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Long Live the 'GPU Poor' – Open-Source AI Grants
111–120 of 124 posts
Re: Long Live the 'GPU Poor' – Open-Source AI Grants
#112I'm one of the recipients of the AI grants, to support my work at fast.ai. I'm extremely grateful to a16z for their support. Here's some additional details based on questions I see in the comments: My grant covered the purchase of a Scalar server from Lambda Labs, which allowed me to configure a system with 8 previous-gen A6000 GPUs, partly also thanks to NVIDIA who has recently given me 3 of those cards, and Lambda…
It makes me very happy to read about things like this -- support where it's needed and appreciated AND absolutely no strings attached. Wow. Wish there were more cases like this.
Best wishes in your work, jph00!
Re: Long Live the 'GPU Poor' – Open-Source AI Grants
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
unless i'm missing something, they're not taking equity. that's what makes it a grant, and not seed funding. what math should i be doing here?
Probably the grants have clauses that convert them to debt or equity in case of a transition of the company. [0] The bigger math is significance_of_contribution = $size_ai_grant_program/$size_ai_vc_program (or maybe $size_ai_grant_program - $size_ai_vc_program) [ 0 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-72428-3_... ]
They state the nature of their support in very clear terms:
"We’ll support a small group of open source developers through grant funding (not an investment or SAFE note), giving them the opportunity to continue their work without the pressure to generate financial returns."
Some of the recipients of financial support have described the nature of the agreement as well.
> a16z didn't ask for any equity or any kind of quid pro quo, other than to let folks know that they provided this grant.
Re: Long Live the 'GPU Poor' – Open-Source AI Grants
#114I'm one of the recipients of the AI grants, to support my work at fast.ai. I'm extremely grateful to a16z for their support. Here's some additional details based on questions I see in the comments: My grant covered the purchase of a Scalar server from Lambda Labs, which allowed me to configure a system with 8 previous-gen A6000 GPUs, partly also thanks to NVIDIA who has recently given me 3 of those cards, and Lambda…
> previous-gen A6000 GPUs
Just in case anyone hasn't surveyed the landscape lately, the distinction being made here is between "RTX A6000" (Ampere architecture; GeForce 30-series equivalent) and "RTX 6000 Ada Generation" (Ada architecture; GeForce 40-series equivalent) products. Nvidia is apparently convinced that it can get away with being almost as terrible at naming technology generations as the USB Implementers Forum.
Re: Long Live the 'GPU Poor' – Open-Source AI Grants
#115Is this a venture capital fund donating money to nvidia in order to support open source? It seems like some wires have got crossed along the way here
Re: Long Live the 'GPU Poor' – Open-Source AI Grants
#116I'm one of the recipients of the AI grants, to support my work at fast.ai. I'm extremely grateful to a16z for their support. Here's some additional details based on questions I see in the comments: My grant covered the purchase of a Scalar server from Lambda Labs, which allowed me to configure a system with 8 previous-gen A6000 GPUs, partly also thanks to NVIDIA who has recently given me 3 of those cards, and Lambda…
> a16z didn't ask for any equity or any kind of quid pro quo, other than to let folks know that they provided this grant.
... the contract was clear and totally fair (even explicitly saying that a16z wasn't going to receive any kind of rights to anything)...
Thanks for sharing, that is generous, and a pretty solid sign of being honest businessmen.
Re: Long Live the 'GPU Poor' – Open-Source AI Grants
#117I'm one of the recipients of the AI grants, to support my work at fast.ai. I'm extremely grateful to a16z for their support. Here's some additional details based on questions I see in the comments: My grant covered the purchase of a Scalar server from Lambda Labs, which allowed me to configure a system with 8 previous-gen A6000 GPUs, partly also thanks to NVIDIA who has recently given me 3 of those cards, and Lambda…
Hi Jeremy,
I'm sure you get this a lot, but thank you for teaching me ML - I am a hardware engineer/manufacturing person who learned to code in the early 2010s and it's been immensely helpful in my career. Learning ML feels like V2 of that - picking up a new skill that is going to end up being useful in so many places. You made that journey much easier and more accessible and I very much appreciate it.
(No need to respond at all - just wanted to pass along the gratitude!)
Re: Long Live the 'GPU Poor' – Open-Source AI Grants
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably the grants have clauses that convert them to debt or equity in case of a transition of the company. [0] The bigger math is significance_of_contribution = $size_ai_grant_program/$size_ai_vc_program (or maybe $size_ai_grant_program - $size_ai_vc_program) [ 0 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-72428-3_... ]
They state the nature of their support in very clear terms: "We’ll support a small group of open source developers through grant funding (not an investment or SAFE note), giving them the opportunity to continue their work without the pressure to generate financial returns." Some of the recipients of financial support have described the nature of the agreement as well. > a16z didn't ask for any equity or any kind of q…
Ok so it is just marketing spend, and buying the relationships then.
Re: Long Live the 'GPU Poor' – Open-Source AI Grants
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably the grants have clauses that convert them to debt or equity in case of a transition of the company. [0] The bigger math is significance_of_contribution = $size_ai_grant_program/$size_ai_vc_program (or maybe $size_ai_grant_program - $size_ai_vc_program) [ 0 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-72428-3_... ]
if you don't have a source for your claim it's as valid as i'm claiming that you are a stegosaurus.
Almost, but I qualified it with probably, and also if I was a stegosaurus I couldn’t be presently alive on earth, or understand language, or type.
Re: Long Live the 'GPU Poor' – Open-Source AI Grants
#120“We are disguising this round of seed funding as a grant, accomplishing all of the below: 1) brand-washing for people who don’t do the math 2) avoiding angering our LPs and/or violating our fund theses and 3) getting in on the ground floor of things that might follow OpenAI through the non-profit-to-VC-darling door Thanks for reading our press release, feel free to try to apply using your personal network (somehow) b…
This is insurance for their already huge investments (and future rounds) in AI businesses. It's a pittance relative to everything else they have at risk. It's prudent since failure of small projects like these can delay work on profitable corporate efforts.
This is a good point I hadn’t considered.