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Mistral raises €3B

mistral.ai

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Re: Mistral raises €3B

#91

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

intended wrote: post #79
dwedge wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are regulationmaxxing instead of benchmaxxing, that's my problem with them.

It bears repeating - all markets get regulated. Markets, left to their own devices, do not end up automatically being competitive in favor of consumers. But above all, if AI wasn’t hyped as a threat to humanity, to jobs, to security, regulation could have been cautious. To add insult to injury, given how voters are tired of technology, expecting a different move from governments is a losing bet.

And in the long run, regulated market companies win out- while the de-regulated ones decay and enshittify. Boeing vs Airbus comes to mind.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#92

Post by HenrikPontoppid »

Slartie wrote: post #67
HenrikPontoppid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to what really matters, they're far behind and probably will not catch up. It is my conviction that in this space, if you're not the best in the world, you're losing. Everyone is fundamentally selling the same thing, so if you don't have the most intelligent or cheapest model in the world, you're losing. Sure, Mistral has a "Made in Europe" edge, but any open-weight self-hosted chinese model might as we…

Well, then Samsung Electronics appears to be dumb for leading this investment round? They probably only do it because they're European...oh, wait... > so if you don't have the most intelligent or cheapest model in the world, you're losing So how does this match up to the fact that there is currently OpenAI and Anthropic, both raking in money? They can't both have the smartest model at the same time, can they? And all…

The value of these companies is not defined entirely by the state of their current models. A much more important signal is their chance of having the best model in the future. Just like with anything having to do with investment, this is the castle in the sky. Also, shame on me for simplifying things so much - but I still believe in my original sentiment.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#93

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

shevy-java wrote: post #63
davedx wrote: post #45

Mistral is an interesting AI company because they clearly have a contrarian business strategy to the other AI labs. They're also landing big customers in Europe for the right reasons. People dump on them because they're not benchmaxxxing which is pretty shortsighted - do you really want to be in a benchmark arms race with China, or do you want to make money and deploy sovereign AI compute in Europe?

I fail to see how this is relevant with regards to areas. Whether AI is hosted by the USA, Europe or China - they all are awful and eliminating real jobs while also driving up RAM prices etc... Why should I want to support any of these?

Because humanity stalled out- and coasted for the last 50 years and it shows. And now it must compete and git good or git gone. No more fat ponies paraded as race-horses.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#94

Post by tasoeur »

kome wrote: post #86
tasoeur wrote: post #81

Last I saw job offers for mistral (engineering, Paris) it advertised 90k euros base salary. Not sure how they’re intending to compete with the US when even a top AI lab can’t afford to be competitive :-/

some people would rather live in paris than los angels or san francisco (and rightly so, if you ask me)...

I actually live in Paris and get your point, but at some point you have to face the reality of the market/industry and really try your best to get good folks to join, especially in the current climate where US researchers may be looking for greener pastures.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#95

Post by alexfortin »

davedx wrote: post #45

Mistral is an interesting AI company because they clearly have a contrarian business strategy to the other AI labs. They're also landing big customers in Europe for the right reasons. People dump on them because they're not benchmaxxxing which is pretty shortsighted - do you really want to be in a benchmark arms race with China, or do you want to make money and deploy sovereign AI compute in Europe?

I root for Mistral and hope they'll be successful, perhaps I'll buy a subscription too once they're good enough for coding aid (perhaps they are now, didn't do any test with their models recently).

First of all, they release the models' weights, perdonally I don't consider any other option as viable (no OpenAI and definitely no Anthropic, thank you).

I especially like their Vibe Chat web offer, the allowed monthly usage with a free account is incredibly generous (still have to hit a limit) and the deep research feature (5/month for free) is also valuable.

I don't know anything about the alleged regulation maxxing problems, I don't perceive them as a problem for my causal/personal usage anyway.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#96

Post by tangled »

Europe absolutely needs a home-grown AI lab, especially with Pax Americana looking increasingly shaky.

LLMs embody value systems, and American and European values are not the same (yes, there are overlaps, but also key differences).

More nefariously, I can also imagine LLMs that silently degrade their reasoning when used in a national security context of a non-US country.

So, Mistral may not be competitive with OpenAI and Anthropic, but in many contexts that doesn’t matter. And, perhaps this gap could be closed with more funding (the three billion funding figure is a rounding error next to US labs). I’m sort of surprised that the EU isn’t stepping in to support them.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#97

Post by whiplash451 »

Slartie wrote: post #67
HenrikPontoppid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to what really matters, they're far behind and probably will not catch up. It is my conviction that in this space, if you're not the best in the world, you're losing. Everyone is fundamentally selling the same thing, so if you don't have the most intelligent or cheapest model in the world, you're losing. Sure, Mistral has a "Made in Europe" edge, but any open-weight self-hosted chinese model might as we…

Well, then Samsung Electronics appears to be dumb for leading this investment round? They probably only do it because they're European...oh, wait... > so if you don't have the most intelligent or cheapest model in the world, you're losing So how does this match up to the fact that there is currently OpenAI and Anthropic, both raking in money? They can't both have the smartest model at the same time, can they? And all…

OpenAI and Anthropic are so close on benchmarks and release date that they are essentially ex-aequo at this point. The market is just hedging their bets.

There is no close second, because the AA Index points are expentially harder to get as you get closer to the first.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#98

Post by ekianjo »

Frieren wrote: post #4
sznio wrote: post #2

> Existing investors a16z I don't trust anything the antichrist invests in

This is why wealth should be less concentrated. A few people has their hands in all businesses and that will end badly. Taxation is not just about paying for the costs of the country, it is also about making sure that nobody has enough power to subjugate the will of the people. Monopolies, billionaires, the accumulation of such power is making the average citizen powerless. And you can feel it.

> the will of the people.

there is so such thing.

if there is it sure is very flexible and forgetful

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#99

Post by prolly97 »

intended wrote: post #79
dwedge wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are regulationmaxxing instead of benchmaxxing, that's my problem with them.

It bears repeating - all markets get regulated. Markets, left to their own devices, do not end up automatically being competitive in favor of consumers. But above all, if AI wasn’t hyped as a threat to humanity, to jobs, to security, regulation could have been cautious. To add insult to injury, given how voters are tired of technology, expecting a different move from governments is a losing bet.

There's a big difference between governments regulating to benefit their own control and power, and regulating in favor of consumers. Most regulation in the EU have jack-all to do with consumers. There's a couple of niceties - having all prices displayed in comparable unites (EUR/kg, EUR/liter etc). But apart from that the regulation have broadly served as moats around the largest businesses.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#100

Post by phtrivier »

ReptileMan wrote: post #36
speedgoose wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m no expert in religion, but wouldn’t Jesus speech be more on the Greta side if he came back to earth today? By like a very very wide margin?

He throwed the moneychangers out of the temple - so I guess he had a short temper for stupid frauds.

The whole "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” also hints at _something_.

But, I guess some very religious people did not got all the subtleties of "Thou shall not kill" yet, do, let's give everyone another 2000 years to process the idea.

(Also, maybe it's hard for a camel, but easier in ocaml ? I'll have to try marketing "Static typing as a way to reach heaven")

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