Sam Altman and Elon Musk aren't just competing in the AI race; they both have ambitions to build Silicon Valley's holy grail: an "everything" super app encompassing finance, social media, gaming, and more.
Earlier this week, I got a peek at Altman's plan from a cavernous event space on the northern edge of San Francisco. He was not there as the CEO of OpenAI, but as the co-founder and chairman of Tools for Humanity, the parent company of a cryptocurrency called Worldcoin that's now available in the US. Worldcoin is distributed to people who scan their eyes at one of the startup's orbs, which are rolling out in retail stores across America. At the same time, the token is being used to build a super app to rival X.
Tools for Humanity's World app is a crypto wallet, social network, and mini-app platform all in one. Its monthly user base has doubled in the last six months to 26 million people, 12 million of whom have been verified by an orb. In the World app, you can message others via a chat interface tied to World IDs - the blockchain-based identifier you get after scanning your eyes - and send or receive cryptocurrency. There are also dozens of mini apps available from developers …
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I remember reading an article a while ago arguing that WeChat is explicitly what Elon is trying to recreate.