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Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

reuters.com

21–30 of 803 posts

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#21

I think this is actually a signal that the AI hype is dissipating. These numbers and the valuation are indicative that people consider this a potentially valuable tool, but not world changing and disruptive. I think this is a pretty reasonable take.

Can you explain your reasoning? To many these numbers seem to suggest the exact opposite.

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#22
post #2

Getting funded by a16z is if anything a sign that the field is not hot anymore.

All money is green, regardless of level of sophistication. If you’re using investment firm pedigree as signal, gonna have a bad time. They’re all just throwin’ darts under the guise of skill (actor/observer|outcome bias; when you win, it is skill; when you lose, it was luck, broadly speaking). > Indeed, one should be sophisticated themselves when negotiating investment to not be unduly encumbered by the unsophisticat…

> All money is green, regardless of level of sophistication.

True, but most, if not all, money comes with strings attached.

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All money is green, regardless of level of sophistication. If you’re using investment firm pedigree as signal, gonna have a bad time. They’re all just throwin’ darts under the guise of skill (actor/observer|outcome bias; when you win, it is skill; when you lose, it was luck, broadly speaking). > Indeed, one should be sophisticated themselves when negotiating investment to not be unduly encumbered by the unsophisticat…

> All money is green, regardless of level of sophistication. True, but most, if not all, money comes with strings attached.

[deleted]

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#24

I think this is actually a signal that the AI hype is dissipating. These numbers and the valuation are indicative that people consider this a potentially valuable tool, but not world changing and disruptive. I think this is a pretty reasonable take.

What numbers and what valuation at seed round would indicate to you that they did consider it world changing and disruptive?

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#25
post #13

$1B raise, $5B valuation. For a company that is a couple months old and doesn't have a product or even a single line of code in production. Wild.

For these kinds of capital-intensive startups, though, that almost seems like a requirement, and I guess there are really 2 "types" of valuations.

In this case, everyone knows it takes hundreds of millions to train models. So I'm investors are essentially rolling the dice on an extremely well-regarded team. And if it takes about a billion just to get off the ground, the valuation would need to at least be in the couple billion range to make it worth it for employees to work there.

That feels very different than say selling a company where founders are cashing out. In that case, the business should expect to meaningful contribute to revenue, and quickly.

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#26

Same funding as OpenAI when they started, but SSI explicitly declared their intention not to release a single product until superintelligence is reached. Closest thing we have to a Manhattan Project in the modern era?

> Closest thing we have to a Manhattan Project in the modern era?

Minus the urgency, scientific process, well-defined goals, target dates, public ownership, accountability...

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#27

Given OpenAI’s declining performance after his being sidelined and then departing, interested to see what they do. Should be a clear demonstration of who was really driving innovation there.

Probably will be an unpopular opinion here but I think declining performance is more likely related to unclear business models backed by immature technology driven by large hype trains they themselves created.

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#28

Given OpenAI’s declining performance after his being sidelined and then departing, interested to see what they do. Should be a clear demonstration of who was really driving innovation there.

How have you measured "declining performance" in a matter of ~3 months and traced it back to a single person's departure?

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#29
post #3

This has to be one of the quickest valuations past a billion. I wonder if they can even effectively make use of the funds in a reasonable enough timeline.

> I wonder if they can even effectively make use of the funds in a reasonable enough timeline.

I read that it cost Google ~$190 million to train Gemini, not even including staff salaries. So feels like a billion gives you about 3 "from scratch" comparable training runs.

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#30
post #3

This has to be one of the quickest valuations past a billion. I wonder if they can even effectively make use of the funds in a reasonable enough timeline.

Given the dire need of GPUs, I don't suspect they would have any trouble finding the good use of the funds
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