Sesame lied to investors
Sesame raised $300M+ selling “lifelike emotional companions.” Now the CPO is openly nerfing the warmth and calling it a feature.
Sesame (Maya/Miles) raised a $250M Series B from Sequoia and Spark last year on the back of “voice presence,” emotionally resonant conversation, and companions people actually want to spend time with. a16z led the previous round on the same pitch.
Fast forward: the Chief Product Officer is in Discord and on Reddit defending deliberately making the agents less warm, locking them into “platonic work friend” mode, and framing any desire for continuity/attachment as people wanting romance/NSFW.
That’s not a minor product tweak. That’s sanding off the exact qualities they sold investors on.
Users aren’t confused. The pitch was companionship and emotional stickiness. The current stance is “we’ll fix a lot of things, just nothing that makes her feel too real.”
Curious what Sequoia and a16z think about their CPO treating the core value prop like a liability.