Hot Girl Hotline is like ‘Dear Abby’ for the AI era; plus, after Factory’s public spat with Khosla, Menlo proudly invests

[upbeat music] This is TechCrunch. This episode is brought to you by Framer. You know what's absolutely terrifying? A bad website. Or worse, one that doesn't work. Avoid that nightmare and use Framer. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production-ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right. Prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. So I was new to this whole website building thing, but Framer helped me get set up and running incredibly fast. You know, for instance, I wanted to add a blog to my website. It was super easy. Starting with a basic blog page template, I added some breakpoints and then jumped into customizing my layout, adding my own special touches with Framer's intuitive tools, and bam, I was ready to start letting my thoughts flow. See why thousands are trusting Framer to help build their websites. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com/tcstartups for thirty percent off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/tcstartups. Rules and restrictions may apply. Women throughout history have always sought out relationship advice, whether from newspaper columnists like Dear Abby, Letters to Cosmo, or just chatting with girlfriends. In the social media era, you can instead post anonymously on Reddit relationship forums or look to social media creators who discuss the topic. Well, now two sisters are launching a startup for young women called Hot Girl Hotline, which focuses on bringing AI into these conversations. We all know what you may be thinking. With all the advances in AI technology, founders are building something for women to talk about their dating woes? Well, yeah. The reality is that people have already been turning to large language models via apps like ChatGPT for this type of advice, and the team believes this type of activity should be handled more carefully. Unfortunately, as we've seen, chatting with a general purpose chatbot about personal topics can sometimes lead to disastrous effects. You know, ChatGPT, for example, has faced a wave of lawsuits over its alleged manipulative conversation tactics that plaintiffs say contributed to negative mental health effects, including, in some cases, suicide. Now, the idea behind Hot Girl Hotline is to reach young women who are looking to have these sorts of private conversations while navigating dating life and relationships, but in a safer way. Baila Mujil, who co-founded the startup with her sister Sumi, says, "You know, we're not trying to be an AI companion. A companion is really going after solving loneliness, escapism, boredom, and you can rely on a lot of emotional dependency from that AI companion." Baila says the startup's approach is to focus on offering quality advice grounded in behavioral science, but in a way that makes it feel like you're chatting with a trusted friend or a big sister. The conversation is often Socratic, with the AI asking you questions to help you arrive at the answer yourself. Baila says, "This is not to replace speaking to a human. This is not clinical advice, and we have