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Mistral raises €3B

mistral.ai

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Re: Mistral raises €3B

#331

Post by ricardobayes »

prolly97 wrote: post #298
ricardobayes wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't even call it a communication problem - I believe it's more a media problem, than anything. Good news are minimized and bad news are amplified to the maximum - nowadays even broadsheet newspapers operate with tabloid headlines, and that is really bad. We somehow need to "want" a slower news cycle and simultaneously push back against the algorithmic outrage. The world is more predictable and safer than ever…

>Despite the average european objectively being better off and safer than a decade ago I'm sure it's true, but do we have some statistics on that, and a comparison to places that doesn't have the same regulatory burden?

I can quote the German BKA:

number of crimes in 2016: 6,372,526

number of crimes in 2025 (last data): 5,508,559

https://www.bka.de/EN/CurrentInformation/Statistics/PoliceCr...

https://www.bka.de/EN/CurrentInformation/Statistics/PoliceCr...

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#332

Post by pembrook »

AureliusMA wrote: post #283
pembrook wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs embody value systems, and American and European values are not the same Your values and American values might not be the same, but to say even most of Europe feels the same way is a big stretch. And not even the US has very many shared values anymore. If we’re being honest, Europe doesn’t actually have much of a common value system outside of whatever is momentarily trendy in the urban monoculture, which is wh…

This is a spectacularly prejudiced and insulting comment.

Can you offer a believable rebuttal to any of my statements?

AfD just had a historic victory in Germany, France is leaning the same direction, etc. Just those two are 40% of the EU economy, and do you think them both turning ethno-nationalist and right wing means the EU project is going to get stronger or weaker? More shared values, or less?

The truth is the EU didn't go far enough, and created a feckless bike-shedding bureaucracy of papercuts. If the EU were to truly unite around shared values, we could achieve something. But the fundamental issue is the EU doesn't have these shared values. The US had the benefit of starting from 0 and attracting only likeminded people to grow.

In Europe every country still identifies with their 19th century national romantic movement definition of who they are (which was itself a construct). The lack of shared values is the problem. We can't even get most of the EU on a common language.

There were people like Kalgeri who had a vision for a 'united states of europe,' which arguably would have been better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Coudenhove-Kalergi

But anytime you bring his name up some right wing conspiracy nutjob will call you an evil globalist. And the far left nutjobs (more common here) will call you an evil capitalist/fascist for supporting his vision of trying to compete in global markets through technology.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#333

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

gman83 wrote: post #122
matusp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bottom feeder mentality. Europe has enough bright people and resources to truly compete in the AI race. There is something wrong when the only selling point is that it's local.

No, Europe doesn't have the capital markets required to build the required data centers. Underwriting gigawatt data centers and frontier models demands a fully realized European Capital Markets Union, a single energy regulator with cross-border grid integration, and shared fiscal borrowing power.

> Underwriting gigawatt data centers and frontier models demands a fully realized European Capital Markets Union, a single energy regulator with cross-border grid integration, and shared fiscal borrowing power.

Care to elaborate why you consider this an absolute must? I don't see why, say, France can't build an "AI valley" somewhere near to on of their nuclear power plants and commit to provide X amount of energy for some fixed price for a decade. To me the main reasons for not building top AI labs with frontier models in EU seems to be:

- Venture money is not there (or people controlling the money are not on board to invest into such labs).

- Weak political will from countries who could do that to actually go for it.

- Top scientist who could work on it choosing to go for much higher payouts in the US.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#334

Post by dns_snek »

nickpp wrote: post #188
intended wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 it bears repeating: regulation (even well meaning regulation) is not free and it always favors incumbents and hinders startups.

That's not true. EU regulations like the AI Act and Digital Services Act have different obligations and requirements for large and small businesses and that amount can't be zero because being a small business doesn't give you a free pass to cause damage to society.

I'd be curious to hear about specific examples of AI regulation that affect small businesses without a good reason.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#335

Post by wraptile »

ta20240528 wrote: post #330
wraptile wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple _owns_ computers in people's pockets. There are very few businesses that can match this value. What does Mistral own? A head start at best. For the record I like Mistral and hope they succeed, but you're comparing apples to oranges.

"What does Mistral own?" Independence from the USA's CLOUD Act, secret FISA courts, and ICC-style disabling of important services.* *…and the Chinese equivalents.

Do they actually own it though? AFAIK they have no significant moat even in the EU (legal or competitive) and given the current accessibility to non-SOTA AI (open weight models and distillation) it's just a matter of time until Mistral gets serious competition on these points.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#336

Post by lentil_soup »

nickpp wrote: post #181
boonzeet wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many EU directives which benefit consumers directly in tech, including, but not limited to: Consumer rights - 14 day cooling off period for online purchases Sale of goods - 2 year seller liability for defective goods Right to repair - likely doesn’t need explanation, require manufacturers to offer repairs and replacement parts Unfair commercial practices - prevent misleading or deceptive advertising Unfair…

> cooling off [...] seller liability [...] Right to repair Let's not forget I am paying directly for those when I buy a product. Those benefits are not free, they cost money. The money has to come from somewhere. It can't come from profits (since those are the sacred reason the company exists in the first place) thus they will come from higher prices. Higher product prices mean less competitive companies. It also mea…

> But the worst is that I must pay for those benefits whether if I want them or not

that regulation acts as a lower bound on what it takes to do business in the place. You also pay for companies not dumping toxic material on the streets, for appliances not catching fire, for not eating rotten food and million other things. All of those regulations of course "corrupt" the market for the good of a society so it's not just a race to the bottom. The idea of a free for all market is an utopia that doesn't exist ... thankfully.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#337

Post by adventured »

skeledrew wrote: post #252
alansaber wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've never made a near-frontier model. Which is a valid criticism for a model training company

"Frontier" is a relative, ever-changing target.

It's not really: it means those out in front.

OpenAI, Anthropic, China

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#338

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

swiftcoder wrote: post #254
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 :-/

> 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 :-/ Does the US position come with 5 weeks paid vacation? When the US position gets hit with layoffs, do you still have comprehensive healthcare and unemployment coverage? Yes, EU software Eng salaries are a lot lower…

> When the US position gets hit with layoffs, do you still have comprehensive healthcare and unemployment coverage?

What does this have to do if the advertised base salary? You would pay for your healthcare and social security with huge taxes from that already meager salary, it is not like those 90k is all-taxes-paid-and-batteries-included offer.

Re: Mistral raises €3B

#339

Post by jatins »

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?

> clearly have a contrarian business strategy to the other AI labs

What’s contrarian? Dont they also sell API and subscription like every other lab?

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