Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

x.ai

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 285 posts

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#181

Post by perkolator »

nomilk wrote: post #35
dagmx wrote: post #5

Are there any notable people associated with this other than Elon? I’m curious what they’re bringing to the table to be able to fetch that valuation.

Something surprising Sam Altman mentioned on the Lex Fridman podcast was that it only takes about 6 months to get a top physicist up to speed and productive researching AI. So the team could largely be newbies to AI (with extremely good fundamental knowledge/skill), rather than folks we've all heard of from the AI scene.

There is nothing really surprising about this.

Jim Simmons that recently passed away did exactly this in finance decades ago. He didn't build a team of the brightest minds in finance.

He hired brilliant people that specifically did not work in finance. I think he even mentioned that astronomy was one of his favorite areas to hire from for finance.

I am sure we highly underestimate the indoctrination against new ideas that anyone at the top of a field has been subject to.

Humans love to turn everything into a high school prom king/queen popularity election though even when it is obvious the best people for the job didn't even go to the prom.

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#182

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

qeternity wrote: post #173

Quite a few comments here in disbelief and hating on Musk. For all the criticism of Elon, he has been foundational in Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX and OpenAI. Even if you think Tesla is troubled/overvalued, he has built multiple enormous companies, and one of a handful of people to have built a company into a $1T valuation (however fleeting). So yes, the arithmetic for VCs is very straightforward: for better or for worse…

Foundational at Paypal and OpenAI? I've heard different. Also leaving out Twitter which has at least halved (if not more) it's valuation. I would say he's batting less than .500, so while still good, not a sure thing in the slightest and the trajectory seems to be on the down.

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#184

Post by melodyogonna »

dgellow wrote: post #141
melodyogonna wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody wants Elon Musk to make them some money.

Isn’t he known to not pay well his employees?

Isn't there an industry standard pay-range? If he isn't paying as well as his competition then I would expect employees to seek better opportunities.

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#185

Post by Art9681 »

nomilk wrote: post #84
rullopat wrote: post #57

He is the richest man in the world and he doesn’t have 6B in the pocket to finance it on his own?

Asset rich doesn't imply cash rich.

This is the real answer. The other commenters just don't understand how money and wealth works. Net worth doesnt mean liquid money in the bank ready to withdraw. He would have to sell his own assets which would have an impact on their value the quicker he yolo'ed those sales.

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#186

Post by llamaimperative »

andrewinardeer wrote: post #59
BrainInAJar wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably better for both companies that he isn't. Better for him to torch a $6b series B and Twitter than mess up spacex & tesla more than he already has

The vanity CyberTruck, I get is a mess. And that lands at Elon's feet. What mess is afoot at SpaceX that is his doing?

That’s the point: Gwynn is running SpaceX and has been for a long time.

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#187

Post by shufflerofrocks »

chambo622 wrote: post #12
floppiplopp wrote: post #9

Anything Musk is now too many inferior products and broken promises for any sensible investor. Might as well just burn the money.

Yet the money keeps coming, so I want to learn what I'm missing.

investors are simply off-setting the losses to the next investor they sell to. Musk brand is still valuable and his bubble keeps growing. It is only the investors present when the bubble bursts that'll be at a loss.

You only need to grow your investment, sell it off to the next person, and exit before it happens

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#188

Post by snowpid »

snowpid wrote: post #178
nomel wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering what’s at Tesla, I don’t think it makes sense to assume they’ll be constraining themselves to text/LLM. But on the philosophical side, if an understanding can’t be communicated, does it exist? We humans only have various movements and vibrations of flesh, sensing those, text, and images to communicate.

" Considering what’s at Tesla, I don’t think it makes sense to assume they’ll be constraining themselves to text/LLM. " Tesla is losing money and cant fulfill its promises about AI. What do you mean?

First statement is wrong. Just sales dropped, Tesla is earning money though. Tesla though has a strong story of broken promises on Automated Driving.

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#189

Post by bboygravity »

artemonster wrote: post #171
darth_avocado wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bull case is… they will have FSD by the end of the year… 2017…

I still dont understand why elmo is not being investigated for fraud for all these obscenely unreal claims and promises he has made over the years. this is a clear and cut definition of fraud, for which "female steve jobs" and another e-trucking clown CEO are doing their time. why not elmo?

Unreal claims?

Getting a deadline wrong?

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#190

Post by bboygravity »

threeseed wrote: post #26
bboygravity wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why 4th place? Got a crystal ball of substantiation or is this another case of ordinary Elon bashing?

Because Microsoft/OpenAI, Google and Meta have unlimited money and servers to throw at AI. As do Amazon and Apple who aren't just sitting back doing nothing. So I think even 4th place is putting it nicely. Far more likely to be 6th at best.

Because winning tech-development or even AI/AGI is about who has the most money and servers?!

Since when? If that's the case then why are Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and even Google not nr 1 right now?

IMO the deciding factor for success is super obviously leadership. Hence why xAI got 6 billy thrown at it.

Post reply on HN