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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

#81

Post by throwaway55671 »

RandomLensman wrote: post #73
throwaway55671 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the founders want to remain there and grow, perhaps they want to focus on something else or retire. Perhaps the plan always was to sell after X years - I don't see anything wrong about that, still better to innovate&sell than just buy stock&sell IMHO. You can't attract investors if they can't sell in case the investment is successful. This is severely limiting and a terrible situation to be in - especially if…

Why would competition law and/or national security laws not apply to a start-up or its acquirers? Why would they or their acquirers get exceptions? Would those exceptions cover patents as well on the national security? What else and why? Also, this isn't the EU saying "no" at the moment, but looking into it, as it does with many things.

They shouldn't get exceptions. There shouldn't be so many laws and regulations that result in EU being so behind economy-, success- and investment-wise.

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

#82

Post by api »

fvdessen wrote: post #16
api wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech is like film. Big unicorns with big exits are like the blockbuster tent pole superhero films that net hundreds of millions of dollars. You don’t have those the whole industry collapses. No art flicks or risky experiments with new ideas without Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s not just investment capital which usually grows out of exits but also the whole ecosystem of services and consultants and experts and law fir…

Regulations are not a problem, it's the lack of a big common market. Expanding from let's say Belgium to Germany is almost as difficult as expanding to the USA. That's why the two countries that have a big tech scenes (US/China) are the ones that have big unified markets.

That argues for more U in EU. Hard sell against a rising populist current though.

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

#83

Post by TMWNN »

zht wrote: post #65
throwaway55671 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>until they elect a president that throws allies under the bus (I.e. NATO, NAFTA, etc)

Based on recent news, Trump has done more for NATO rearmament than any US president in history. Gee, maybe sometimes drastic steps are needed when 20 years of three other presidents doing everything but stand on their heads while begging other NATO members to spend more on their own defense failed.

Trump was lambasted by the usual bien-pensant suspects when he told NATO this in 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpwkdmwui3k>. He was right when at the UN he warned against Western European dependence on Russian energy, for which the German foreign minister and others laughed at him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfJv9QYrlwg>.

And remember, Trump isn't even in office now; he's already done more for Western collective defense than a) the putative current president and b) an actual land war in Europe!

>and gives state secrets to enemies

Repeat this often enough and maybe it'll come true one day!

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

#84

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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.

> If a Chinese company with massive government contracts had invested in OpenAI there is no way that the US would not start an investigation

Sure, but if a European did we wouldn't.

So if you start in America, you can access both continents. If you start in China, you can access Europe and Asia. If you start in Europe, you're limited to one.

Granted, this is just a proble. But if it amounts to something, it's an asymmetrically chilling move.

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

#85

Post by JumpCrisscross »

TMWNN wrote: post #83
zht wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>until they elect a president that throws allies under the bus (I.e. NATO, NAFTA, etc) Based on recent news, Trump has done more for NATO rearmament than any US president in history. Gee, maybe sometimes drastic steps are needed when 20 years of three other presidents doing everything but stand on their heads while begging other NATO members to spend more on their own defense failed. Trump was lambasted by the usual…

> Trump has done more for NATO rearmament than any US president in history

Putin did that. To the degree Trump's statements have had an effect, it's in deharmonizing trans-Atlantic military coöperation.

(EDIT: Trump and Putin had similar effects. See [1].)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39540275

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

#86

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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

> Love it as a consumer because Mistral is probably not doing any more open weights if they get tangled with Microsoft

The solution is to mandate open weights. Not kneecap your flagship by putting it at a permanent capital disadvantage.

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

#87

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

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

#88

Post by TMWNN »

nerdponx wrote: post #56
anonylizard wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All 70 year old companies is not helping your point. US has new upstarts like Tesla and Nvidia, which at their prime, add like 1 IKEA per fortnight to their market cap.

That's because literally the entire world is betting on their technology right now. I can't imagine that being located in the US is the cause for Nvidia being in the right place at the right time with CUDA.

>That's because literally the entire world is betting on their technology right now. I can't imagine that being located in the US is the cause for Nvidia being in the right place at the right time with CUDA.

Ah yes, feel free to name all the other European startups that are in the right place at the right time with their own technology. Maybe one of these days you'll acknowledge that there may be a reason why such companies keep appearing in the US and East Asia, and not across the Atlantic.

Yes, I know that Nvidia is 30 years old. That does not change my point. Where were the European GPU startups back in the 1990s, let alone today?

(This is where you inevitably cite ASML. Psst: Look into where and who developed ASML's lithography technology, and what companies were not allowed to build off it.)

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

#89

Post by RandomLensman »

throwaway55671 wrote: post #81
RandomLensman wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would competition law and/or national security laws not apply to a start-up or its acquirers? Why would they or their acquirers get exceptions? Would those exceptions cover patents as well on the national security? What else and why? Also, this isn't the EU saying "no" at the moment, but looking into it, as it does with many things.

They shouldn't get exceptions. There shouldn't be so many laws and regulations that result in EU being so behind economy-, success- and investment-wise.

Not sure why you think it is the number of laws and regulations that lead to that. The US has huge amounts of those, too.

Some structural differences are in part actually from the US having been less permissive than Europe in banking.

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

#90

Post by TMWNN »

anonylizard wrote: post #33
Gare wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

All 70 year old companies is not helping your point. US has new upstarts like Tesla and Nvidia, which at their prime, add like 1 IKEA per fortnight to their market cap.

>All 70 year old companies is not helping your point.

I read an interesting point recently: Austria's 100 wealthiest families have two thirds of the country's wealth, and zero have earned their money from technology; they've all inherited it.

How different would the same list be for Germany? One, perhaps two families earned their fortunes from tech (and by "tech" I mean "SAP")?

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