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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.

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.

> “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...

2 - https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-health/

quite the opposite. it feels refreshing that ppl with talent and money can do inspiring things with it.

The branding choice is crazy to me. “Midjourney” is pretty much synonymous with “generated images that aren’t real”. Which is the opposite of what you want when it comes to medical imagery and data.

yeah. they could have called it Medjourney.

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..

Yeah, exactly. This would have been a cool side project company from the founder and team.

Doing it under their main brand is very weird and I don’t quite see how it translates to creatives at all.

to be fair I wouldn't call people operating AI Image generators creative people. At best they're people curious about the technology itself, anybody willing to learn and do it for the sake of being creative does it themselves.

I think you're romanticizing art generation a bit. A lot of it operates like a normal working job, there is no magic "truly creative genuis", a lot of working artists treat it as their jobs and if a tool helps them get their job done, it is helpful.

Not every creative profession is something where you create something you're proud of or you own. You're often just one part of a massive machine working on a project. It's a bit hard to keep sticking to the "creative noble artist" mythical vibe when it's a 9 to 5. And it's not fair to call them not creative just because you feel like it.

Both ”creative mythical noble artist” and ”creative work is just work” are unhelpful strawman arguments. One is elitist, the other is reductionist.

Creativity is neither a property of who you are or what you do. It’s about how you do it. It’s closer to a mindset of curiosity, wonder and play. For example, many programmers have a need for creativity within coding, but don’t feel they get it at their 9-5 job, and instead work a side project (like FOSS, indie game) because it’s a more creative experience. The point is: same person, same activity yet one is more creative than the other.

The art/artifact itself is not creative. It’s the process that’s creative. Building a car can be creative. Buying a car is not. That’s not romanticizing and gatekeeping people who don’t have time to build a car. It would be genuinely misleading to equate those things.

I don't understand your point. You say:

> Creativity is neither a property of who you are or what you do

Then you say:

> It’s closer to a mindset of curiosity, wonder and play.

Which has to be the property of what you do (the process) or who you are (the personality willing to embed those values), right?

> It’s the process that’s creative. Building a car can be creative. Buying a car is not.

Sure, but the process is "what you do" which directly contradicts what you're saying.

> For example, many programmers have a need for creativity within coding, but don’t feel they get it at their 9-5 job, and instead work a side project (like FOSS, indie game) because it’s a more creative experience.

Sure but most programmers don't do it. Simillarly many artists work on projects for companies and their own projects. My point is that you cannot reduce commercial work as not creative just because it's a 9-to-5.

I really fail to understand your point with this comment since it's not really saying anything coherent.

You also say

> The point is: same person, same activity yet one is more creative than the other.

Again, if that person is doing that activity then it is what they do i.e. you're calling the process creative. And in this case, we'll call that same person to be creative since they have the drive to work on their own project after a full 9-5 job. But if they were not doing it, we'll still consider them creative since it is a basic requirement at their 9-5. That is my point - both of them are creative. Degrees may vary depending on subjective perception but that was not what was being discussed.

> Sure, but the process is "what you do" which directly contradicts what you're saying.

”What you do” was just short for the _activity_ that you’re doing, eg ”I am coding” or ”I am building a car”, which does not determine the extent of how creative it is. Building ikea furniture from instructions would be low on the creative scale, whereas making a chair from woodworking might be higher, for most people.

> Sure but most programmers don't do [side projects]. My point is that you cannot reduce commercial work as not creative just because it's a 9-to-5.

Of course not, some people find that perfect match. That said, employment is not optimized for creativity, so it simply appears unusual that it’s conducive to highly creative work. This is my theory of why many programmers pick up hobbies outside of 9-5 where they have better preconditions, whether it’s side projects (same domain) or woodworking (different domain). Some find it at their 9-5, and some don’t feel much urge.

> we'll still consider them creative since it is a basic requirement at their 9-5. That is my point - both of them are creative. […] Degrees may vary depending on subjective perception but that was not what was being discussed.

I don’t think it’s even meaningful to discuss creativity without acknowledging that it’s both subjective and that degrees may vary. And yes, problem solving is probably always creative to some degree. But the degree is the important part.

So, I wouldn’t call _them_ creative or not, because again I don’t think it’s a personality trait nor binary. Only the person doing it can tell how creative it feels. Personally I felt mostly uncreative when doing corporate work. I would have loved for it to feel creative, but it didn’t.

This is just complete nonsense.

You really think creative people are not interested in new forms of visual expression?

This as simply being ignorant of art history.

From what I gather the hatred for AI among musicians and artists is pretty universal. I can only speak for myself. but for me and the way that I draw and make music AI can only replace, never complement my creative process.

This is somewhat speculative, but as I see it, there are two ways to retain excellent people:

a) You pay them handsomely

b) You do shit they like, they way the like.

Sometimes it overlaps, of course. But this is essentially the reason why people stay in academia in the hard sciences. Most of us could earn considerably more in industry.

I'm not sure midjourney can compete with the bigwigs on a). But doing healthcare stuff is probably more fulfilling to the researchers, and with less "we stole from all the artists" vibes.

Of course, if this all works out, they might me able to do a) easily :)

Personally, I think the bigger problem is successful individuals and companies deciding to just stick with their original business model and squeeze every drop of money out of it for their own personal enrichment.

God forbid someone should try to do things to benefit society with their fortune.

“To the man with a new hammer, all problems look like a nail.”