Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by RamblingCTO » Wed, Feb 28, 2024, 2:28 PM UTC

crimsoneer wrote: post #39

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

I mean, the FTC would absolutely look into this agreement if you did it in the US. Regulators "looking into" things is not a thing we should be upset about, that's why they exist.

And not only this, everyone loses if the FTC and the likes don't do their job properly. I'm still amazed how much "small" people argue for big entities like microsoft. You won't have these problems in your lifetime.

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

#62

Post by throwaway55671 » Wed, Feb 28, 2024, 2:28 PM UTC

janice1999 wrote: post #49

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

> But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU If a Chinese company with massive government contracts had invested in OpenAI there is no way that the US would not start an investigation.

Microsoft has massive government contracts in literally every EU country. US is an ally, not antagonist/enemy.

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

#63

Post by throwaway55671 » Wed, Feb 28, 2024, 2:31 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #57

throwaway55671 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said infinite? Startup founders that got investments have designed the exit points based on market conditions, and nobody would trust "infinite". It's just like stock investments (unless you "invest" based on feelings, of course) - you calculate the risk, the potential, and then you decide. Nobody reasonable puts "infinite growth" into their Excel sheets. And yes, growing until that exit point is a lot of work -…

The market expects infinite growth. Imagine what would happen if a publicly-traded company announced that they would stop pursuing growth.

No, that's not true. There are plenty of stable market capitalization, dividend-generating public companies. Their cap-to-EBITDA ratio is much smaller, but that doesn't change the fact.

Of course everybody expects the company to take advantage of opportunities - but it has to make economical sense. Nobody wants their company to try to grow so hard the whole company crashes.

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

#64

Post by IanCal » Wed, Feb 28, 2024, 2:35 PM UTC

anonylizard wrote: post #34

throwaway55671 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

385M USD is way too much for EU investors. They usually invest 10x-100x less. So the alternative without US investors would be to have no startup of this kind - great job, that will really help EU grow!

What makes US investors so uniquely ambitious and generous? I'm starting to appreciate the US financial sector more and more.

The US is a very rich country.

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

#65

Post by zht » Wed, Feb 28, 2024, 2:37 PM UTC

throwaway55671 wrote: post #62

janice1999 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU If a Chinese company with massive government contracts had invested in OpenAI there is no way that the US would not start an investigation.

Microsoft has massive government contracts in literally every EU country. US is an ally, not antagonist/enemy.

until they elect a president that throws allies under the bus (I.e. NATO, NAFTA, etc) and gives state secrets to enemies

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

#66

Post by mrkramer » Wed, Feb 28, 2024, 2:46 PM UTC

Microsoft only invested $16M....lol.....I thought Mistral would demand more but I guess partnership with Microsoft is more valuable than cash.

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

#67

Post by guhidalg » Wed, Feb 28, 2024, 2:47 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #48

anonylizard wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't own what you can't sell. Any asset value will be massively reduced if its untransferable. Mistral isn't exactly some decade-long state funded national champion. Its a 1 year old startup whose core staff all come from American tech companies. With 0 revenue and minimal market share, there's like no conceivable metric in traditional antitrust theory to block this. Yet the EU prevents it from taking foreign in…

You would have an anti-trust problem if somebody went out and bought all of the promising AI startups. So at what point in their buying spree do you cut them off? Do you wait until they've bought 90% of AI startups? 50%? Does it matter if there are 4 AI startups or 40?

It starts to matter when the broad public is adversely affected by the lack of AI diversity. I don’t think we’re there yet, let them buy.

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

#68

Post by hospadar » Wed, Feb 28, 2024, 2:52 PM UTC

anonylizard wrote: post #34

throwaway55671 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

385M USD is way too much for EU investors. They usually invest 10x-100x less. So the alternative without US investors would be to have no startup of this kind - great job, that will really help EU grow!

What makes US investors so uniquely ambitious and generous? I'm starting to appreciate the US financial sector more and more.

It might not be that they are "uniquely ambitious and generous" but rather that the US has a much greater wealth disparity on average, so the rich are much richer and presumably have a lot more to invest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

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

#69

Post by piaste » Wed, Feb 28, 2024, 2:57 PM UTC

throwaway55671 wrote: post #62

janice1999 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU If a Chinese company with massive government contracts had invested in OpenAI there is no way that the US would not start an investigation.

Microsoft has massive government contracts in literally every EU country. US is an ally, not antagonist/enemy.

"There are no permanent friends, only permanent interests."

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

#70

Post by kwhitefoot » Wed, Feb 28, 2024, 2:57 PM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #53

wongarsu wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU generally doesn't act on the market like that. This isn't China or Soviet Russia after all, we are still operating under a form of capitalism. The EU does offer grants, but those are generally meant for projects that wouldn't get money on the free market

Isn't Norway operating under a form of capitalism as well as owning controlling share of Statoil? Why mention China or Russia? I guess Norway is not a member of EU.

Norway retaining a controlling share in Statoil, now Equinor, is not quite the same as buying a startup or indeed buying any other company.

Statoil was created by the state not bought by it. If anything Statoil is an example of the very opposite idea and that is that Norway has sold shares in a company set up by the state rather than bought shares in an already existing company.