I do hope they have some novel idea up their sleeve. Another firm just executing a similar playbook even if well executed is not going to face headwinds against incumbents
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
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. VCs invested money. It ended up a flop. And this hurts us... how exactly? Other than some VCs losing their money on a bad bet, who cares?
Well a lot of people on this forum are founders or early employees in startups. Every dollar vcs set on fire chasing some obviously stupid idea, waste on crypto memecoins, etc is a dollar that is not helping some legitimate startup get funded.
Yes, but when you put it as "why are you investing in these bad ideas? Invest in mine, it's obviously much better", it sounds a lot more self-interested (and far more likely to be wrong).
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#153Could 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…
People with no product, no specific insight, and no published plan raising $$ trillions, due to elite background.
(Sure -- that background is somewhat self earned.)
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#154I 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…
> one assumes there actually is some product they're showing
Can it simply be that anyone who wants to create new competitive models at this point needs billions for training? This isn't a saas where you can whip up a prototype in a month. Rather than having a product to show, I'd guess it's more about an experienced team and some plausible-sounding research ideas.
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#155Who is this person and why is she attempting to skinwalk the name of a really cool computer company (creators of the Connection Machine)?
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#156This is so weird to me. Yes, she was there at OpenAI and by all accounts a super respected non researcher . Clearly she's incredible, her reputation proceeds her etc. but is operational strength (being a good exec) really what gets to AGI? Feels almost like cargo-culting.
I suppose one should expect ‘time to agi’ to be a function of:
1. Researchers
2. Productivity-enhancing things in the org (either technical stuff like frameworks/optimisations or nebulous social things like better collaboration)
3. Amount of available compute.
4. Luck
And then the past experience with openAI should help a lot with doing a good job of #1 and #2 even if it is just being a competent executive.
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#157> The fundraise also saw participation from AI chip giant Nvidia This is really obvious 'round-tripping' no? Nvidia invests in startups that are going to spend a majority of their funds on GPUs, Nvidia's revenue goes up, Nvidia's stock goes up, Nvidia makes more 'investments' in startups who use that investment to continue the cycle?
To an extend, sure, but not in the "obvious" way you suggest, because that's very illegal. Any arrangement for Nvidia to obviously and directly fund startups to clearly funnel money back through purchases would quickly attract scrutiny from auditors, regulators, and co-investors.
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#158This is so weird to me. Yes, she was there at OpenAI and by all accounts a super respected non researcher . Clearly she's incredible, her reputation proceeds her etc. but is operational strength (being a good exec) really what gets to AGI? Feels almost like cargo-culting.
Sorry: precedes
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#159> The fundraise also saw participation from AI chip giant Nvidia This is really obvious 'round-tripping' no? Nvidia invests in startups that are going to spend a majority of their funds on GPUs, Nvidia's revenue goes up, Nvidia's stock goes up, Nvidia makes more 'investments' in startups who use that investment to continue the cycle?
Yes, though realistically they’d be buying the GPUs regardless of who the investors and this sort of vertical integration isn’t directly illegal
Yes, except they are monopolist, right? It's basically not optional choice.
Re: Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding
#160I guess investors are hoping for another Anthropic, or resurrection of Richard Feynman to help with development.
Danny Hillis deserves a mention