From a startup to the frontier You've got a office, two hires, and a pile of GPU-hours. Everyone says they're building the future, now it's your turn. Model Co. is a cozy retro management sim about running an AI lab: train models, ship products people actually pay for, and outmaneuver rival labs in a race where today's state of the art is tomorrow's legacy code. Train models that matter Every release is a bet. Pick a model type (language, image, code, unlock audio and multimodal later), a product surface (chatbot, creative tool, developer API, agents, enterprise), and a scale of training run, then assign your team and burn the compute. Find the synergies that push a model past the pack but watch the clock: the frontier is fixed and every model slowly decays, so standing still means falling behind. Build a team worth poaching Hire research scientists, ML engineers, data engineers, and growth leads through recruitment agencies (better agencies, better odds). Staff level up, develop traits, and burn out if you overwork them. Keep morale and reputation high, or watch a rival headhunt your best researcher right off an active training run. Ship, grow, and don't run out of cash Live products earn monthly recurring revenue but subscribers churn the moment a fresher model shows up, and inference bills never sleep. Run ad campaigns, push updates to fight decay, take a bank loan when you're scaling, and shut down the products that aren't worth their server costs. Miss payroll and it's game over. Climb the research tree Spend research points on permanent upgrades across training, scale, ops, growth, team, and new markets; cheaper compute, slower model decay, bigger addressable markets, and access to whole new model types and product surfaces. Go public and ride the bubble Grow big enough to IPO, then manage a share price that prices in hype as much as fundamentals. Make bold announcements to pump the stock, buy back shares, raise cash with a secondary offering and keep an eye on the AI bubble sentiment meter before the correction hits. Outlast your rivals Competing labs research, ship, and posture on their own leading surfaces, going bankrupt, and poaching talent without you. Track the market standings, defend the surfaces you lead, and try to be the last lab standing. Win your way Reach a landmark valuation, or dominate every market long enough to define the field. Three difficulty modes: Founder Mode, Standard, and Cutthroat. Set the cash, the costs, and how hungry your rivals are. A warm pixel-art office that fills up as your team grows, a lo-fi soundtrack to ship to, and a clean, readable layer of management over the whole AI gold rush. Deep training loop: model type × product surface × scale × team, shaped by synergy and a fixed, decaying frontier Living talent: hire, level up, traits, morale, burnout, and rival poaching. Real business pressure: MRR, churn, inference costs, ad campaigns, loans, payroll, bankruptcy. Research tree: permanent upgrades and unlocks across six branches. IPO & public markets: share price, AI-bubble sentiment, announcements, buybacks, secondaries. Autonomous rivals: labs that compete, lead, and go bust on their own. Two win paths, three difficulties: and a cozy retro aesthetic with a lo-fi soundtrack.
