I guess investors are hoping for another Anthropic, or resurrection of Richard Feynman to help with development.
Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
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Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#62VCs are betting they'll get out with at least some gains before this bubble bursts. They have literally nothing new, not even in theory. They'll build a smaller-but-not-that-small-still-better-than-you-expect model which will be kind of open for others, which means they'll cut some deal and pretend they did something and that they received something in return.
> They have literally nothing new, not even in theory
They haven’t built anything yet. It’s a bit premature to call out the non-existing product as insufficiently novel.
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#63I think it takes a lot of temerity and hubris to look at a 2B raise and assume it's all hype. A16Z has certainly had some misses, but one assumes there actually is some product they're showing behind closed doors that makes this round much more reasonable than it appears from the outside. If something makes no sense, seems totally crazy, and is being done by a crowd of extremely smart people, you can only assume one…
> A16Z has certainly had some misses, but one assumes there actually is some product
They don’t need to show a product. It’s been demonstrated that with capital and some skill you can train a foundation model. A16Z has the former. Murati has the latter.
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#64Does anybody know what they are building yet?
More of the same it seems. How can you deliver a product within 2 months of there is anything novel.
> How can you deliver a product within 2 months of there is anything novel
Uh, run the training script with your thoughtful modifications? They’re not welding together an LLM.
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
You manage to turn any topic, any conversation into your pet issue, don't you.
When billions of dollars are being wasted on hype tech while people are homeless, starving, being murdered in Gaza etc, yes! I do!
Do you really think you’re increasing sympathy for your cause with this tripe? You may actually be more effective if you troll for the other side.
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#66Could somebody explain why there is so much negativity towards Thinking Machines in this thread? I realize that they haven't publicly announced a product yet but presumably the VCs have some idea of what Thinking Machines is building, and they have some pretty significant OpenAI talent on board, including Murati herself. Some amount of skepticism is warranted, of course, but a lot of these comments read as closer to…
> Could somebody explain why there is so much negativity towards Thinking Machines in this thread?
I think it lies at the intersection of a lot of topics where HN comments are hostile: VCs, large fundraising, AI, OpenAI related employees. These are all topics where HN comments are more hostile than pragmatic.
Most of the hostility is just a proxy for “VCs bad” banter.
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#67I think it takes a lot of temerity and hubris to look at a 2B raise and assume it's all hype. A16Z has certainly had some misses, but one assumes there actually is some product they're showing behind closed doors that makes this round much more reasonable than it appears from the outside. If something makes no sense, seems totally crazy, and is being done by a crowd of extremely smart people, you can only assume one…
> a crowd of extremely smart people
I don't disagree with your broader point, but have spent enough time with enough a16z partners to say they're just people. Not outright stupid, but not extremely smart, either. And their error rate is pretty high.
Which...to some extent is by design. It's part of a VC's job to make bad bets. Sometimes the price of getting into a deal at all is getting in on insane terms, but you still do it because that one investment could return the entire fund. Maybe Thinking Machines is a winner, maybe it's another Clubhouse. We'll see.
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#68Could somebody explain why there is so much negativity towards Thinking Machines in this thread? I realize that they haven't publicly announced a product yet but presumably the VCs have some idea of what Thinking Machines is building, and they have some pretty significant OpenAI talent on board, including Murati herself. Some amount of skepticism is warranted, of course, but a lot of these comments read as closer to…
No one needs another mistral
huh, what happened? I haven't been following Mistral but I recall it was everyone's up and coming darling, no?
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#69Could somebody explain why there is so much negativity towards Thinking Machines in this thread? I realize that they haven't publicly announced a product yet but presumably the VCs have some idea of what Thinking Machines is building, and they have some pretty significant OpenAI talent on board, including Murati herself. Some amount of skepticism is warranted, of course, but a lot of these comments read as closer to…
No one needs another mistral
I'll take another ten Mistrals thank you.
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#70Could somebody explain why there is so much negativity towards Thinking Machines in this thread? I realize that they haven't publicly announced a product yet but presumably the VCs have some idea of what Thinking Machines is building, and they have some pretty significant OpenAI talent on board, including Murati herself. Some amount of skepticism is warranted, of course, but a lot of these comments read as closer to…
They were founded 6 months ago, have no product, yet are purported to be worth $12B? I mean ... Come on.