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Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding

reuters.com

81–90 of 260 posts

Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding

#81

Andreessen Horowitz is not gambling with their own money: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/andreessen-horowitz... Moreover, if some banks will fail in the aftermath, they'll be bailed out at the expense of you know whom.

How do you think VC firms work? There is no "own money". Their entire business is getting rich people, institutional investors, governments, pension funds, endowments etc. to give them money and investing that money in startups, keeping a cut for themselves.

Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding

#82
post #53

I 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,..

Yeah, similar to Trump administration may have had some misses but extremely smart people are doing great things.

Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding

#83
post #81

Andreessen Horowitz is not gambling with their own money: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/andreessen-horowitz... Moreover, if some banks will fail in the aftermath, they'll be bailed out at the expense of you know whom.

How do you think VC firms work? There is no "own money". Their entire business is getting rich people, institutional investors, governments, pension funds, endowments etc. to give them money and investing that money in startups, keeping a cut for themselves.

Why do you ask me? One of the top comments assumes that it would be crazy to assume recklessness on the part of a16z. I point out that they are insulated from the consequences on multiple levels.

Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding

#84

Could 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…

True. People here can be like this. I have not forgotten even the greatest juice maker of all times, Juicero was similarly disparaged with all this negativity.

Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding

#85
post #53

I 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…

Could be, or it could be a simple flawed net present value calculation, similar to Effective Altruism.

SBF said if he had a die and it had a 99% chance of killing everyone and a 1% chance of making the world 1 million times happier he would roll the die. Repeatedly. And Silicon Valley loved him.

I think AI is a similar calculation. Humans are tearing themselves apart and the only thing worth betting on is AI that can improve itself, self replicate and end scarcity. I believe that these VCs believe that AI is the only chance to save humanity.

And if you believe that, the net present value of AGI is basically infinite.

Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding

#87

Could 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…

My opinion: AI is taking all the money that could be spent on cool advancements that could give the average person hope and putting it towards a pipe dream. Why not be hostile towards the perceived death of an industry you love?

Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding

#88

Could 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 haven't publicly announced a product yet but presumably the VCs have some idea of what Thinking Machines is building

"Presumably" they have "some" idea. Oh really? Are you "sure" about that? Is that a $12B type confidence?

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