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Right. I thought it was significant that the two lead investors are strategic (the first big tranche came from Google, not GV), so there's even less signaling t

Right. I thought it was significant that the two lead investors are strategic (the first big tranche came from Google, not GV), so there's even less signaling there. As for $1.4B vs $500K... they're different species of investment animal. The people making the hundred-million dollar decisions aren't prepared to make hundred-thousand dollar decisions. So I don't think those huge investments are actually replacing or crowding out seed funding (especially if a highly-funded company like ML can then buy a bunch of seed-funded companies, returning liquidity to the seed market). The only thing that's weird about it is money is fungible, so the two are truly equivalent... just not commutable. Could those billions have been a shower of seed investments instead? I dunno; this is one of those things that makes me scratch my head and shrug. I don't know enough about the history of finance, and venture finance in particular, to weigh in on the logic (or forces of nature, or chance) that led to this structure, but it seems to make sense except when it doesn't. (/hedge)

new299 10y ago
Well, perhaps think of it another way. Those billions are mostly going toward staffing costs (I would guess? If not direct employees then via semiconductor fabs etc). Would that engineer time be better spent proving out a bunch of smaller speculative ideas rather than throwing it all behind one speculative idea. That's the crux of it really. We could be spending our engineering time better. Maybe not funding 1000 smaller projects, but even 100 might be better. I understand that the current investment structure probably wont support that, but it seems unfortunate. Particularly when the large projects that engineering time gets thrown at are large, very speculative projects with likely poor DD like Magic Leap (or whoever else).
- epmaybe 10y ago
  Interesting because this is the same thing I've seen having worked for my first startup. They don't want much money, and want to keep it lean, yet that for some reason turns investors away because they're used to putting in millions and millions. How do you keep the size small, yet still get the funding you desperately need?

new299 10y ago

Well, perhaps think of it another way. Those billions are mostly going toward staffing costs (I would guess? If not direct employees then via semiconductor fabs etc). Would that engineer time be better spent proving out a bunch of smaller speculative ideas rather than throwing it all behind one speculative idea. That's the crux of it really. We could be spending our engineering time better. Maybe not funding 1000 smaller projects, but even 100 might be better. I understand that the current investment structure probably wont support that, but it seems unfortunate. Particularly when the large projects that engineering time gets thrown at are large, very speculative projects with likely poor DD like Magic Leap (or whoever else).

epmaybe 10y ago
Interesting because this is the same thing I've seen having worked for my first startup. They don't want much money, and want to keep it lean, yet that for some reason turns investors away because they're used to putting in millions and millions. How do you keep the size small, yet still get the funding you desperately need?