5 ms·

If I were to speculate, I would guess he quit Google. 2 days ago, his $1+ million Artificial General Intelligence competition ended. Chollet is now judging the

by geor9e 2y ago

If I were to speculate, I would guess he quit Google. 2 days ago, his $1+ million Artificial General Intelligence competition ended. Chollet is now judging the submissions and will announce the winners in a few weeks. The timing there can't be a coincidence.

paxys 2y ago
More generally, there is unlimited opportunity in the AI space today, especially for someone of his stature, and staying tied to Google probably isn't as enticing. He can walk into any VC office and raise a hundred million dollars by the end of the day to build whatever he wants.
- hiddencost 2y ago
  $100M isn't enough capital for an AI startup that's training foundation models, sadly. A ton of folks of similar stature who raised that much burnt it within two years and took mediocre exits.
  - versteegen 2y ago
    Chollet is a leading skeptic of the generality of LLMs (see arcprize.org). He surely isn't doing a startup to train another one.
  - NitpickLawyer 2y ago
    I think we'll start to see a differentiation soon. The likes of Ilya will raise money to do whatever, including foundation models / new arch, while other startups will focus on post-training, scaling inference, domain adaptation and so on. I don't think the idea of general foundational model from scratch is a good path for startups anymore. We're already seeing specialised verticals (cursor, codeium, both at ~100-200m funding rounds) and they're both focused on specific domains, not generalist. There's probably enough "foundation" models out there to start working on post-training stuff already, no need to reinvent the wheel.
  - zxexz 2y ago
    Interesting, I think $100M is totally enough to train a SotA "foundation model". It's all in the use case. I'd love to hear explicit arguments against this.
    - hiddencost 2y ago
      There's a bunch of failed AI companies who raised been $100M and $200M with the goal of training foundation models. What they discovered is that they were rapidly out paced by the large players, and didn't have any way to generate revenue. You're right that it's enough to train one, but IMO you're wrong that it's enough to build a company around.
      - Auracle 2y ago
        I imagine Black Forest Labs (Flux) is doing alright, at least for now. I still feel like they’re missing out on some hanging fruit financially though. But yeah, you’re not going to make any money making yet another LLM unless it’s somehow special.
      - ak_111 2y ago
        can you please name names? I can't think of any (but am not an expert on the space).
- dmafreezone 2y ago
  [flagged]
crystal_revenge 2y ago
Google, in my experience, is a place where smart people go to retire. I have many brilliant friends who work there, but all of them have essentially stopped producing interesting work since the day they started. They all seem happy and comfortable, but not ambitious. I'm sure the pay is great, but it's not a place for smart people who are interested in doing something. I've followed Francois (and had the chance to correspond with him a bit) for many years now, and I wouldn't be surprised if the desire to create something became more important than the comfort of Google.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  I wonder how/if that mentality will shift over time. As it seems the market capture phase it over and the current big tech aren't simply keeping top talent around as a capture piece anymore. Maybe they'll still do it, but basically only if it feels you can startup a billion dollar business. As opposed to a million dollar one.
  - kortilla 2y ago
    Not really any different than what happened to IBM, Intel, Cisco, etc. The people that want to build great things want the potential huge reward too, so they go to a startup to do it.
    - azinman2 2y ago
      Except… it’s about leverage/impact factor. Google has very large impact, so if you do something big and central you’re instantly in the hands of hundreds of millions / billions of people. That’s a very different situation than IBM or Cisco.
      - kortilla 2y ago
        Not really. Despite having a platform with lots of people. Most are out of date software and hardly use any features. It’s like the claim that Microsoft teams has hundreds of millions of users just because it’s installed on Windows by default.

by geor9e 2y ago

paxys 2y ago

More generally, there is unlimited opportunity in the AI space today, especially for someone of his stature, and staying tied to Google probably isn't as enticing. He can walk into any VC office and raise a hundred million dollars by the end of the day to build whatever he wants.

hiddencost 2y ago
$100M isn't enough capital for an AI startup that's training foundation models, sadly. A ton of folks of similar stature who raised that much burnt it within two years and took mediocre exits.
- versteegen 2y ago
  Chollet is a leading skeptic of the generality of LLMs (see arcprize.org). He surely isn't doing a startup to train another one.
- NitpickLawyer 2y ago
  I think we'll start to see a differentiation soon. The likes of Ilya will raise money to do whatever, including foundation models / new arch, while other startups will focus on post-training, scaling inference, domain adaptation and so on. I don't think the idea of general foundational model from scratch is a good path for startups anymore. We're already seeing specialised verticals (cursor, codeium, both at ~100-200m funding rounds) and they're both focused on specific domains, not generalist. There's probably enough "foundation" models out there to start working on post-training stuff already, no need to reinvent the wheel.
- zxexz 2y ago
  Interesting, I think $100M is totally enough to train a SotA "foundation model". It's all in the use case. I'd love to hear explicit arguments against this.
  - hiddencost 2y ago
    There's a bunch of failed AI companies who raised been $100M and $200M with the goal of training foundation models. What they discovered is that they were rapidly out paced by the large players, and didn't have any way to generate revenue. You're right that it's enough to train one, but IMO you're wrong that it's enough to build a company around.
    - Auracle 2y ago
      I imagine Black Forest Labs (Flux) is doing alright, at least for now. I still feel like they’re missing out on some hanging fruit financially though. But yeah, you’re not going to make any money making yet another LLM unless it’s somehow special.
    - ak_111 2y ago
      can you please name names? I can't think of any (but am not an expert on the space).
dmafreezone 2y ago
[flagged]

crystal_revenge 2y ago

Google, in my experience, is a place where smart people go to retire. I have many brilliant friends who work there, but all of them have essentially stopped producing interesting work since the day they started. They all seem happy and comfortable, but not ambitious. I'm sure the pay is great, but it's not a place for smart people who are interested in doing something. I've followed Francois (and had the chance to correspond with him a bit) for many years now, and I wouldn't be surprised if the desire to create something became more important than the comfort of Google.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
I wonder how/if that mentality will shift over time. As it seems the market capture phase it over and the current big tech aren't simply keeping top talent around as a capture piece anymore. Maybe they'll still do it, but basically only if it feels you can startup a billion dollar business. As opposed to a million dollar one.
- kortilla 2y ago
  Not really any different than what happened to IBM, Intel, Cisco, etc. The people that want to build great things want the potential huge reward too, so they go to a startup to do it.
  - azinman2 2y ago
    Except… it’s about leverage/impact factor. Google has very large impact, so if you do something big and central you’re instantly in the hands of hundreds of millions / billions of people. That’s a very different situation than IBM or Cisco.
    - kortilla 2y ago
      Not really. Despite having a platform with lots of people. Most are out of date software and hardly use any features. It’s like the claim that Microsoft teams has hundreds of millions of users just because it’s installed on Windows by default.