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Of course you have the other side of the coin where those same ML students take a pre-trained VGG model, fine tune it on a couple thousand pictures of hotdogs o

Of course you have the other side of the coin where those same ML students take a pre-trained VGG model, fine tune it on a couple thousand pictures of hotdogs or whatever and raise millions in VC money for their "AI" company.

ipunchghosts 6y ago
VC's are free to do as they wish with their money.
mennis16 6y ago
Don't these companies usually end up failing though? I'm not very familiar with the startup space but in academia it feels like these system-gaming labs receive perpetual encouragement.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  "Failing" is more nuanced than you might think. In a very large number of cases, the startup closing its doors after two years is not considered a failure by the VC fund. The startup successfully spent the money the VC firm was contractually obligated to invest, may have employed the VC's choices of officers for a significant period (providing them income and experience), maybe purchased a great deal of tech from suppliers the VC officers are themselves invested in, and may have left valuable assets that could be snapped up. The biggest problem a VC firm has is the five billion dollars of others' money they have to "place" in 30/60/90 days. What happens after placement is much less their problem. They know most of the placements are duds, but they and the actual investors knew that up front. Once the money is "placed", though, much of it can be siphoned off for the benefit of the VCs' cronies or one or other non-dud. Maybe a non-dud or non-startup buys up assets of a dud for pennies on the dollar, and extracts something usable, like patents or equipment. Sure, the investor lost that money, but somebody got it, and somebody got what it bought. None of this is good for most people who do a startup, unless they are chosen as a non-dud. The chosen duds are valuable for money laundering, which few startup principals really meant to sign up to be. Some did.
- devalgo 6y ago
  >Don't these companies usually end up failing though? Not always, it's of course in the VC's interest to push the company forward and secure further VC rounds. You could have a failed initial product but play the "product market fit" or Pivot game essentially until you run out of money or find something that sticks. You can easily raise money as an AI startup with lots of hype only to be shipping a half baked marketing platform a few years later and still raise more money from VCs.

ipunchghosts 6y ago

VC's are free to do as they wish with their money.

mennis16 6y ago

Don't these companies usually end up failing though? I'm not very familiar with the startup space but in academia it feels like these system-gaming labs receive perpetual encouragement.

ncmncm 6y ago
"Failing" is more nuanced than you might think. In a very large number of cases, the startup closing its doors after two years is not considered a failure by the VC fund. The startup successfully spent the money the VC firm was contractually obligated to invest, may have employed the VC's choices of officers for a significant period (providing them income and experience), maybe purchased a great deal of tech from suppliers the VC officers are themselves invested in, and may have left valuable assets that could be snapped up. The biggest problem a VC firm has is the five billion dollars of others' money they have to "place" in 30/60/90 days. What happens after placement is much less their problem. They know most of the placements are duds, but they and the actual investors knew that up front. Once the money is "placed", though, much of it can be siphoned off for the benefit of the VCs' cronies or one or other non-dud. Maybe a non-dud or non-startup buys up assets of a dud for pennies on the dollar, and extracts something usable, like patents or equipment. Sure, the investor lost that money, but somebody got it, and somebody got what it bought. None of this is good for most people who do a startup, unless they are chosen as a non-dud. The chosen duds are valuable for money laundering, which few startup principals really meant to sign up to be. Some did.
devalgo 6y ago
>Don't these companies usually end up failing though? Not always, it's of course in the VC's interest to push the company forward and secure further VC rounds. You could have a failed initial product but play the "product market fit" or Pivot game essentially until you run out of money or find something that sticks. You can easily raise money as an AI startup with lots of hype only to be shipping a half baked marketing platform a few years later and still raise more money from VCs.