Posted on 09/06/2025 2:48:22 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Like millions of fellow 18-year-olds across the U.S., Zach Yadegari spent his summer preparing for college.
Unlike most other freshmen, Yadegari doubts he’ll linger in academia for very long. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Cal AI, a calorie-tracking mobile app he launched from his parents’ home in Roslyn, New York, in May 2024 — and the app’s success to date makes him think he’ll take it full-time well before his class’ graduation date, he says.
Cal AI’s users upload a photo of their food, and the app’s artificial intelligence-based software gives them an estimate of the total calories. The app, which Yadegari says has a 90% accuracy rate, launched in May 2024. It’s free to download in the Apple and Google Play app stores, and a subscription costs $2.49 per month or $29.99 per year.
Cal AI has 30 employees, and brings in roughly $1.4 million in gross profit per month — after the Apple and Google Play app stores take their respective cuts — according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. That includes nearly $274,000 in monthly net operating income, a measurement of profit before accounting for taxes and interest.
From coding at age 7 to building a viral app in high school
Inspired by his love of online games like Minecraft, Yadegari’s mother sent him to a summer camp to learn software coding at age 7. From there, Yadegari “started binge-watching YouTube” for tutorials on coding different types of programs, direct messaging other coders and content creators he saw online to ask for tips, he says.
After launching Totally Science, Yadegari tried to create a viral mobile app “because everyone has a phone in their pocket,” he says. His ideas kept flopping, until he focused on a personal problem: He’d started...
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Turned down by Ivy League schools but accepted by Texas, Miami, and Georgia Tech.
You can do the same thing on EXCEL by typing in the possible calorie in one cell, the weight in the next, and formula the amount. Simple formula. The rest of what he is doing is making it easy to make the user spend money.
wy69
Just what this country needs next.
Eighteen-year-old multi-millionaires.
What could possibly go wrong with that?
I find it very difficult to believe that this app generates even semi-accurate calorie counts.
It doesn't seem to matter in the world of "health" measurements.
The Body Mass Index (BMI) formula is a absurd on its face, and yields equally absurd results.
The forumla does not have a cubic (n3) factor, and therefore does not take volume into account.
The result is that a short, pumpkin-shaped person will have a low BMI implying they are thin and fit, while a tall, thin person will have a large BMI, implying they are obese and out of shape.
Sorry whit...not even close.
They figured he wouldn't stick around the whole four years. Even in the article, he says he "doubts he'll linger in academia for very long."
He doesn't even need a degree. He's already successful.
He needs to go at least one year to hang out with hot young babes.
I think I was still washing dishes at age 18. I had pretty much given up on becoming a rock and roll star.
That sounds like each person will be an industry unto themselves or be unemployed.
Agreed. Is he smart for an 18-year-old? Yes. But his smarts is only partly in programming. His main skill is impressing the gullible that his app has real and useful information.
There are already YouTube videos criticizing the app.
Identufying the food is one thing.
Gsaugong proportions of each ingredient, and portion sizes, is another.
This is my mind is part of a full-on press by AI to drum up demand because they have spent $400-$500 BILLION on infrastructure in the last 18 months but onky have $40billion in revenue from it.
(Not to mention water and electricity costs.)
The claims of revenue are completely false, yet I have seen this run by the media over a dozen times in the past 6 months. This company is not making anywhere near this amount of money.
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