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Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

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Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#71

Post by RandomLensman »

neverrroot wrote: post #4
mesmertech wrote: post #2

Love it as a consumer because Mistral is probably not doing any more open weights if they get tangled with Microsoft. But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU

It's tough, it's also part of the reason so little is done here, just compare the size of market capitalization of say DAX40 (German top 40) or CAC40 (French top 40): DAX40 $1.9T CAC40 $2.8T There are single companies in US that exceed both of these values.

Because the European capital markets are very different with far less local money going into it, more bank funding etc. The divergence between the US and Europe there is more than 100 years old.

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#72

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway55671 wrote: post #11
Filligree wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is "exit" always the goal? Why not go on growing?

Perhaps the founders want to remain there and grow, perhaps they want to focus on something else or retire. Perhaps the plan always was to sell after X years - I don't see anything wrong about that, still better to innovate&sell than just buy stock&sell IMHO. You can't attract investors if they can't sell in case the investment is successful. This is severely limiting and a terrible situation to be in - especially if…

[deleted]

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#73

Post by RandomLensman »

throwaway55671 wrote: post #11
Filligree wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is "exit" always the goal? Why not go on growing?

Perhaps the founders want to remain there and grow, perhaps they want to focus on something else or retire. Perhaps the plan always was to sell after X years - I don't see anything wrong about that, still better to innovate&sell than just buy stock&sell IMHO. You can't attract investors if they can't sell in case the investment is successful. This is severely limiting and a terrible situation to be in - especially if…

Why would competition law and/or national security laws not apply to a start-up or its acquirers? Why would they or their acquirers get exceptions? Would those exceptions cover patents as well on the national security? What else and why?

Also, this isn't the EU saying "no" at the moment, but looking into it, as it does with many things.

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#74

Post by wallaBBB »

janice1999 wrote: post #49
mesmertech wrote: post #2

Love it as a consumer because Mistral is probably not doing any more open weights if they get tangled with Microsoft. But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU

> But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU If a Chinese company with massive government contracts had invested in OpenAI there is no way that the US would not start an investigation.

You think there even would be an investigation/probe into it? Perhaps a really quick one.

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#75

Post by chmod775 »

throwaway55671 wrote: post #62
janice1999 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU If a Chinese company with massive government contracts had invested in OpenAI there is no way that the US would not start an investigation.

Microsoft has massive government contracts in literally every EU country. US is an ally, not antagonist/enemy.

Didn't US/EU have a trade war just ~3 years ago?

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#76

Post by t8sr »

mesmertech wrote: post #2

Love it as a consumer because Mistral is probably not doing any more open weights if they get tangled with Microsoft. But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU

The current lack of anti-monopoly enforcement and corporate oversight in the US is a race to the bottom. Should the rest of the world compete by letting corporations run amok, acquire all competition and build monopolies? Or should they try to regulate, but risk driving away founders for whom the American legal environment is extremely lucrative?

It's similar to the debate France had about raising the progressive tax rates - some ultrarich people would rather give up their French residency, than pay higher taxes.

There's clearly stuff the EU could do to be more competitive, but I think the core issue is that American investors can expect less risk and bigger payoffs, because the environment is friendlier to them, but the environment being friendlier to them leads to regular people getting screwed by giant companies that operate with no oversight. Fast forward the 2020s and you literally have planes falling out of the sky.

I don't think there are any great options.

I'm also aware this is a fringe view on HN, kinda by definition. It's a forum for founders, mostly in the US, and the median opinion on what you should be able to do with your company on here is extreme by most peoples' standards. But the echo chamber needs some dissent on this point.

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#77

Post by hef19898 »

mnau wrote: post #52
neverrroot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top companies from Stoxx 50: LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (422B Euro) ASML (347B) L'Oréal (241B) Hermès (240B) SAP (203B) Totalenergies (142B) Siemens (140B) For comparison, Spotify is only 50B.

These are top companies, not top software companies (even if we include Spotify). So it's really SAP.

I mean, you do realize that there is more to an economy than software? Which is basically either retail or ad selling anyway?

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#78

Post by spacecadet »

throwaway55671 wrote: post #62
janice1999 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU If a Chinese company with massive government contracts had invested in OpenAI there is no way that the US would not start an investigation.

Microsoft has massive government contracts in literally every EU country. US is an ally, not antagonist/enemy.

Is it? From some points of view MS is "compromised" and potentially not an ally of the West, any more.

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#79

Post by IanCal »

anonylizard wrote: post #41
rsynnott wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But man, as a business owner in EU, this would just make me not want to build an AI startup in EU Like, purely on the basis that MS might not be allowed to take you over? TBH I'd assume the FTC would at least be asking questions here, too. EC and FTC thinking on competition is generally not all _that_ different, but the EC tends to be quicker to act these days (this was not always the case; the FTC was very much ou…

You don't own what you can't sell. Any asset value will be massively reduced if its untransferable. Mistral isn't exactly some decade-long state funded national champion. Its a 1 year old startup whose core staff all come from American tech companies. With 0 revenue and minimal market share, there's like no conceivable metric in traditional antitrust theory to block this. Yet the EU prevents it from taking foreign in…

> Yet the EU prevents it from taking foreign investment all the same.

No they haven't.

Re: Europe probes Microsoft's €15M stake in AI upstart Mistral

#80

Post by FredPret »

whiplash451 wrote: post #44
throwaway55671 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

385M USD is way too much for EU investors. They usually invest 10x-100x less. So the alternative without US investors would be to have no startup of this kind - great job, that will really help EU grow!

Let’s fix the root cause instead of leaning in to a subpar EU investment funnel. EU has billions to invest in AI. I don’t buy that EU has “much less money than the US”.

Though both areas are very rich, there’s a lot less total wealth in the EU than in the US. Due to taxes, this is especially true for rich Europeans vs rich Americans.

In the below report, it looks like Europe with it’s much larger population clocks in at a total wealth of 110T, while the USA + Canada has 150T. That’s 600k per adult in N.A. vs 200k per adult in Europe.

More specifically, it looks like 1%ers in the US are worth USD 7m, but in Europe the 1%ers are worth USD 1.5m.

I’m not denigrating Europe or the European way, just pointing out differences in the capital environment.

[page 142, 144 of https://www.ubs.com/global/en/family-office-uhnw/reports/glo...]

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