Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of all the tech companies, Meta is the most ruthless and shameless. You'd have to be a total fool to trust Zuck, especially Zuck who put billions into AR for not much return and now billions into AI to create lackluster lagging models.
Off base when considering the likes of Palantir and many others. Not a fan of the person or many of Meta's business practices. But Meta has given a lot back with Llama and PyTorch, among many other open source contributions. Which others in the space are not doing.
Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab
331–340 of 507 posts
Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
You forgot LeCunn, but yeah that guy's on its own death spiral.
No I didn’t. He is functionally irrelevant at Meta and he doesn’t actually lead anything.
But maybe they're wrong ...
Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab
#333A few possibilities: 1. Mark no longer wants to run the company and he is picking alexander wang. 2. Mark believes that Ai is the top priority, his teams have failed, (this is all clearly true so far) and he wants completely change the org structure of his AI efforts (not recommendation but everything else). 3. Mark wants to cut off the supply of information to other labs 4. Mark thinks that full access to ScaleAi's…
Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a wild story for sure. Dropped out of MIT after freshman year and starts Scale to do data labeling. Three years later Scale has a $1B valuation and two years after that Wang is the world's youngest billionaire. Nine years after Scale's founding they're still doing less than $1B in annual revenue. Yet Meta is doing a $14B acquihire. There's definitely more than meets the eye. I suspect it involves multiple world…
i don't know Alex directly that well but i believe his "freshman year" skipped all GIRs and was spent polishing off the most advanced graduate courses in CS theory (18.404), machine learning (6.867), algorithms (6.854), etc. so basically he did MIT at the PhD level in 1 year. As a classmate myself who did it in 3, at a high level too (and I think Varun - of Windsurf - completed his undergrad in 3 years also)... Wang'…
If anything, you'd be bored with some undergrad courses.
Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab
#335This is a weird deal? Meta buys a non-controlling stake and says no customers will be affected but the CEO and others are leaving Scale for Meta. Meta also says they won’t have access to competitor data but at 49% ownership they get major investor rights? Sounds like an acqui-kill to me?
Would buying 49% prevent any government investigations into the deal?
Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
>One would expect companies to be judged based on following the spirit of the law, rather than nitpicking and allowing wide holes like this. The letter of the law is what people follow. The spirit, or intent, of the law is what they argue about in court cases. If the regulation says 49% and a company follows it, who's to say they're exploiting a loophole? They're literally following the law. Until there is a court ca…
> who's to say they're exploiting a loophole? I guess "intent" is what matters really. If the intent is to avoid regulatory review and you could prove that intent, then they're trying to exploit it. That in itself should probably trigger a review regardless. If they've arrived at 49% for some other reason(s) than just to avoid regulatory review, then fair enough.
Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the weird setup where they only buy non voting shares is to not trigger any regulatory review Do regulators actually fall for these sort of things in the US? One would expect companies to be judged based on following the spirit of the law, rather than nitpicking and allowing wide holes like this.
>One would expect companies to be judged based on following the spirit of the law, rather than nitpicking and allowing wide holes like this. The letter of the law is what people follow. The spirit, or intent, of the law is what they argue about in court cases. If the regulation says 49% and a company follows it, who's to say they're exploiting a loophole? They're literally following the law. Until there is a court ca…
There may be some other regulations that are avoided by a partial acquisition, but it doesn't bring it wholly outside of the relevant antitrust laws.
Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is convincing you that VR will have huge ROI in the near future? We are over 10 years in to the modern VR era and despite even Meta’s strong device sales it’s still very niche. Apple is trying their hardest and even they had to correct their sales expectations.
I think everyone is greatly overestimating VR. The thing is, I can imagine some futuristic version of AI that transforms humanity. But with VR, even in my wildest dreams with all the problems solved, it’s still just second best to smartphones and computers. Imagine the perfect headset. Tiny, battery lasts forever, photo-realistic. I would still rather browse the Internet on my phone. I’d rather do my work on my lapto…
It gives you maximum immersion into a digital world. Rather than view it through a rectangular 2D window, it can encompass 360 degrees of your vision in full 3D. If you don't see how this would be appealing for consuming content, work, entertainment, etc., then I can't convince you otherwise.
VR adoption has always been held back by what is technically possible and how expensive it is. Nobody other than tech enthusiasts wants to wear a bulky headset for extended periods of time. Once we're able to produce that perfect headset that you mention, so that it's portable and comfortable like a pair of sunglasses, at an affordable price, the floodgates will open, and demand will skyrocket.
The same already happened with mobile phones, several times. The cellular phone was invented in the early 1980s. It was heavy, bulky, and expensive, and only business people and enthusiasts used them. It wasn't until the mid-to-late 90s that they got cheap and comfortable for the general public. Then the modern smartphone had several precursors that were also clunky and expensive. It wasn't until the iPhone and Android devices that the technology became useful and accessible to everyone. There's no reason to think that the current iteration is the ultimate design of a personal computer.
The same story is repeated for any new technology. VR itself has seen multiple resurgences in the last few decades. We're only now reaching a state where the vision is technically possible. There are several products on the market that come close. VR headsets are getting smaller, cheaper, and more comfortable, and AR glasses are getting cheaper and more powerful. I reckon we're a few generations away from someone launching a truly groundbreaking product. Thinking that all this momentum is just a risky bet on a niche platform would be a mistake.
Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab
#339Reminds me of "Don't dig for the gold, sell the shovels". Could also be read: > Meta spends 10% of last year's revenue to acquire 49% of a top AI data company and poach their leadership, to ensure they are a key player in what could be a ~5-trillion dollar industry by 2033. Meta has a history of this. Acquiring Oculus (and leaning in on VR), Ray-Ban partnership (and leaning in on AR)... etc. These all just seem like…
Bringing up Oculus and VR is quite fitting, because I think it's the same problem. Meta is attempting to find their next business, but like with social media they don't really have a plan. It worked out well with Facebook and some of the purchases surrounding social media, but it was never a clear path to profit, so they slapped ads on it. Why does Meta want VR to work? Create the Meta-verse? We're back at why, what…
theZuck doesn't have to be around other people in the -verse. For him, that's a great solve
Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been in the tech industry a quarter century, I've never heard this "pretty common saying" before, and most importantly I don't think it makes any sense. If anything, tech excels at disruption, where smaller competitors and new ideas are able to solve problems where "just throwing money at it" has failed.
> I don't think it makes any sense > tech excels at disruption, where smaller competitors and new ideas are able to solve problems where "just throwing money at it" has failed I don't think you understand the saying then, because this is exactly its point.