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Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

theregister.com

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Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#21

Post by neverrroot »

mnau wrote: post #7
ljm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine there has to be some kind of security implication here, the same reason why the US is restricting the export of AI chipsets to china. It's not ideal if US megacorps are heavily investing in or buying out EU AI startups.

EU has to tech scene, so it doesn't want a potentially successful project to be transferred to US. What is the most biggest EU software company? SAP?

Top companies from Stoxx 50:

  LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (422B Euro)
  ASML (347B)
  L'Oréal (241B)
  Hermès (240B)
  SAP  (203B)
  Totalenergies (142B)
  Siemens (140B)
For comparison, Spotify is only 50B.

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#22

Post by whiplash451 »

mesmertech wrote: post #2

Love it as a consumer because Mistral is probably not doing any more open weights if they get tangled with Microsoft. But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU

This move from MSFT is clearly perceived as aggressive from EU given how fragile EU sovereignty in AI is at this point.

If EU wants to own its AI future, that’s not a great way of getting started.

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#23

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway55671 wrote: post #6
nerbert wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, growing a startup enough to catch the eye of EU regulators is a problem that I’d like to have.

Doing all the work and taking all the stress only to have the EU remove a chance of growth and exit is a problem that I never want to have. I went through some failed startups, and at least that was our own fault, but still I never want to do that again. I don't know what I'd do in this situation.

[deleted]

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#24

Post by crazygringo »

Filligree wrote: post #8
throwaway55671 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing all the work and taking all the stress only to have the EU remove a chance of growth and exit is a problem that I never want to have. I went through some failed startups, and at least that was our own fault, but still I never want to do that again. I don't know what I'd do in this situation.

Why is "exit" always the goal? Why not go on growing?

They're not mutually exclusive.

But founders and employees at some point want to leave and do other things. They want to take their stake in the company and sell it to buy a house or retire or pay for their kids' college or whatever.

That requires an exit, either as an acquisition or an IPO.

(In theory, dividends or profit distributions are an alternative, but they're much harder to do anything with because they're mostly in the future and not guaranteed. You can't pay for your kids' college with future profit-sharing that may or may not materialize. And, dividends or profit distributions are the opposite of growth, because you're no longer re-investing in the company.)

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#25

Post by mythz »

mesmertech wrote: post #2

Love it as a consumer because Mistral is probably not doing any more open weights if they get tangled with Microsoft. But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU

Time will be the ultimate judge but Mistral's Co-founder/CEO is still committing to be a leading provider of open weight models [1]:

> Clarifying a couple of things since we’re reading creative interpretations of our latest announcements:

- We’re still committed to leading open-weight models! We ask for a little patience, 1.5k H100s only got us that far.

- We have a reselling agreement with Microsoft, that we’re very excited about. Alongside similar partnerships, it will accelerate our growth.

- Microsoft invested in a small convertible note alongside many other companies, as a distribution partner. We are an independent European company with global ambitions, that part is not changing either.

> We’re seeing some interest for Le Chat and Mistral Large, on both la Plateforme and Azure, and we’ll be iterating fast!

[1] https://twitter.com/arthurmensch/status/1762818733016322168

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#26

Post by Gare »

Scarblac wrote: post #15
neverrroot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tough, it's also part of the reason so little is done here, just compare the size of market capitalization of say DAX40 (German top 40) or CAC40 (French top 40): DAX40 $1.9T CAC40 $2.8T There are single companies in US that exceed both of these values.

Part of that is that you're taking a fixed number of companies. So if Europe has more, but smaller companies, the value of the top-40 would be lower than if they had fewer but larger companies. To me the first sounds healthier, everything else being equal.

Also, lots of large European companies are privately held. For example: IKEA, Schwartz group (Kaufland, Lidl), Bosch, Aldi...

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#28

Post by datbn »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #18
Goodroo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That China has a more vibrant tech scene than Europe is a real shame.

And yet China's relative success is due to protectionism (or failed antitrust in USA/EU). In a "winner takes all" situation, how else can the EU compete ? (The US did protectionism too while their industries were fledgling, to avoid getting crushed by the British...)

This is not a winner takes all situation at all.

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#29

Post by Alifatisk »

whiplash451 wrote: post #27

To be frank, I am more worried about the fact that they raised $385M from US investors at the seed stage. That speaks volume about how much it really is an EU company. Good luck to EU for retaking control of this ship.

Damn, that’s an interesting point

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#30

Post by sanxiyn »

whiplash451 wrote: post #22
mesmertech wrote: post #2

Love it as a consumer because Mistral is probably not doing any more open weights if they get tangled with Microsoft. But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU

This move from MSFT is clearly perceived as aggressive from EU given how fragile EU sovereignty in AI is at this point. If EU wants to own its AI future, that’s not a great way of getting started.

I thought EU had money a lot more than €15M (Microsoft investment), actually a lot more than €1.8B (Mistral valuation). Why didn't EU make an offer?

If EU wants to own its AI future, it has enough money to buy one. They decided not to.

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