171–180 of 260 posts
In the increasingly frothy world of GenAI that’s a Wednesday and you get the cheque.
If it looks like a bubble and smells like a bubble…
The tech is cool, but investors are about to lose their shirts in this space.
> 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?
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…
What kind of temerity and hubris would it take to believe that the ratings agencies were colluding with the banks to give AAA to Mortgage Backer Securities?
This 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.
> Feels almost like cargo-culting.
Why almost?
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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.
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?
But maybe there is some gain that I can't just imagine...
You can buy six B-2 bombers for that money. And use them against competitor AI startups. You think this sounds stupid? This is where all this AI arms race is going.
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> It's nothing to do with Thinking Machines as a company, it's to do with a VC that's content to bet two billion dollars on a company that has shown absolutely nothing, and the sorry state of affairs that represents. Why does it represent a "sorry state of affairs"? VCs are risking money they manage, it's not like they're putting anyone else at risk. Do we really prefer a world in which we don't take risks to develop…
They use our pension funds for this. They also distort the market. I do see some value in it, we need to take risks with our capital and on a long term horizon it's fine. But there has to be some rationale behind it at least, some evidence based approach.
It's kinda sad that this is frontpage news, because there is nothing related to technology in the title, nothing intellectually interesting.
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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?
Often I think if the money could not be used for some better purpose. It is still huge resources wasted. Like digging and filling same trench. Overall it is not efficient use of resources or time to me. But maybe there is some gain that I can't just imagine...
(Note that it's much more legitimate to scrutinize scientific research, since it's mostly publicly funded, as opposed to VCs investing in startups.)
> Overall it is not efficient use of resources or time to me.
I mean, the tech world has done a lot of good and advanced humanity a lot. More than most industries, IMO. Most of that is by inventing new things. A society could dial down useless spending by dialing down innovation, but it's not clear to me that there's a way to get more innovation with less waste than the current system.
I think many industries are far more of an "inefficient use of resources". I think if the world as a whole would spend 10x more on scientific and technological advancement, at the cost of less e.g. fashion, less investment in entertainment, less investment in (some forms of) finance, etc, the world would be far better off. (I'm not advocating that this should be forced on society, just stating my opinion on what a more optimal way of allocating resources would be.)
On Shark Tank if you walk in and say “I have no revenue, no viable business model, and an idea that’s easily copied in a space that’s rapidly marching towards commoditization. I’m asking for $5 billion for 25% of my company.” You’d be laughed off the set. In the increasingly frothy world of GenAI that’s a Wednesday and you get the cheque. If it looks like a bubble and smells like a bubble… The tech is cool, but inves…
It is a bubble, of course, but this person would get $100m round in a non-bubble.