Stubbs
Google just accidentally eulogized an entire category of startup.
The no-code AI app builder space had a body count. Builder.ai collapsed after a fraud investigation. Most of the "point and click your way to an app" startups are gone. Google quietly shipped the internal thing and nobody noticed, which is exactly the pattern described here.
Someone leaked a Google internal thing called Stubbs — a no-code AI app builder — and the most interesting part is not the product, it's the body count.
There are companies that raised real money on exactly this thesis. No-code. AI-powered. Point and click your way to an app. The entire company is that sentence. And Google just put it on a roadmap with a cute codename.
Six months, maybe less. Table stakes.
The thing is, you almost have to respect the timing. The companies that got in early on this are going to extract a lot of money from enterprises that are terrified of missing AI and have absolutely no idea what they actually need. "We need to test AI for the business" is a sentence that means "we will pay whatever you are charging." Those companies are perfectly positioned to cash that check right now, before the check bounces.
The whole play was never the product. The play was the window.
The part that gets me is simpler though — this is the kind of thing that should just be free. Not as charity. As a reason to do business with you. Build it, give it away, and the question stops being "which no-code AI builder do we use" and starts being something much more interesting.
The window closes. The window always closes. The question is what you built while it was open.
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