The top players in the AI circle are showing up one after another! This Pieter Levels guy is absolutely ruthless. One person, a junky old computer, and he can earn 4 million per month.

Using AI, he built a Photo AI and basically ground our understanding of “doing business” into the pavement. He’s like a lone digital gunslinger, building his own business empire with the most down-to-earth methods.
Just look at the current startup scene—it’s seriously sick. A lot of so-called elites are playing a game called “pretending to be startups.” Everyone’s gotten used to using money to cover up the fact that they can’t be bothered to think: renting the most expensive office buildings, hiring the most glamorous employees, getting venture capital from big institutions, and then spending half a year every day holding meetings and making PPTs—only to end up with a product that nobody even wants. This used to work back then, but in today’s AI era, setting up such a heavy operation is basically suicide.
Pieter’s logic is completely the opposite. His famous line is especially classic: “If your first version doesn’t make you feel embarrassed, then you’re launching too late.”
Take his Photo AI, for example. When it first came out, what fancy algorithms could possibly be behind it? He just made a shout on X (Twitter), saying AI can replace photographers. Then he quickly threw together a super bare-bones webpage and attached a payment link. Users paid and sent in their photos—but behind the scenes, it was Pieter himself manually retouching the images!
But using this kind of clumsy “hand-crafted” approach, he validated a truth in the very first week: people really are willing to pay for “AI