6 ms·

They're investing in the team, which I think is smarter than investing in an idea. Those people built llama at meta and flamingo/chinchilla at deepmind.

dopamean 3y ago
I get that. Call me old fashioned but if I were investing a hundred million dollars I'd like the team to build _something_ for me first. Maybe that's why I dont have a hundred million to invest lol.
- ivalm 3y ago
  It costs like $50M to build a next gen model, so if what they want to pitch is training next gen models it makes sense they get $100M to try. Similar to Hippocratic AI $50M seed raise. If anything this founder team seems more legit.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    Interesting, what is the bulk of the cost? Programmer labor? Data center time?
    - dougSF70 3y ago
      GPU...H100 arent cheap and you need lots of them. And some where to keep them cool.
  - atlasunshrugged 3y ago
    RE: Hippocratic AI, interesting Forbes piece about the founder out a day or two ago https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2023/06/12/lawsuits-allege-this-startup-ripped-off-millions-from-vendors-andreessen-horowitz-backed-the-former-ceos-new-company-anyway/?sh=17a786683268 https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2023/06/12/lawsui...
    - ivalm 3y ago
      I talked to Munjal and team when they were ideating on Hippocratic, even he acknowledges that healthiq was a shit show. AFAIK it was 30 people running a 1k person call center and failing. This motivated Hippocratic as they think they can do AI-based call center replacement because they were so burned out of running human-staffed call centers. I think Hippocratic is interesting because their leadership is business focused and not very technical, while a lot of other new foundational model cos are led by technical people. I’m curious how this shakes out.
    - BLanen 3y ago
      > Forbes piece It's a web blog. Not a "Forbes piece"
      - aerio 3y ago
        A piece on Forbes written by Forbes staff
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- eyphka 3y ago
  If something is already built, why do they need your hundred million?
- killingtime74 3y ago
  That's what a seed round is. If you like you can always invest later when they do have the product. The valuation may not be the same though
version_five 3y ago
Google, Facebook and others spent billions buying the best ML people and giving them the best, and got scooped badly by OpenAI. And I know it's a cliche but lots of better engineered "iphone/ipod" products existed that got destroyed by apple. Unless they can invest in the man himself - a Jobs or Altman, I don't think investing in a good team is an automatic road to victory.
- acchow 3y ago
  I don't think I'm acquainted with "better engineered iphone products existed". Care you share about it?
  - Auracle 3y ago
    Yeah. iPod I might agree with, though the interface on the device itself was pretty top tier. iPhone? Nah.
  - simonebrunozzi 3y ago
    Nokia, a couple of years before the iphone's launch in 2007.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  I don't think you can even remotely compare Jobs and Altman here, especially given how badly he missmanaged the enormous advance OpenAI had with Dall-E. In fact, he was lucky to have midjourney and stable diffusion kicking his ass on image generation and pushing him to actually release a product, otherwise Anthropic and Llama could have done the same on the LLM side.
  - WanderPanda 3y ago
    You forget that OpenAI wasn‘t supposed to have products in the first place
- plonk 3y ago
  > better engineered "iphone/ipod" products existed that got destroyed by apple Do you mean Nokia's phones?
pera 3y ago
It's funny, the comments here reminded me to this other submission (from 2014): Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7127938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7127938 > $400M for a company I've never heard before is quite surprising > If the article is correct, they bought the team.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  Especially on HN it's pretty common for people to retroactively justify these kinds of decisions based on results, but it always reminds me of an article I read a few years ago (https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/western-elite-chinese-perspective/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/western-elite-chi...) "When I was an intern, in one of the training presentations, a senior banker told us to distinguish between the process and the results. He said that we should focus on the process, which we can control, rather than the result, which is subject to luck. And here at Goldman, he said, we don’t punish people for losing money for the right reason. I have always loved asking questions, so I asked him, was anyone ever punished for making money for the wrong reason?" Just like that old Dropbox comment that people love to bring up, you can make a gazillion dollars off a bad bet, and you can lose following a good strategy, that's the case everywhere probabilities are involved. Outcomes don't determine if the original evaluation was sound or not.
  - pera 3y ago
    I agree and just to clarify: I don't think/know whether this startup will be successful or not, in fact I don't even know if buying DeepMind was a good investment for Google (financially speaking). I only mentioned it because the comments were very similar.
  - talldatethrow 3y ago
    I've been around for a while and don't know of a famous dropbox comment? Curious to hear it if someone can answer. Thanks
    - wasimanitoba 3y ago
boringg 3y ago
That's a real lofty move. Many incredibly intelligent and talented people are incapable of producing products that work. An example of a company that did that is all the Google X products - smart people not many great outcomes and a ton of capital.
- ska 3y ago
  Why are you proposing they chose the team because they were "smart" rather than because they "ship things", as per GP comment?
  - aerio 3y ago
    I don't think they bothered to read the article.
adamsmith143 3y ago
You should throw all your money in then. Meanwhile teams with good people who also have a good product are going to eat them for lunch.
- anyoneamous 3y ago
  You are ignoring how protectionist France is - a native company will basically get first refusal for any government work.
kpw94 3y ago
"the team" here seems to be a trio of research scientists/data scientists? (Some famous in their research community bubble) Competent product/sales person, and engineering person seems missing for this to succeed. Especially if they used to rely on the eng infrastructure of giants. They seem smart folks so probably can cover the software engineering gap, especially with $100m to outsource some of the hard problems to some cloud infra. But I'd be more confident if they had started with a co-founder that's more product/sales oriented.
- LisaDziuba 3y ago
  [dead]

dopamean 3y ago

I get that. Call me old fashioned but if I were investing a hundred million dollars I'd like the team to build _something_ for me first. Maybe that's why I dont have a hundred million to invest lol.

ivalm 3y ago
It costs like $50M to build a next gen model, so if what they want to pitch is training next gen models it makes sense they get $100M to try. Similar to Hippocratic AI $50M seed raise. If anything this founder team seems more legit.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  Interesting, what is the bulk of the cost? Programmer labor? Data center time?
  - dougSF70 3y ago
    GPU...H100 arent cheap and you need lots of them. And some where to keep them cool.
- atlasunshrugged 3y ago
  RE: Hippocratic AI, interesting Forbes piece about the founder out a day or two ago https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2023/06/12/lawsuits-allege-this-startup-ripped-off-millions-from-vendors-andreessen-horowitz-backed-the-former-ceos-new-company-anyway/?sh=17a786683268 https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2023/06/12/lawsui...
  - ivalm 3y ago
    I talked to Munjal and team when they were ideating on Hippocratic, even he acknowledges that healthiq was a shit show. AFAIK it was 30 people running a 1k person call center and failing. This motivated Hippocratic as they think they can do AI-based call center replacement because they were so burned out of running human-staffed call centers. I think Hippocratic is interesting because their leadership is business focused and not very technical, while a lot of other new foundational model cos are led by technical people. I’m curious how this shakes out.
  - BLanen 3y ago
    > Forbes piece It's a web blog. Not a "Forbes piece"
    - aerio 3y ago
      A piece on Forbes written by Forbes staff
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
eyphka 3y ago
If something is already built, why do they need your hundred million?
killingtime74 3y ago
That's what a seed round is. If you like you can always invest later when they do have the product. The valuation may not be the same though

version_five 3y ago

Google, Facebook and others spent billions buying the best ML people and giving them the best, and got scooped badly by OpenAI. And I know it's a cliche but lots of better engineered "iphone/ipod" products existed that got destroyed by apple. Unless they can invest in the man himself - a Jobs or Altman, I don't think investing in a good team is an automatic road to victory.

acchow 3y ago
I don't think I'm acquainted with "better engineered iphone products existed". Care you share about it?
- Auracle 3y ago
  Yeah. iPod I might agree with, though the interface on the device itself was pretty top tier. iPhone? Nah.
- simonebrunozzi 3y ago
  Nokia, a couple of years before the iphone's launch in 2007.
littlestymaar 3y ago
I don't think you can even remotely compare Jobs and Altman here, especially given how badly he missmanaged the enormous advance OpenAI had with Dall-E. In fact, he was lucky to have midjourney and stable diffusion kicking his ass on image generation and pushing him to actually release a product, otherwise Anthropic and Llama could have done the same on the LLM side.
- WanderPanda 3y ago
  You forget that OpenAI wasn‘t supposed to have products in the first place
plonk 3y ago
> better engineered "iphone/ipod" products existed that got destroyed by apple Do you mean Nokia's phones?

pera 3y ago

It's funny, the comments here reminded me to this other submission (from 2014): Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7127938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7127938 > $400M for a company I've never heard before is quite surprising > If the article is correct, they bought the team.

Barrin92 3y ago
Especially on HN it's pretty common for people to retroactively justify these kinds of decisions based on results, but it always reminds me of an article I read a few years ago (https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/western-elite-chinese-perspective/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/western-elite-chi...) "When I was an intern, in one of the training presentations, a senior banker told us to distinguish between the process and the results. He said that we should focus on the process, which we can control, rather than the result, which is subject to luck. And here at Goldman, he said, we don’t punish people for losing money for the right reason. I have always loved asking questions, so I asked him, was anyone ever punished for making money for the wrong reason?" Just like that old Dropbox comment that people love to bring up, you can make a gazillion dollars off a bad bet, and you can lose following a good strategy, that's the case everywhere probabilities are involved. Outcomes don't determine if the original evaluation was sound or not.
- pera 3y ago
  I agree and just to clarify: I don't think/know whether this startup will be successful or not, in fact I don't even know if buying DeepMind was a good investment for Google (financially speaking). I only mentioned it because the comments were very similar.
- talldatethrow 3y ago
  I've been around for a while and don't know of a famous dropbox comment? Curious to hear it if someone can answer. Thanks
  - wasimanitoba 3y ago

boringg 3y ago

That's a real lofty move. Many incredibly intelligent and talented people are incapable of producing products that work. An example of a company that did that is all the Google X products - smart people not many great outcomes and a ton of capital.

ska 3y ago
Why are you proposing they chose the team because they were "smart" rather than because they "ship things", as per GP comment?
- aerio 3y ago
  I don't think they bothered to read the article.

adamsmith143 3y ago

You should throw all your money in then. Meanwhile teams with good people who also have a good product are going to eat them for lunch.

anyoneamous 3y ago
You are ignoring how protectionist France is - a native company will basically get first refusal for any government work.

kpw94 3y ago

"the team" here seems to be a trio of research scientists/data scientists? (Some famous in their research community bubble) Competent product/sales person, and engineering person seems missing for this to succeed. Especially if they used to rely on the eng infrastructure of giants. They seem smart folks so probably can cover the software engineering gap, especially with $100m to outsource some of the hard problems to some cloud infra. But I'd be more confident if they had started with a co-founder that's more product/sales oriented.

LisaDziuba 3y ago
[dead]