Mayank

I moved to New York when I was 17. I waited tables at a vegan restaurant, worked the night shift at Dunkin Donuts on 3rd Ave, and finally found out about bike messengering, which I figured was a great long-term career option if I wanted to focus on feminist zine/book projects and hitchhiking back and forth across the country. A bad car wreck and a broken heart ended that fantasy. Eventually, I got jobs in design and product departments at fashion companies and then in the art world. Years later, I became fixated on building an astrology app. I wanted it to capture something my friends in the punk scene and in the political world had taught me: how to find recognition away from the gazes of a world we’d been told was important, but wasn’t, really. We read like maniacs, found our peers in history, a pantheon of writers who could describe our realities as they existed, reaching out across continents, languages, and sometimes centuries to explain our realities. Words that capture our experiences and make us feel utterly and completely seen. I built Co–Star in the same tradition, mixing in that same pantheon of writers with the oldest technology (astrology) and the newest (AI). Nine years later, we've reached 35% of young people in the US with tens of millions of app downloads and a profitable business. Along the way, I became friends with David Holz, who was similarly interested in the very old and the very new. He later started Midjourney: a weird AI lab, focused on beauty, imagination, and supporting human thriving with technology. Using Midjourney feels like uncovering something subliminal and new about yourself. It feels like being seen. Today, Midjourney is acquiring Co–Star, and I’m joining Midjourney to lead a unified product, design, and frontend team across all Midjourney projects. We're at a crazy moment in history. At a time when it feels like many labs are pushing toward replacing humans with computers, David and I are taking a different approach. We share the belief that computers can be tools that reveal our humanity to ourselves. Tools that show you what you mean, how you feel, what you're imagining, before you can articulate it yourself. Co–Star will continue as Co–Star. The same app you know and love, now with Midjourney's support behind it. And as a part of Midjourney, we’ll help to develop new kinds of technology focused on humans, on making us more creative, more knowing, more alive in the world. So, thank you: to the Co–Star team, the Co–Star community, our first decade, the next ten – and to the void itself. Love, Banu