4 ms·

You’re telling me that you can’t find 10 worthwhile AI startups to give money to? I bet there are 1000 on crunchbase right now. With $10M some of them could buy

by bix6 1y ago

You’re telling me that you can’t find 10 worthwhile AI startups to give money to? I bet there are 1000 on crunchbase right now. With $10M some of them could buy hardware to build their own systems.

paxys 1y ago
This isn't a VC fund. The contract is for an actual service, and the companies best suited to provide them will get it, no matter their size.
- bix6 1y ago
  Yeah that’s why Boeing keeps getting government money.
- samrus 1y ago
  Maybe 20 10M contracts is a bit too small, but this point is completely wrong too. Part of the purpose of public expenditure is to promote healthy businesses, not just procure things are efficiently as possible This is people's money, and people benefit from competition in the market
  - fakedang 1y ago
    Eh, national security works differently from promoting healthy businesses. The govt already has various programmes to help promote small business contractors in US defence. This is not a programme; it's a definitive project that has a specific set of (admittedly vague) objectives in mind. It's more efficient for the taxpayer for these to be accomplished when the funding is consolidated to a few entities for a 50% success rate, than to 20 different entities for a 5% success rate.
  - ptero 1y ago
    IMO if the government needs widgets it should ask for bids and contract based on price. Some broad restrictions are OK (e.g., prefer domestic manufacturers), but government has no business skewing the contract by promoting <insert favorite agenda>. If we want to promote X with public money, do so explicitly and separately: support research, fund startups, etc. My 2c
    - supplied_demand 1y ago
      What is the difference between “widgets” and “insert favorite agenda”? It seems like the exact same thing to me
      - ptero 1y ago
        Sorry for confusion. In "buying widgets" I meant the regular procurement decision: the DoD needs N units of something (door handles, tank shells, whatever), it publishes specs, asks for bids and buys from whoever can deliver at the lower cost to the taxpayer. The government also funds research, where it gives money to generate something it believes to be beneficial longer term. Funding research is, by definition, less cut-and-dry as to what we should pay for; thus having an agenda is not always bad and might even be good. I am using an "agenda" not in a narrow political sense, but including positions like "we should be funding space comms / drone networks / real-time soldier health monitoring / whatever because industry is not building what we think we will need in a few years". But being somewhat exposed to the waste of DoD procurement I am personally vehemently against inserting such ideology into procurement decisions. Those should be money-based. Get what you need at the least cost to the taxpayer. If you do not know what you need, think harder or invite experts or do a study (and publish it so people writing it know they are associated with those decisions) before paying billions for questionable junk. My 2c.
Spooky23 1y ago
DOGE hates resellers and is trying to force all transactions through the prime contractors. Most small companies cannot afford to float the terms required by the federal government without resellers. This admin is about graft and shakedowns. Just like the implosion of science, the companies that exist due to smallish federal contracts for obscure tech and speculative investments are toast.
dmix 1y ago
I’m all for a competitive commercial space type approach to gov projects and contracts but I really don’t see what that has to do with this. DoD is experimenting with LLMs and is using multiple of the top providers in the space… just like every other tech company is doing. Everyone I know is coding with Claude, Gemini, or GPT and my experiments with Grok 4 have easily been as good. If this was an innovation fund, ala what Canada likes to waste money on - where the gov pretends it’s a really bad VC, I’d at least understand these critiques.
PhunkyPhil 1y ago
Why would the DoD give them money just to break-even (not even likely. oai has easily put > 10m into their compute) with companies that already have the infrastructure? This isn't a stimulus package, it's a service they're buying. Even then, these companies aren't doing research into LLMs, they're just wrapping the endpoints and creating some abstractions.

by bix6 1y ago

paxys 1y ago

This isn't a VC fund. The contract is for an actual service, and the companies best suited to provide them will get it, no matter their size.

bix6 1y ago
Yeah that’s why Boeing keeps getting government money.
samrus 1y ago
Maybe 20 10M contracts is a bit too small, but this point is completely wrong too. Part of the purpose of public expenditure is to promote healthy businesses, not just procure things are efficiently as possible This is people's money, and people benefit from competition in the market
- fakedang 1y ago
  Eh, national security works differently from promoting healthy businesses. The govt already has various programmes to help promote small business contractors in US defence. This is not a programme; it's a definitive project that has a specific set of (admittedly vague) objectives in mind. It's more efficient for the taxpayer for these to be accomplished when the funding is consolidated to a few entities for a 50% success rate, than to 20 different entities for a 5% success rate.
- ptero 1y ago
  IMO if the government needs widgets it should ask for bids and contract based on price. Some broad restrictions are OK (e.g., prefer domestic manufacturers), but government has no business skewing the contract by promoting <insert favorite agenda>. If we want to promote X with public money, do so explicitly and separately: support research, fund startups, etc. My 2c
  - supplied_demand 1y ago
    What is the difference between “widgets” and “insert favorite agenda”? It seems like the exact same thing to me
    - ptero 1y ago
      Sorry for confusion. In "buying widgets" I meant the regular procurement decision: the DoD needs N units of something (door handles, tank shells, whatever), it publishes specs, asks for bids and buys from whoever can deliver at the lower cost to the taxpayer. The government also funds research, where it gives money to generate something it believes to be beneficial longer term. Funding research is, by definition, less cut-and-dry as to what we should pay for; thus having an agenda is not always bad and might even be good. I am using an "agenda" not in a narrow political sense, but including positions like "we should be funding space comms / drone networks / real-time soldier health monitoring / whatever because industry is not building what we think we will need in a few years". But being somewhat exposed to the waste of DoD procurement I am personally vehemently against inserting such ideology into procurement decisions. Those should be money-based. Get what you need at the least cost to the taxpayer. If you do not know what you need, think harder or invite experts or do a study (and publish it so people writing it know they are associated with those decisions) before paying billions for questionable junk. My 2c.

Spooky23 1y ago

DOGE hates resellers and is trying to force all transactions through the prime contractors. Most small companies cannot afford to float the terms required by the federal government without resellers. This admin is about graft and shakedowns. Just like the implosion of science, the companies that exist due to smallish federal contracts for obscure tech and speculative investments are toast.

dmix 1y ago

I’m all for a competitive commercial space type approach to gov projects and contracts but I really don’t see what that has to do with this. DoD is experimenting with LLMs and is using multiple of the top providers in the space… just like every other tech company is doing. Everyone I know is coding with Claude, Gemini, or GPT and my experiments with Grok 4 have easily been as good. If this was an innovation fund, ala what Canada likes to waste money on - where the gov pretends it’s a really bad VC, I’d at least understand these critiques.

PhunkyPhil 1y ago

Why would the DoD give them money just to break-even (not even likely. oai has easily put > 10m into their compute) with companies that already have the infrastructure? This isn't a stimulus package, it's a service they're buying. Even then, these companies aren't doing research into LLMs, they're just wrapping the endpoints and creating some abstractions.