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I had no idea DeepMind even generated revenue. Thought it was solely a research lab, and so reading that Google is waiving the loan it's provided seems laughabl

I had no idea DeepMind even generated revenue. Thought it was solely a research lab, and so reading that Google is waiving the loan it's provided seems laughable in the sense that, well, of course it would. Does anyone actually care about the money DeepMind makes directly? AlphaFold certainly seems useful to researchers, but I can't imagine the primary motivation for anyone building it was "I hope this can make a lot money". Perhaps I am missing some perspective.

RobLach 6y ago
Some investors would be more into throwing money at AI if they can rationalize thinking it’ll make it back rather than thinking it’s just researchers having fun.
disown 6y ago
> but I can't imagine the primary motivation for anyone building it was "I hope this can make a lot money". What do you think the motivation was? Do you think the founders created the company and sold the company to google because they don't like money? The primary concern for starting any company is money. Deepmind was founded in Sept 2010. Slightly more than 3 years later, they sold themselves to google for $500 million. It's one of the great startup stories.