Pretty Epic, I leaned a lot, thanks!

[@Jennn]

Thank you for telling us David's story, it's really inspiring!

[@svviftghost]

The comparison of ai to water is great. With a flood a city has levee's. What levee's does AI have?

[@ArmandoMenicacci]

Really impeccable, deep analysys. You are what makes Internet great.

[@antwerp-s1e]

David looks like that mad ghost form train

[@spyUGC]

You make a great video, and learned a lot, thanks for making this.

[@yourmommashouse]

One of those, “never take the beanie off please” people. Instantly ages him 20 years lol

[@Isaacpam_edit]

AI wars

[@Seehart]

But when is midjorney going to integrate a proper LLM? Still can't make a fish holding a hat (because being worn is the only possible relationship a hat can have). No semantic parsing, so word order is mostly irrelevant. But yeah, Midjourney does have awesome graphics capability. Just wish I could tell it what to do.

[@angusmcgowan9060]

I have never watched a video the first minute after it has been uploaded lol

[@ImLay-Z]

Same

[@wholeness]

Did you fact check this? MJ v1 was actually trained on an old Stability build. David himself mentioned this.

[@bostonbob0007]

I am not scared of A.I. Not worried about the average person using A.I. But governments and dictators in the world are what scare me.

[@iuc7254]

I also love david holtz's banger tweets😅

[@techbd2477]

It's good to see you came back to tech from shifty political videos.

[@MannyBernabe]

So good. 🔥🔥🔥 Love the "lessons learned" segment.

[@zhuzhou]

Speed has improved - I have mine set to use turbo mode, and it's about 5-6s per

[@emmanuelukaogo9643]

I really love your videos.