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Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

reuters.com

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Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#501

Post by janalsncm »

sowbug wrote: post #483
snowwrestler wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The TMV (Total Market Value) of solving AGI is infinity. And furthermore, if AGI is solved, the TMV of pretty much everything else drops to zero. I feel like these extreme numbers are a pretty obvious clue that we’re talking about something that is completely imaginary. Like I could put “perpetual motion machine” into those sentences and the same logic holds.

It's not crazy to believe that capitalizing* human-level intelligence would reap unimaginably large financial rewards. *Capitalizing as in turning into an owned capital asset that throws off income.

You could say the same thing about mining asteroids or any number of moonshot projects which will lead to enormous payouts at some future date. That doesn’t tell us anything about how to allocate money today.

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#502

Post by zellyn »

kimbler wrote: post #412
gigatexal wrote: post #306

This being ycombinator and as such ostensibly has one or two (if not more) VCs as readers/commentators … can someone please tell me how these companies that are being invested in in the AI space are going to make returns on the money invested? What’s the business plan? (I’m not rich enough to be in these meetings) I just don’t see how the returns will happen. Open source LLMs exist and will get better. Is it just tha…

These VC’s are already lining up the exit as they are investing. They all sit on the boards of major corps and grease the acquisitions all the way through. The hit rate of the top funds is all about connections and enablement.

I think it's a fascinating question whether the VCs that are still somehow pushing Blockchain stuff hard really think it's a good idea, or just need the regulatory framework and perception to be right so they can make a profitable exit and dump the stock into teacher's pension funds and 401ks…

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#503

Post by ignoramous »

lupire wrote: post #377
DalasNoin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ilya went to university in israel and all founders are jewish. Many labs have offices outside of the US, like london, due to crazy immigration law in the us.

Two of the founders are Israeli and the other is French, I think (went to University in France). Israel is a leading AI and software development hub in the world.

> Israel is a leading AI and software development hub...

Yep, and if any place will produce the safest AI ever, its got to be there.

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#504

Post by zakki »

jedberg wrote: post #358
tim333 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want safe investment you could always buy land. AGI won't be able to make more of that.

We can already make more land. See Dubai for example. And with AGI, I suspect we could rapidly get to space travel to other planets or more efficient use of our current land. In fact I would say that one of the things that goes to values near zero would be land if AGI exists.

Still those AGIs Servers need land

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#505

Post by manquer »

gigatexal wrote: post #306

This being ycombinator and as such ostensibly has one or two (if not more) VCs as readers/commentators … can someone please tell me how these companies that are being invested in in the AI space are going to make returns on the money invested? What’s the business plan? (I’m not rich enough to be in these meetings) I just don’t see how the returns will happen. Open source LLMs exist and will get better. Is it just tha…

> going to make returns on the money invested

Why do you think need to make money ? VC are not PEs for a reason. a VC have to find high risk/ high reward opportunities for their LPs they don't need to make financial sense, that is what LPs use Private Equity for.

Think of it as no different than say sports betting , you would like to win sure, but you don't particularly expect to do so, or miss that money all that much for us it $10 for the LP behind the VC it is $1B.

There is always few billions every year that chases the outlandish fad, because in the early part of the idea lifecycle it not possible to easily differentiate what is actually good and what is garbage.

Couple of years before it was all crypto, is this $1B any worse than say roughly same amount Sequoia put in FTX or all the countless crypto startups that got VC money ? Few before that it was kind of all Softbank from WeWork to dozen other high profile investments.

The fad and fomo driven part of the secto garners the maximum news and attention, but it is not the only VC money. Real startups with real businesses get funded as well with say medium risk/medium rewrard by VCs everyday but the news is not glamorous to be covered like this one.

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#506

Post by jedberg »

zakki wrote: post #504
jedberg wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can already make more land. See Dubai for example. And with AGI, I suspect we could rapidly get to space travel to other planets or more efficient use of our current land. In fact I would say that one of the things that goes to values near zero would be land if AGI exists.

Still those AGIs Servers need land

With a super AGI it could design a chip that takes almost no space and almost no energy.

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#507

Post by TaylorAlexander »

bobthecowboy wrote: post #443
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If AGI is actually reached, capital as we know it basically becomes worthless. The entire structure of the modern economy and the society surrounding it collapses overnight. Increasingly this just seems like fantasy to me. I suspect we will see big changes similar to the way computers changed the economy, but we will not see "capital as we know it become basically worthless" or "the modern economy and society aroun…

> Property rights will still have value. Manufacturing facilities will still have value. Social media sites will still have value. I was with you on the first two, but the second one I don't get? We don't even have AGI right now, and social media sites are already increasingly viewed by many people I know as having dubious value. Adding LLM's to the mix lowers that value, if anything (spam/bots/nonsense go up). Addin…

Well we will find out. I think the audience has value to advertisers, and I suspect that basic mechanic will continue in to the future.

> social media sites are already increasingly viewed by many people I know as having dubious value

I think we have all been saying this for 15 years but they keep getting more valuable.

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#508

Post by ignoramous »

beAbU wrote: post #99

At what point can we start agreeing that all these obscene investments and ridiculous valuations on something that's little more than a powerpoint deck at this stage is nothing more than degenerate gambling by the ultra rich?

The founding team is why. Anyone can claim to want to build, say, the safest warp drive ever; but to bet on folks who can actually build it isn't a bad choice for capital that seeks exponential outcomes.

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#509

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

gigatexal wrote: post #306

This being ycombinator and as such ostensibly has one or two (if not more) VCs as readers/commentators … can someone please tell me how these companies that are being invested in in the AI space are going to make returns on the money invested? What’s the business plan? (I’m not rich enough to be in these meetings) I just don’t see how the returns will happen. Open source LLMs exist and will get better. Is it just tha…

At least this time, people are actually asking the question.

NVDA::AI

CSCO::.COM

Re: Ilya Sutskever's SSI Inc raises $1B

#510

Post by damanoman »

kelnos wrote: post #471
romeros wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intuition is pretty spot on though. We don't need to get to AGI. Just making progress along the way to AGI can do plenty of damage. 1. AI-driven medical procedures: Healthcare Cost = $0. 2. Access to world class education: Cost of education = $0 3. Transportation: Cheap Autonomous vehicles powered by Solar. 4. Scientific research: AI will accelerate scientific progress by coming up with novel hypotheses and then…

I don't think that follows. Prices are set by market forces, not by cost (though cost is usually a hard floor). Waymo rides cost within a few tens of cents of Uber and Lyft rides. Waymo doesn't have to pay a driver, so what's the deal? It costs a lot to build those cars and build the software to run them. But also Waymo doesn't want a flood of people such that there's always zero availability (with Uber and Lyft they…

I take waymo regularly. It is not within a few cents of Lyft or Uber.

It costs me, the consumer, 2x what Lyft or Uber would cost me.

I paid $21 for a ride on Mon that was $9-10 across Uber and Lyft. I am price inquisitive so I always double check each time.

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