Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
Parallel was once Shapley Inc.
A terrible name
Founder Parag Agrawal, who ran Twitter before starting the company, picked the name for lack of a better word and knew from the start that Shapley Inc. was a terrible name for a B2B product. Shapley.ai happened to be available, and Shapley.com was a parked domain. He avoided calling the company Shapley in public, and his badge at events read Nuco or Stealth Company.
Becoming Parallel
Settling on a real name took almost six to eight months. It ended up as Parallel for two reasons: the company was doing a lot more in parallel at the time, and the team had started picturing a parallel web built for AIs.
Dual publishing
That picture came with a new habit for anyone who publishes. A page now has two audiences: humans will read it, so it has to look right to them, and agents will read it too, so it has to work for them. Publishing has become dual publishing.
Why do startups hide behind stealth names?
Stealth mode lets founders build a product before competitors, recruits, or the press know what it is. During that period a company often goes by a placeholder name, or none at all. Public records such as state incorporation filings and domain registrations can still reveal a legal name. That is why founders sometimes put a different label on their event badges.
Why did Lloyd Shapley win a Nobel Prize?
Shapley shared the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Alvin Roth. The committee recognized their work on stable allocations and the design of markets. Shapley's contribution came from cooperative game theory, where he and David Gale also developed an algorithm for matching two groups, such as students and schools. Roth later applied related ideas to kidney exchanges and medical residency matching.
Why are .ai domains so popular?
The .ai domain belongs to Anguilla, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean. It was assigned as a country code in 1995, long before artificial intelligence startups wanted it. As AI companies adopted it, registration fees became a notable source of revenue for Anguilla's government.
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