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1. Work for some prestigious ML/AI research lab / startup. 2. Identify a demand in the market. 3. Quit the lab/startup, launch your own startup. 4. Get acqui
by TrackerFF 3y ago
1. Work for some prestigious ML/AI research lab / startup.
2. Identify a demand in the market.
3. Quit the lab/startup, launch your own startup.
4. Get acquired by some established AI company or FAANG tech megacorp.
5. Retire.
- Solvency 3y agoYou don't need to identify a demand. Just make an AI startup and nail the brand/marketing and you're equally likely to attract offers. It's a gold rush, get in now.
- CapeTheory 3y agoSo far it feels like a gold rush without much gold, just a lot of very expensive picks and shovels.
- candiddevmike 3y agoAnd all of the shovels have Nvidia written on them
- fragmede 3y agoBecause everybody’s so busy selling shovels that no one’s digging for gold, so there’s no one to sell shovels to. That’s not totally true, but we’re all here trying to outsmart one another in order to have a Sure Thing. Well I’m here to tell you that there are no Sure Things in life except for death and taxes, so take a risk, jump on a random plot of land, and start digging.
- ben_w 3y agoI sure hope so, I'd like to get paid for developing software for another 5-10 years to pay off a mortgage at least… (What am I doing to do when AI isn't just at the level of "intern"?)
- over_bridge 3y agoFinally a solution to the problem of tech companies sitting on huge piles of cash with nothing to buy! Give it all to NVIDIA
- hipadev23 3y agoUp through #3, literally the playbook for the Google Research team (minus one who took at job at OpenAI) that authored the Attention is All you Need paper.
- mattgreenrocks 3y agoIn my old age, I have to say: this is not just cynical, it is smart. It acts on the same dynamics companies act on. People build reputations by doing this with far less effort than it would take otherwise.
- nine_zeros 3y agoIt takes decades to figure out that playing the game under layers and layers of management in mega corps - is equivalent to undervaluing yourself.
- appplication 3y agoWell… yes definitely. You are worth more than your salary, otherwise your employer wouldn’t keep you around. The problem is that it’s definitely a lot easier to just cruise along, punch 40 hours, and leave work at work. Startup founder life is rough. I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to extract that worth from themselves.
- nine_zeros 3y agoIt is not easy to cruise along in some large corps. You always have to be on guard about layoffs or managers throwing you under the bus. Not always true but it only needs to happen once to you for your 40 hour cruising to end. At that point, you will question why you spent so much time slaving away.
- verticalscaler 3y agoThere's clearly an Oceans 11 type plot here. Or perhaps The Producers is more apt, not sure.
- tkellogg 3y agowow, so easy!
- mhuffman 3y agobillionaires hate him for this one weird trick!
- bongodongobob 3y ago1. Win the lottery 2. Retire Probably similar odds.
- pxeger1 3y agoYeah but at least if you fail at #1 you still have a job
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoThis works in finance between investment firms
- deadbabe 3y agoWhy quit? Most people will mess up #2 or execute badly on #3 or even then #4 is unlikely to happen when FAANGs can just copy you and put you out of business instead of buying you out and rewarding this behavior. #5 will almost certainly happen even if you keep doing #1, earning a huge salary. The numbers and risks just don’t make sense anymore.
- sangnoir 3y ago> Why quit? ...because there's a glut of investor money chasing "AI", raising money for your new AI startup is not particularly hard if you are linked with any of the big names in AI. Even if the startup "fail", the founder could have been paying themselves a market-rate salary with the added possibility of an FU-money exit. The downsides are limited.
- deadbabe 3y agoIt’s not that simple.
- icedchai 3y agoI think you underestimate the probability of little to no return, and ignore opportunity cost. I've seen several startup founders pay themselves below market for years because they have all that equity. Only to find out, a couple down rounds later, it wasn't worth it. They tried though.
- golergka 3y agoDidn't all authors of Attention is all you need do this?
- stevofolife 3y agoWhat step do most find the most challenging? For me, it's the first step. It seems once you get started, everything else tends to fall into place more smoothly. I'm eager to know others' perspectives.
- scarface_74 3y agoBecause of the FTC, BigTech is more reticent to do an acquisition. So like in the case of Inflection.ai, Microsoft just did an acquihire of the entire team and “licensed” the technology/IP from what now is a shell of a company.