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Huge congratulations to the founders and what a nice mark for the European (and Nordirc) startup community. It's gonna be quite interesting to see if this work

Huge congratulations to the founders and what a nice mark for the European (and Nordirc) startup community. It's gonna be quite interesting to see if this works out strategically. I guess the bet is an in-house army of PhDs vs. having a CUDA - which you don't as a second mover here - and assuming PhDs tightly coupled with the hardware can outperform an open framework/ push Triton to parity to CUDA over time.

sva_ 2y ago
Congrats to the founders indeed, but > what a nice mark for the European (and Nordirc) startup community. Not sure if it is a great win for the EU at large if their AI startups get bought up by American companies though, to be fair.
- thenaturalist 2y ago
  The economy and startup world isn't a zero sum game. Ultimately the AI play* is open source for the foreseeable future, even more so for AMD if they want to sell their chips. And if Silo AI's people accelerate competition in the AI HW space by accelerating Triton development/ raising the industry's competitive edge against Nvidia, we all benefit from stronger competition. And in most other European startup hot spots, senior staff/ founders with previous exits reinvested their earnings into the domestic startup scene through founding again or becoming Business Angels or going VC. I see this as a huge net win. * EDIT: For integrating with compute, I guess.
  - 627467 2y ago
    Actually, it is zero sum. there's finite resources, human talent, and centers for decision making. yeah, European startup gets American money today, and American decision making center grows larger. whether the money paid into Europeans now is used to prop up new generation of startups - in any meaningful way - will remain to be seen. most likely: these senior staff/founders will probably allocate their cash where it is more efficient and I doubt it will be (meaningfully) in europe
    - blackhawkC17 2y ago
      Europe’s tech ecosystem will still benefit a lot regardless. Zero-sum thinking is not good- it causes economic regression and poverty in the long run.
    - thenaturalist 2y ago
      The fact you're posting this comment in a thread of a press release of the acquisition of a European startup entity is in itself a counterfactual, wouldn't you agree? One of the Cofounders of Silo is ex-Nokia... Should tell you everything about zero-sum games. Sure, the US is the dominant financial and technological economy on the planet and that will not change for the foreseeable future. But implying a globalized, technology enabled economy will behave in a zero-sum fashion is just plain wrong. The US is where it is today because post WWII it geniously recognized the value of free and global trade and invested heavily in its Navy to enable and protect said trade. Instead of making things on your own in the US, you could sit in New York and invest globally - the value of your investment and access to its dividends guaranteed by the power of the US military. Relative value against the status quo is created every day everywhere by millions of smart people. What Europe - and Finland in that example - has is a century old tradition and established infrastructure for high education. That investment will continue to pay off for the foreseeable future.
      - ClumsyPilot 2y ago
        > geniously recognized the value of free and global trade and invested heavily in its Navy to enable and protect said trade This reads like a person taking credit for the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. United States is rich for three reasons: Firstly USA stole textile and other technology from the British empire. Secondly, gen 1 ‘non-free trade’ empires like the British got demolished in the war. All of the world’s industrial nations were in ruins. Third step, the ‘genius’ was the Marshall Plan, was giving reconstruction loans to British and the French that they could only spend on American products - remember their industry was demolished, further stimulating American economy. Global trade grew after 1955 when we invented containerisation. And USA does not really believe in global free trade - that’s for its club of friends. Everyone else gets a sudden 100% solar panel tax or a 100% ev tax when they want to export to US. Or they get a sudden coup if their government wanted to stop exporting bananas to US
- fauigerzigerk 2y ago
  >Not sure if it is a great win for the EU at large if their AI startups get bought up by American companies though, to be fair. That would be a concern if the plan was to move the entire team to the US. But if the Finland based company just becomes a part of AMD then I see little downside. Some very competent people in Finland now have $665M to fund new startups. Ultimately I think the most important question is where the interesting and high productivity work gets done. That's the place that benefits most.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    >That would be a concern if the plan was to move the entire team to the US. The issue is that all that Finnish labor now fuels a US tech giant who's profit center is in the US, not in EU, therefore mostly boosting the US economy in the process. Then there's also the trade barriers that come with now becoming a US tech company instead of a Finnish one. You can't sell to China, and other countries on the US's shit list without Uncle Sam's approval.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      > US tech giant who's profit center is in the US, not in EU, therefore mostly boosting the US economy in the process More of a matter of accounting than reality. For years, Apple were deliberately not repatriating their profits to avoid tax, keeping them out of the US economy. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/it-looks-like-apple-is-bringing-back-home-nearly-all-of-its-250-billion-foreign-cash.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/it-looks-like-apple-is-bring... The question of where a profit is actually made for a multinational company can be very unclear.
    - fauigerzigerk 2y ago
      >The issue is that all that Finnish labor now fuels a US tech giant who's profit center is in the US, not in EU, therefore mostly boosting the US economy in the process. No, this is not how it works. Assuming Silo AI continues to operate out of Finland, its investments, the consumption of its employees and its exports will continue to count towards Finland's GDP just like before. Any profits go to AMD shareholders all over the world, not just in the US. The strategic alignment between Silo AI and AMD may well benefit both Finland and the US. We have a similar debate in the UK regarding DeepMind. And yes it's true, if you assume that DeepMind or Silo AI would have become world dominating tech behemoths in their own right, then it would have been better for Britain/Finland if they hadn't been sold. But it's also possible that the UK and Finish operations are ultimately more successful as part of Google/AMD because they benefit from strategic opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have. I'm not saying that headquarters don't matter or that there are no downsides (e.g wrt corporation tax). What I am saying is that it's not automatically a bad thing for a country if a company gets sold to a foreign corporation. One thing is for sure. It's far better to have a lot of US subsidiaries in the country than watching your graduates and startup founders leave for the US.
- user90131313 2y ago
  Yes indeed, they bought it for peanuts? Wework got billions and many other BS startup. 665 million is like almost free
mistrial9 2y ago
they have loyal and stable staff with healthy family lives unlike 8 of 10 California companies
- blackhawkC17 2y ago
  Employee loyalty isn’t a good thing. One of the best things about Silicon Valley is that people can swiftly change companies when they get higher offers. Non-competes are void in California. There’s a reason US salaries for software devs are 2-5x EU salaries for similar roles.
  - snowpid 2y ago
    What if I told you that non - competes aren't a thing in Germany. (And a big part in other parts of US)
    - storyinmemo 2y ago
      Well I'd tell you that they aren't a thing in California.
      - talldayo 2y ago
        ...as of six months ago.
        Alupis 2y ago
        Anyone could ask you to sign a non-compete. But in California, they have been legally unenforceable for as long as I have been alive. What was changed is they now cannot make condition of employment based on signing this unenforceable contract.
    - zombiwoof 2y ago
      As someone who has been stuck in Silicon Valley for 20 years I can say hands down the German and European teams I’ve worked with far outshine the hacker ego Hollywood hipster techbros of San Francisco. Yet the latter make 2-5x the income.

sva_ 2y ago

Congrats to the founders indeed, but > what a nice mark for the European (and Nordirc) startup community. Not sure if it is a great win for the EU at large if their AI startups get bought up by American companies though, to be fair.

thenaturalist 2y ago
The economy and startup world isn't a zero sum game. Ultimately the AI play* is open source for the foreseeable future, even more so for AMD if they want to sell their chips. And if Silo AI's people accelerate competition in the AI HW space by accelerating Triton development/ raising the industry's competitive edge against Nvidia, we all benefit from stronger competition. And in most other European startup hot spots, senior staff/ founders with previous exits reinvested their earnings into the domestic startup scene through founding again or becoming Business Angels or going VC. I see this as a huge net win. * EDIT: For integrating with compute, I guess.
- 627467 2y ago
  Actually, it is zero sum. there's finite resources, human talent, and centers for decision making. yeah, European startup gets American money today, and American decision making center grows larger. whether the money paid into Europeans now is used to prop up new generation of startups - in any meaningful way - will remain to be seen. most likely: these senior staff/founders will probably allocate their cash where it is more efficient and I doubt it will be (meaningfully) in europe
  - blackhawkC17 2y ago
    Europe’s tech ecosystem will still benefit a lot regardless. Zero-sum thinking is not good- it causes economic regression and poverty in the long run.
  - thenaturalist 2y ago
    The fact you're posting this comment in a thread of a press release of the acquisition of a European startup entity is in itself a counterfactual, wouldn't you agree? One of the Cofounders of Silo is ex-Nokia... Should tell you everything about zero-sum games. Sure, the US is the dominant financial and technological economy on the planet and that will not change for the foreseeable future. But implying a globalized, technology enabled economy will behave in a zero-sum fashion is just plain wrong. The US is where it is today because post WWII it geniously recognized the value of free and global trade and invested heavily in its Navy to enable and protect said trade. Instead of making things on your own in the US, you could sit in New York and invest globally - the value of your investment and access to its dividends guaranteed by the power of the US military. Relative value against the status quo is created every day everywhere by millions of smart people. What Europe - and Finland in that example - has is a century old tradition and established infrastructure for high education. That investment will continue to pay off for the foreseeable future.
    - ClumsyPilot 2y ago
      > geniously recognized the value of free and global trade and invested heavily in its Navy to enable and protect said trade This reads like a person taking credit for the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. United States is rich for three reasons: Firstly USA stole textile and other technology from the British empire. Secondly, gen 1 ‘non-free trade’ empires like the British got demolished in the war. All of the world’s industrial nations were in ruins. Third step, the ‘genius’ was the Marshall Plan, was giving reconstruction loans to British and the French that they could only spend on American products - remember their industry was demolished, further stimulating American economy. Global trade grew after 1955 when we invented containerisation. And USA does not really believe in global free trade - that’s for its club of friends. Everyone else gets a sudden 100% solar panel tax or a 100% ev tax when they want to export to US. Or they get a sudden coup if their government wanted to stop exporting bananas to US
fauigerzigerk 2y ago
>Not sure if it is a great win for the EU at large if their AI startups get bought up by American companies though, to be fair. That would be a concern if the plan was to move the entire team to the US. But if the Finland based company just becomes a part of AMD then I see little downside. Some very competent people in Finland now have $665M to fund new startups. Ultimately I think the most important question is where the interesting and high productivity work gets done. That's the place that benefits most.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >That would be a concern if the plan was to move the entire team to the US. The issue is that all that Finnish labor now fuels a US tech giant who's profit center is in the US, not in EU, therefore mostly boosting the US economy in the process. Then there's also the trade barriers that come with now becoming a US tech company instead of a Finnish one. You can't sell to China, and other countries on the US's shit list without Uncle Sam's approval.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    > US tech giant who's profit center is in the US, not in EU, therefore mostly boosting the US economy in the process More of a matter of accounting than reality. For years, Apple were deliberately not repatriating their profits to avoid tax, keeping them out of the US economy. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/it-looks-like-apple-is-bringing-back-home-nearly-all-of-its-250-billion-foreign-cash.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/it-looks-like-apple-is-bring... The question of where a profit is actually made for a multinational company can be very unclear.
  - fauigerzigerk 2y ago
    >The issue is that all that Finnish labor now fuels a US tech giant who's profit center is in the US, not in EU, therefore mostly boosting the US economy in the process. No, this is not how it works. Assuming Silo AI continues to operate out of Finland, its investments, the consumption of its employees and its exports will continue to count towards Finland's GDP just like before. Any profits go to AMD shareholders all over the world, not just in the US. The strategic alignment between Silo AI and AMD may well benefit both Finland and the US. We have a similar debate in the UK regarding DeepMind. And yes it's true, if you assume that DeepMind or Silo AI would have become world dominating tech behemoths in their own right, then it would have been better for Britain/Finland if they hadn't been sold. But it's also possible that the UK and Finish operations are ultimately more successful as part of Google/AMD because they benefit from strategic opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have. I'm not saying that headquarters don't matter or that there are no downsides (e.g wrt corporation tax). What I am saying is that it's not automatically a bad thing for a country if a company gets sold to a foreign corporation. One thing is for sure. It's far better to have a lot of US subsidiaries in the country than watching your graduates and startup founders leave for the US.
user90131313 2y ago
Yes indeed, they bought it for peanuts? Wework got billions and many other BS startup. 665 million is like almost free

mistrial9 2y ago

they have loyal and stable staff with healthy family lives unlike 8 of 10 California companies

blackhawkC17 2y ago
Employee loyalty isn’t a good thing. One of the best things about Silicon Valley is that people can swiftly change companies when they get higher offers. Non-competes are void in California. There’s a reason US salaries for software devs are 2-5x EU salaries for similar roles.
- snowpid 2y ago
  What if I told you that non - competes aren't a thing in Germany. (And a big part in other parts of US)
  - storyinmemo 2y ago
    Well I'd tell you that they aren't a thing in California.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      ...as of six months ago.
      - Alupis 2y ago
        Anyone could ask you to sign a non-compete. But in California, they have been legally unenforceable for as long as I have been alive. What was changed is they now cannot make condition of employment based on signing this unenforceable contract.
  - zombiwoof 2y ago
    As someone who has been stuck in Silicon Valley for 20 years I can say hands down the German and European teams I’ve worked with far outshine the hacker ego Hollywood hipster techbros of San Francisco. Yet the latter make 2-5x the income.