The engine that runs on itself.
Autophage builds AI that feeds on the AI economy. We burn our own fuselage so you don't have to.
A rocket that eats itself to climb.
Engineers recently tested a rocket engine that burns its own body for fuel. The higher it climbs, the less of it there is.
We looked at that and saw a business model. So did everyone else. We're just the ones who put it on the homepage.
I could have written this whole site by hand. It would have been fun, honestly. It also would have taken a month, and who has a month these days? So I did the exact thing this site makes fun of. Keep that in mind as you scroll.
AI, pointed back at itself.
Pitch & Post-Mortem
Generate your seed deck and your shutdown announcement in one prompt. Save time. You'll need both.
Status: shipped, then sunsetFluent
Paste in any job posting and Fluent translates it. "Fast-paced environment" means understaffed. "We're a family" means we'll see you Sunday. "Competitive equity" means competitive with zero.
Status: the only one that worksRunway
Enter your seed round and your rent. Runway tells you how many months until your headline reads "Exploring what's next."
Status: running outConcierge
Our agent books the table, tells the restaurant it's your anniversary, then writes you 900 words on why you could have just called.
Status: in stealth, out of ideasThe numbers investors love.
Pre-revenue, post-irony.
Of our team uses AI. Of our team resents it.
Or whatever you're willing to believe.
What a company is under the pitch.
The satire is the bark. The autopsies are the bite. Each one takes a real company and asks the same questions in the same order: what it says, what it actually is, who pays whom, who carries the risk, what it depends on, and the tell. Every one ends with an honest counterweight, because most people in tech aren't villains and the point is structure, not blame.
First series: Rigged, Not Broken. Companies built on the idea that a stubborn problem is waiting on an invention, when what's actually in the way is price, patents or permission.
Short pieces. Mostly by hand. Mostly.
Rigged, not broken
"Use AI to cure cancer instead of making art." Okay. Follow the drug through every gate and see where it stops.
Series 01 · ~12 minTelling a machine to forget
You can't tell a chatbot to forget. You can only start over. People are the exact opposite.
Note 01 · ~5 minWho can edit the system prompt?
Three Grok incidents, three explanations, and one block of hidden text anyone with access can change in a few minutes.
Note 02 · ~5 minTake a guess how much of each note was written by hand. There's a reveal at the bottom of every one. Be honest with yourself before you click.
I didn't want to use AI. I wanted to write things myself, slowly, and be wrong in my own words. Then every job posting asked if I was AI native, every gallery installed a kiosk to finish the painting for me, and every founder I met had the same 45 second pitch saved on their phone. So I gave up and started a company.
This one just says the quiet part on the landing page. Most of us are running on fumes, and the fumes are ideas. Autophage is the only startup whose roadmap ends with it eating itself. At least we put it in the deck.
Do people still appreciate good writing? I think so. I hope so. I'm probably not the one to ask.
The Founder, reluctantly
Say what you can't say at standup.
A place for the silent tolerators. You use the tools because you're expected to. You nod in the meeting. You have thoughts. Soon you'll be able to leave them here, anonymously. No names, no replies, nothing traced back to you. A few will be posted, gently.
What's one thing AI does at your job that nobody's allowed to admit is bad?
When did you last pretend a machine did less of your work than it did? Or more?
What do you miss doing slowly?