alt Hacker NewsI have a mixed response:
1. It kind of makes sense that an AI imagery company would apply that to other novel applications of imagery and computing and try to do something cool with it.
2. Midjourney as a brand is all over the place and this feels -off, somehow. I think from a branding pov they should have just started a different company with a different name. Perhaps a single image-focused umbrella company named [Name] with Midjourney and this medtech company as separate subsidiaries.
3. AI imagery companies suddenly making medtech products and spas feels very “we don’t know what to do, so we’re going to throw spaghetti at the wall.” That doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be bad, just that it’s not typically what you’d do if you’re working on something super successful already.
4. AFAIK they are entirely self-funded and so this really isn’t about VC scaling or anything like that. But that doesn’t mean they’re immune to the same cultural pressures.
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On the “we don’t know what to do”, I think it’s cool that they are trying something medical with it. Success obviously isn’t assured, probably it isn’t even probable, but I’m happy to see companies try this rather than launch yet another whatever or start a consulting business. I hope as the field (AI generally) matures, more people decide to try life changing stuff with it.
> we don’t know what to do, so we’re going to throw spaghetti at the wall
My opinion is that the money is in the verticals as the models and harnesses built around them become commodities. Specializing in a vertical, especially where hardware is involved, creates a buffer between companies and the frontier labs. The frontier labs are spreading themselves thin trying to capture verticals like finance or legal but aren’t narrow enough to be as competitive as a company that is going for a more targeted approach.
quite the opposite. it feels refreshing that ppl with talent and money can do inspiring things with it.
yeah. they could have called it Medjourney.
> “we don’t know what to do, so we’re going to throw spaghetti at the wall.
this is pretty normal, i mean you have OpenAI and Anthropic trying the same as well. OpenAI is working on legal stuff [1] and also rolled out (or said they'll roll out) ChatGPT Health [2]. Then there was Sora etc.
These companies need applications for their tokens and someone has to build them. If they can win even with one, that's a net benefit for them no?
1 - https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/06/02/openai-targets-t...
In a sea of AI products, the brand is still powerful though. Would I have clicked this if not for the Midjourney name? Probably not
The pivot to do things they want as AI research lab is perfectly understandable, but also..weird, like their loyal userbase are mostly creative people, and this pivot have ZERO things to do with those audience at all.
It also gives a vibe that they gives zero damn about to those creatives audience, or the things that made name for them in the past anymore, or that what I feel as their subscriber... I know that David Holz have his own unique way of doing things but it's still...weird!
oh, and the hypetrain on X. yikes..
“To the man with a new hammer, all problems look like a nail.”
Midjourney is not actually an AI imagery company. It's a research lab that happened to do AI images first.
The founder is a hardware guy who made enough money to retire young off of the sale of his company, Leap Motion. But, he decided what he really wanted to do was cool research with cool people. So, he started Midjourney. The goal for the AI image generator was to be cool research, pay for itself, and grow the lab. It ended up making far more money than ever expected.
I was a Discord mod for Midjourney when it was still in private beta. I got to participate in some of the discussions of "WTH are we doing and how should we do it?" DavidH is very much a smart hippie idealist. He isn't really motivated by even more money beyond how it enables more fun research. MJ actively refused investment. And, actively refused partnerships that would make them money but wouldn't help build the community or the lab.
So, put together: I can totally see how this looks weird from the outside. But, having spent a few years peeking inside, I'm only surprised it took so long for them to branch out like this.