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Highly respected AI researchers who were in on the joke publicly praised it. VCs are not idiots for showing interest given the circumstances. If they aren't goi

Highly respected AI researchers who were in on the joke publicly praised it. VCs are not idiots for showing interest given the circumstances. If they aren't going to judge AI startups by the opinion of world-class experts, how exactly are they expected to judge them?

tempw 10y ago
disappointing seeing those folks getting into this joke. author obnoxious to say the least. More a thing to say "I am over the hype, look how cool I am" than criticize and point out lack of understanding from lay people or tendency to quick adopt machine learning technologies for the sake of this term's cutting-edge idea that it carries.
stanleydrew 10y ago
Agreed. It's a bit naive for a bunch of AI researchers who know nothing about VC to be judging a few VCs for showing interest. First, which VCs? There is a very wide range. And second, which people at those VCs? A lot of associates will reach out speculatively whenever some company or project makes headlines, but there's a ton more diligence and vetting that would go into getting a partner meeting let alone all the way to an investment decision.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  > Agreed. It's a bit naive for a bunch of AI researchers who know nothing about VC to be judging a few VCs for showing interest. I see no reason the VCs shouldn't keep some technical experts on staff to make these kinds of evaluations.
  - amenod 10y ago
    That would be difficult to do. If someone wants to stay an expert in the field one has to practice it, which rules out 9/5 job at VC headquarters. But most important, it is probably cheaper and more effective for VCs to find an expert when needed, given that they probably need many experts from many different fields.
  - tedsanders 10y ago
    Who's to say they didn't? Perhaps the VCs who reached out were reaching out so that their technical experts could learn about the product. If you can't find information about a startup anywhere, asking them is a great way to find out. Yet the implied attitude of the article and some comments here is that when VCs are missing a critical piece of information, they should just give up, rather than reaching out to gather that critical information. Am I missing something? Reaching out to a startup to gather more information sounds like typical VC hustle. I think as people who know things about AI that other people don't, we need to be careful about using our knowledge to trick others and then feel smugly arrogant about their ignorance. My opinion, at least.
- plafl 10y ago
  For me it sounds like the researchers are saying: we are so cool now we can tease you all we want because we can have 10 investors just by snapping our fingers. Sounds a little like a childish revenge after years of crawling for funding. I'm glad they like to raise awareness about hype but I would choose other way
zo7 10y ago
Maybe the fact that RocketAI didn't have a product, wasn't solving any problem, or was touting a bogus algorithm with absolutely zero details should've set off some flags. They didn't base their interest off of any value they were creating, it was just unsubstantiated hype.
- michaf 10y ago
  I agree. I see it as an attempt to somewhat deflate the emerging bubble. Most AI researchers are aware of the effects of the previous 'AI Winters' and probably want to smoothen the hype cycle in order to secure continuous funding in the future.
- amenod 10y ago
  Would a research paper constitute enough proof? Or some "results"? Comparison of their technology to some other state of the art stuff? In other words, what is the proof that VCs (and other AI newbies) should believe? EDIT: note that VCs just contacted them. That is far from signing a deal.
  - argonaut 10y ago
    Yes. I think you're answering your own questions?
    - amenod 10y ago
      My point is that everything can be faked. In the end you have to decide who you trust to pass the judgement, unless you are capable enough to make that call yourself (and that option is just not realistic).
- tyre 10y ago
  And the VCs didn't invest, they reached out for a meeting. If there were any term sheets offered to RocketAI, that would be different. It's completely unsurprising that VCs reached out to a company touted by top AI researchers, wanting a meeting.
- 10y ago
AndrewKemendo 10y ago
Maybe by having done some ML themselves. It's really not that hard to get up to speed, maybe a year or so to be conversant and know what is bullshit and what isn't.
philh 10y ago
And to be clear, "showing interest" is all they apparently did. They didn't expose themselves to any actual risk. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they sent off those emails to get a foot in the door, expecting it to not work out, and then started looking around and realized it was a joke. If they'd waited to do their research first, they risked being beaten to the punch.
dkarapetyan 10y ago
Using their brains?
bluetwo 10y ago
I can't fault the VCs for checking to see if there's fire when they see smoke. It's part of their job. I do think it's funny that they spent around $600 bucks and got way more attention than they would have if they bought a NIPS sponsorship for 10k.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  It's not a new observation that organic marketing, which can be very cheap, handsomely beats paid advertising. If you're building a new sneaker brand and you spend $1000 leveraging your contacts to get Drake wearing your shoes at a concert, it'll beat an orders-of-magnitude more expensive advertising campaign.
aduffy 10y ago
I would argue that "a couple people I follow on Twitter said it was cool" is not good criteria for investment. Then again, the post didn't mention any information about how serious the reach-outs were. I'm guessing they may have been introductory emails rather than the "HERE TAKE MY MONEY" messages the author seems to imply.
force_reboot 10y ago
There is a huge amount of internalized oppression among nerds. In spite of all the benefits that the internet and computers have brought to humanity, and in spite of all the benefits that AI has and will bring, it's very hard for people in tech to overcome the idea that nerds are bad people. This cognitive dissonance results in all kinds of rationalizations for why what we do is not actually good. In this case researchers see an opportunity to sell out the practitioners of ML, by implying that typical ML practitioners aren't adding value to society and are just cashing in on hype.
gohrt 10y ago
In other words, some people just discovered the children's joke that you can lie to someone and then make fun of them for being "gullible", destroying your credibility in the process.

tempw 10y ago

disappointing seeing those folks getting into this joke. author obnoxious to say the least. More a thing to say "I am over the hype, look how cool I am" than criticize and point out lack of understanding from lay people or tendency to quick adopt machine learning technologies for the sake of this term's cutting-edge idea that it carries.

stanleydrew 10y ago

Agreed. It's a bit naive for a bunch of AI researchers who know nothing about VC to be judging a few VCs for showing interest. First, which VCs? There is a very wide range. And second, which people at those VCs? A lot of associates will reach out speculatively whenever some company or project makes headlines, but there's a ton more diligence and vetting that would go into getting a partner meeting let alone all the way to an investment decision.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
> Agreed. It's a bit naive for a bunch of AI researchers who know nothing about VC to be judging a few VCs for showing interest. I see no reason the VCs shouldn't keep some technical experts on staff to make these kinds of evaluations.
- amenod 10y ago
  That would be difficult to do. If someone wants to stay an expert in the field one has to practice it, which rules out 9/5 job at VC headquarters. But most important, it is probably cheaper and more effective for VCs to find an expert when needed, given that they probably need many experts from many different fields.
- tedsanders 10y ago
  Who's to say they didn't? Perhaps the VCs who reached out were reaching out so that their technical experts could learn about the product. If you can't find information about a startup anywhere, asking them is a great way to find out. Yet the implied attitude of the article and some comments here is that when VCs are missing a critical piece of information, they should just give up, rather than reaching out to gather that critical information. Am I missing something? Reaching out to a startup to gather more information sounds like typical VC hustle. I think as people who know things about AI that other people don't, we need to be careful about using our knowledge to trick others and then feel smugly arrogant about their ignorance. My opinion, at least.
plafl 10y ago
For me it sounds like the researchers are saying: we are so cool now we can tease you all we want because we can have 10 investors just by snapping our fingers. Sounds a little like a childish revenge after years of crawling for funding. I'm glad they like to raise awareness about hype but I would choose other way

zo7 10y ago

Maybe the fact that RocketAI didn't have a product, wasn't solving any problem, or was touting a bogus algorithm with absolutely zero details should've set off some flags. They didn't base their interest off of any value they were creating, it was just unsubstantiated hype.

michaf 10y ago
I agree. I see it as an attempt to somewhat deflate the emerging bubble. Most AI researchers are aware of the effects of the previous 'AI Winters' and probably want to smoothen the hype cycle in order to secure continuous funding in the future.
amenod 10y ago
Would a research paper constitute enough proof? Or some "results"? Comparison of their technology to some other state of the art stuff? In other words, what is the proof that VCs (and other AI newbies) should believe? EDIT: note that VCs just contacted them. That is far from signing a deal.
- argonaut 10y ago
  Yes. I think you're answering your own questions?
  - amenod 10y ago
    My point is that everything can be faked. In the end you have to decide who you trust to pass the judgement, unless you are capable enough to make that call yourself (and that option is just not realistic).
tyre 10y ago
And the VCs didn't invest, they reached out for a meeting. If there were any term sheets offered to RocketAI, that would be different. It's completely unsurprising that VCs reached out to a company touted by top AI researchers, wanting a meeting.
10y ago

AndrewKemendo 10y ago

Maybe by having done some ML themselves. It's really not that hard to get up to speed, maybe a year or so to be conversant and know what is bullshit and what isn't.

philh 10y ago

And to be clear, "showing interest" is all they apparently did. They didn't expose themselves to any actual risk. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they sent off those emails to get a foot in the door, expecting it to not work out, and then started looking around and realized it was a joke. If they'd waited to do their research first, they risked being beaten to the punch.

dkarapetyan 10y ago

Using their brains?

bluetwo 10y ago

I can't fault the VCs for checking to see if there's fire when they see smoke. It's part of their job. I do think it's funny that they spent around $600 bucks and got way more attention than they would have if they bought a NIPS sponsorship for 10k.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
It's not a new observation that organic marketing, which can be very cheap, handsomely beats paid advertising. If you're building a new sneaker brand and you spend $1000 leveraging your contacts to get Drake wearing your shoes at a concert, it'll beat an orders-of-magnitude more expensive advertising campaign.

aduffy 10y ago

I would argue that "a couple people I follow on Twitter said it was cool" is not good criteria for investment. Then again, the post didn't mention any information about how serious the reach-outs were. I'm guessing they may have been introductory emails rather than the "HERE TAKE MY MONEY" messages the author seems to imply.

force_reboot 10y ago

There is a huge amount of internalized oppression among nerds. In spite of all the benefits that the internet and computers have brought to humanity, and in spite of all the benefits that AI has and will bring, it's very hard for people in tech to overcome the idea that nerds are bad people. This cognitive dissonance results in all kinds of rationalizations for why what we do is not actually good. In this case researchers see an opportunity to sell out the practitioners of ML, by implying that typical ML practitioners aren't adding value to society and are just cashing in on hype.

gohrt 10y ago

In other words, some people just discovered the children's joke that you can lie to someone and then make fun of them for being "gullible", destroying your credibility in the process.