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Nvidia's $20B antitrust loophole

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Re: Nvidia's $20B antitrust loophole

#61

Post by altairprime »

websiteapi wrote: post #27

I wonder how the startup scene will adjust to this if it becomes mainstream. can employee contracts be modified to force compensation even in this case? seems difficult to write one up without weird second order effects. if this does end up being something that is legal and successfully circumvents anti trust, does it mean antitrust actually is a failure in practice? 2026 hasn't even begun and more shenanigans are in…

Regulations shouldn’t have to change with every new fintech innovation, and the IRS already has the necessary laws in place to catch and prosecute abuse of unpredicted loophole technicalities as tax fraud with intent. We’re better off applying a general tax to “gross revenue not paid as wages” and directing it to a universal basic income fund. The purchase price is gross revenue, and the less they pay out as employee wages, the more the (not subject to deductions) tax charge becomes. Sure, they might still fuck over workers, but at least the workers could afford to quit (thanks, UBI) — and VCs would face the choice of taking half the payment and fucking over workers, or taking the same size payment while not fucking over workers. They may be selfish, but they’re not so self-destructive as to choose the former out of spite: it would utterly destroy their ability to hire brilliance in the future, especially once people can afford to say no.

Re: Nvidia's $20B antitrust loophole

#62

Post by bilbo0s »

atif089 wrote: post #56

> GroqCloud will wind down over 12-18 months. They'll either get laid off or jump ship to wherever they can land. They built the LPU architecture, contributed to the compiler stack, supported the infrastructure, and got nothing while Chamath made $2B. This is depressing.

That’s just it.

We’ve entered a new era. Big companies don’t need your startup. They only need your smart guys. Just those few guys. You keep the rest of your engineers and figure out what to do with them.

And lately, the answer has been, “wind it all down”.

This sucks so bad for most of their employees. But it’s a signal to the labor market:

Be very honest about what you are when you’re considering working at an AI startup. Are you an AI expert? Or a TF/Pytorch monkey? There’s an enormous difference between those two things. If you’re not the key guy, require a good salary up front. Because I don’t see a future where the “acquiring” companies start needing you as well.

Re: Nvidia's $20B antitrust loophole

#63

Post by Analemma_ »

tbrownaw wrote: post #49
jmward01 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is definitely time to stop looking at equity as part of pay at a startup. The trend is extremely clear, startups aren't paying out to employees but the C suite gets internal raises and IPO is pushed to infinity. It is nice to have some paper laying around but that is all it is, paper. Go to a startup for a year. Get the experience, move and get a 20-50% pay increase and keep doing that every year and you will be w…

I thought this was always the case? Hearing about examples certainly isn't new.

It has always been the case, but each year there’s a fresh crop of new, bright-eyed 20-year-olds who haven’t learned it yet. The entire startup ecosystem essentially depends on the fact that some people haven’t yet internalized that options are worthless and working 80+-hour weeks if you’re employee #3 or higher never pays off, because even in the slim chance your company has a successful exit you’ll get fucked over by antics like this.

The best we can do is try and make “options have an EV of 0, startups aren’t worth it, join a FAANG” a widely-known meme in places like HN to keep as many people as possible from having to lean this the hard way. We’ll never save everyone, but at least it’s more widely-known than it used to be.

Re: Nvidia's $20B antitrust loophole

#64

Post by frays »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #3

So many companies doing non-"acquisitions" during this AI boom! Though this one is at least more comprehensive than say, Google simply hiring back Noam Shazeer from Character.AI or OpenAI taking Windsurf

Google also hired the core Windsurf engineering and research team, not OpenAI:

https://www.reuters.com/business/google-hires-windsurf-ceo-r...

Re: Nvidia's $20B antitrust loophole

#66

Post by wmf »

krupan wrote: post #37

Read the article and where it talks about accelerated vesting of Groq shares for both the leadership team that goes to Nvidia and the regular employees that stay at Groq. Is that even guaranteed? It's not an IPO or an acquisition, so why would vesting schedules change?

I would assume there's no accelerated vesting but there's also nothing stopping Nvidia from issuing refreshers of equal value to unvested options. That's been a common recruiting tactic for a long time.

Re: Nvidia's $20B antitrust loophole

#68

Post by nerdsniper »

tyre wrote: post #60
jmward01 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is definitely time to stop looking at equity as part of pay at a startup. The trend is extremely clear, startups aren't paying out to employees but the C suite gets internal raises and IPO is pushed to infinity. It is nice to have some paper laying around but that is all it is, paper. Go to a startup for a year. Get the experience, move and get a 20-50% pay increase and keep doing that every year and you will be w…

This is always the case. Negotiate equity, but assume it’s worth zero. It’s not liquid and highly speculative. It’s a nice to have. edit: which doesn’t mean join companies you don’t believe in! Please do. But don’t expect it to be there, don’t include it in life plans, don’t pay attention to valuations, etc.

If the owners try to say the equity is valuable, have them convert it to salary. Then it will be clear they don't believe their own words.

Re: Nvidia's $20B antitrust loophole

#69

Post by MrGilbert »

bilbo0s wrote: post #62
atif089 wrote: post #56

> GroqCloud will wind down over 12-18 months. They'll either get laid off or jump ship to wherever they can land. They built the LPU architecture, contributed to the compiler stack, supported the infrastructure, and got nothing while Chamath made $2B. This is depressing.

That’s just it. We’ve entered a new era. Big companies don’t need your startup. They only need your smart guys. Just those few guys. You keep the rest of your engineers and figure out what to do with them. And lately, the answer has been, “wind it all down”. This sucks so bad for most of their employees. But it’s a signal to the labor market: Be very honest about what you are when you’re considering working at an AI…

> But it’s a signal to the labor market:

Or... Maybe we should start to think about how we let corporations get bigger and bigger? What happens if an entity (read: company) becomes so valuable, that it is basically indestructible? Does it have the power to change politics to their discretion? And as such, also influence the legislative?

I find that highly concerning.

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