6 ms·

How is Reid Hoffman relevant? Someone like Elon being asked for their opinion on tech - I kind of understand - was at least at the coal face of SpaceX and Tesl

• otterley 4mo ago
  As the article said, Reid Hoffman is on Microsoft’s board and is an investor both in OpenAI and Anthropic.
  • AJRF 4mo ago
    I read the article - and many articles touting what Reid said - but my question remains - why in the name of god is he relevant. He is connected and gives money to people - why should that mean anyone should listen to him about any of this. He's not actually a do-er is he? Is there something I am missing? The amount of coverage he gets seems massively disproportionate to his skill, talent and insight.
    • otterley 4mo ago
      I truthfully don’t know the answer, but if I had to guess, his connections and positions provide him with an unusual amount of knowledge and perspective. Another might be that his opinions often are correct in hindsight.
    • mschild 4mo ago
      > He is connected and gives money to people Thats why. Not that we should listen to him (no clue who exactly he is) but thats why he gets attention.
    • N_Lens 4mo ago
      Sir this is Capitalism.
    • dwa3592 4mo ago
      >>He is connected and gives money to people this is also known as influence so..
    • DanielHB 4mo ago
      Sam Altman is not an AI researcher, I don't think he ever worked directly with tech as an engineer either. Pure MBA-with-engineering-degree type.
    • maxcb 4mo ago
      [dead]
    • mrhottakes 4mo ago
      All that Zuck, Altman, Musk, etc do is give money to people
  • endemic 4mo ago
    So he has money.
  • jerf 4mo ago
    So, a guy with probably one of the largest incentives in the world to trash xAI is trashing xAI? The information content of this is rather minimal. Even if everything he says is literally true it's hard to tell through the massive, massive vested interest he has. And it doesn't help that... 'Hoffman, who is an investor in both Anthropic and OpenAI, pushed back firmly on the narrative that the two companies are in a zero-sum race. “We tend to want to tell these stories as cage matches,” he said, as in two companies enter and only one leaves, but “in fact,” he claimed, “there’s a lot of room for both of them to win incredibly.' that's clearly a very self-interested gloss on the flip side of the situation. Yes, that's in the possibility space. No, I would not consider "both companies do fantastically for many many years" as a terribly large part of the possibility space. Look to all of the many past instances of industries starting up. It is a very common case that if you take the two early leaders you aren't looking at who is going to be the two biggest companies in 10 or 20 years. It is in fact a common case that neither of those companies are the leaders in 10 or 20 years. The sheer staggering size of the AI training moat at the current time may lock in the possibility that no other business could possibly overtake them... but what if somebody solves that massive training gap? It probably isn't mathematically fundamental; I can't help but observe that humans do not get to their level of capability by pouring the entire Internet through their head several times. He probably does know a lot of things most of us don't know, but I doubt he's sharing very many of them in this article. This is just trash talk.
    • grumple 4mo ago
      Is xAI being used by any professionals? I see them acting as a data center rental service for the others, but that doesn’t justify their valuation imo. They seem to be behind on everything and don’t seem to have any relevance. The cursor purchase may change that but for how long?
      • jerf 4mo ago
        I see no reason any portion of SpaceX justifies its current valuations. I also think taking what is probably ultimately a successful and profitable company in SpaceX, even if it is maybe not as successful and profitable as Elon might say, and tying it at the hip to the AI bubble, while being clearly on the losing end of that AI bubble so far, could well kill SpaceX in the process. I hope not, because no matter how HN may feel about Elon, SpaceX has some great tech and is definitely moving space tech forward. Rather harder to say that about xAI. But then I'd say I don't understand the valuations of a lot of companies right now. It seems to me the stock market has written into its structure the idea that United States companies will be claiming something like 500-1000% of all TAMs in the entire world in the next 10-20 years, which seems unlikely to be the case. SpaceX's claimed TAM of "pretty much the entire United States GDP, you know, why not" is merely the most blatant instance of this. I'm not defending SpaceX or xAI. Billionaires don't need my help. But this article is still pretty pointless. Hoffman isn't a dispassionate observer, he's one of the players. Of course he's telling everyone he's going to win and the other guy is going to lose. Even when a coach is completely objectively correct when he says in his pre-game press conference that he has every confidence that his team will win in the end, it's still an information-free statement.
  • raincole 4mo ago
    It means his opinions about xAI are worth less than a random HNer's, since he has a very strong incentive to talk bad about it.
  • nottorp 4mo ago
    That Microsoft who added LARGE BLUE copilot buttons on the dialogs you get in Visual Studio when it stops on a breakpoint or exception?
• petilon 4mo ago
  Other than co-founding one of the most successful tech companies, that is.
  • antiframe 4mo ago
    If you are talking about LinkedIn, I don't know how universally they are considered a tech company. Is any company that does its core business on a website a tech company now, even if their innovations aren't tech? NY Times has some fancy tech, but you'd be hard pressed to consider them a tech company.
    • epistasis 4mo ago
      Are you seriously trying to argue that companies like Facebook or Netflix are not tech companies? This comment thread is bonkers. I've never seen stuff like this on HN before!
      • antiframe 4mo ago
        These days every company uses tech in some way. If the bar is "uses tech" then every company is a tech company and the category is meaningless. If you asked a layman to name tech companies, would Disney appear high in their list? What about Ford? Or Chevron? All those companies use tech and all those companies develop new tech. But I think most people would say media company, car company, and oil company. In my mind LinkedIn is close enough to a tech company that you convinced me. But I do think it's a spectrum and Netflix and Facebook are more tech than. LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a sleazy job board or recruiting company. I feel the same way about Craigslist (is that a tech company?) Was Gawker a tech compsny? How about Hertz? A lot of my tech friends used to work at Starbucks but I think most customers don't consider it a tech company.
• blenklo 4mo ago
  How is he less relevant than Elon Musk? He co-founded linkedin a platform every one knows. Elon Musk invented the Cybertruck and has a weird cult following through Tesla. i mean Elon Musk called some of his kids this: X Æ A-Xii Musk, Exa Dark Sideræl Musk and Techno Mechanicus Musk What opinion should i give more value?
  • deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  • antiframe 4mo ago
    If you are going to include a speaker's child-naming prowess as a factor in assigning value to an opinion, you might as well just flip a coin, go with vibes, go with the one that matches your biases, or all three. When I was a child my brother taught me to always consider the incentives, especially the monetary ones, of a speaker. 'Follow the money'. So, in this case neither Musk nor Hoffman would get much traction with me as both of them are incentivized to form a pro or con opinion of xAI.
    • blenklo 4mo ago
      It shows longterm persistency and character or in case of Elon Musk the opposite. Together with all his wins and fails, it clearly shows that Elon Musk not an genius but more lucky opportunist. For sure not an idiot of course. Follow the money is for sure a good point though
  • officeplant 4mo ago
    >He co-founded linkedin That alone should be justifiable cause for exile from society.
    • blenklo 4mo ago
      I think its fun. Whenever i log into it on a friday and a recruiter writes me, i tell them my dream salary and to 99% they are polite, say sorry for their 'low offer' and tell me they will get back when they have something like it. And if they ever send me something interesting, i still could apply.
• sixothree 4mo ago
  There sure are a lot of people attacking the messenger here. This seems fairly par for anyone criticizing one of musks properties.
  • HumblyTossed 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    • sixothree 4mo ago
      Literally every single top level comment except for the one is a criticism of the person. Feels very typical for a right wing attack.
• giancarlostoro 4mo ago
  I'm not interested in people's take on SpaceX this early after their IPO, they have an ambitious vision and Elon Musk gets a lot of blind hatred. You don't invest into SpaceX to see returns in a month, you're in it for the next five or more years or you're better off finding a different stock to invest in. To date SpaceX is the top leader in getting things into space for the lowest cost, everyone else pales in comparison.
  • dtj1123 4mo ago
    Other than launching satellites, being able to get things into space for the lowest cost is about as relevant as being able to get things to the bottom of the ocean for the lowest cost. It's never going to be cost effective to send anything back down the gravity well, which means that the only way Musk's plan leads anywhere is if he's able to bootstrap an entirely self contained, self perpetrating economy in space. That's not happening in five years. Edit: and no, data centres in space are not the answer.
  • epistasis 4mo ago
    People don't invest in SpaceX because of space launch capability, that barely counts for their valuation at all. The valuation of SpaceX is due to AI, namely the revenue they get for renting out their GPUs to companies that actually have AI customers, as their own AI tech has not panned out. For the large number of companies rolled into SpaceX, they are all failed attempts to grow large enough to justify their valuations, and when a company fails to do that it just gets rolled into the conglomerate as a way of hiding the failure. Tesla's valuation contrasted with its performance means that Tesla will likely be rolled into whatever latest vehicle of Musk's has the most attention, hiding the failure of Tesla to come anywhere near to its promises.
    • youngtaff 4mo ago
      > The valuation of SpaceX is due to AI, namely the revenue they get for renting out their GPUs to companies that actually have AI customers, as their own AI tech has not panned out. Renting them out for 90 days!
  • 4mo ago
• xnx 4mo ago
  Is Elon credible? He's been wrong so so many times about "full" self driving: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autonomous_Tesla_vehicles_by_Elon_Musk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...
  • CamperBob2 4mo ago
    [flagged]
  • Mountain_Skies 4mo ago
    He's said many things that didn't come to be but since he controls over a trillion dollars in assets, anything he says will be impactful, perhaps even more so if it is something incorrect.
  • nailer 4mo ago
    And? Self driving works. I've taken a bunch of cars in Miami and UAE where somebody was at the wheel for legal reasons only.
    • lern_too_spel 4mo ago
      If Musk believed that, he would get the legal reasons resolved and profit.
  • simianwords 4mo ago
    You can’t do an unweighted analysis like so. Even if he did get a single thing right, you need to weigh it by the impact.
  • deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
• tripledry 4mo ago
  Not commenting on Reid specifically but on the other hand I don't understand why we should listen to the Tech CEO's / Founders about their opinions on the tech they are selling.
  • petilon 4mo ago
    Why wouldn't you listen to a company on why their product solves the problem you're having?
    • buellerbueller 4mo ago
      Companies lie.
      • petilon 4mo ago
        Yes, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to them. You listen to them and you evaluate their claims.
        • buellerbueller 4mo ago
          It seems to me that the original poster meant "listen" in the sense of "believe," not "listen" in the sense of "hear."
        • __alexs 4mo ago
          To be truly impartial I don't think you should even evaluate their claims directly. This allows them to focus the comparison on things they care about, not the things you care about. Instead you should decide what problems you need solving, and evaluate solutions to those problems against your own rubric.
        • bckr 4mo ago
          “Listen” is being used in a non-literal way here, with the meaning “to accept as true”.
        • tripledry 4mo ago
• jcgrillo 4mo ago
  They're all clowns. None of them are credible. TBH this extends much further down than the C-suite. Generally it seems like something happens to people's brains when they hit roughly Director+ where they just start spouting absolute nonsense.
• michaelmrose 4mo ago
  Elon said we should spend most or all of our GDP building more silicon than we can actually make to launch it all into space where we had no meaningful solution to economically cooling it burning all of our money for a product that currently makes no money delivered in a fashion that can't possibly work. It's not clear that he understands AI or rockets. Remember prepared statements can be written by smarter people. Ask him to speak extemporaneously and find out how stupid he really is.
  • fhdkweig 4mo ago
    Guy who sells trips to space says we need to put more stuff in space. AI is hot now, so he has to connect his business to AI. Remember when he put a car in orbit? This is more of the same.
• Fricken 4mo ago
  Reid Hoffman isn't relevant. Don't attack the person, attack the substance of their argument. How is xAI not a total shitshow? This is the question you need to be able to answer.
• JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
  > How is Reid Hoffman relevant? What does this actually mean? I’ve always taken this use of relevance as an influencer metric.
  • nailer 4mo ago
    It means why do we care what the LinkedIn founder has to say about xAI. The answer seems to be "we don't, he's on the board of a competiting AI company"
    • JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
      > answer seems to be "we don't, he's on the board of a competiting AI company" That seems like a good reason to listen to him? He is prominently placed in the field. Has a lot to lose by knowingly making false statements in public about a competitor. And has an incentive (and the resources with which) to dig deeply into them in a way e.g. a trash-talking YouTuber does not. He has his set of biases. But Board member at a multi-trillion dollar established software and AI kingmaker seems like a weird way to dismiss an opinion.
      • nailer 4mo ago
        > He is prominently placed in the field. No he isn't. He's the LinkedIn guy. That's his only success. Good for him but the LinkedIn founder doesn't know anything baout AI. > Has a lot to lose by knowingly making false statements in public about a competitor. The article ignores the conflict of interest - Hoffman is introduced as: > Reid Hoffman has watched the AI industry from virtually every vantage point—as a founder, a lead investor and as a decade-long Microsoft board member. they don't say: "Reid invested in both OpenAI and Anthropic" which seems to indicate that Fortune think they can get away with lying through omission.
        • keeda 4mo ago
          FWIW, leaving aside his professional activities (such as the fact that he's currently the co-founder of two AI startups) he is probably the first billionaire to create an "AI clone" of himself, complete with a deepfake video avatar and voice-cloning, trained on all the content he has ever produced (books, articles, interviews, videos): https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1ccol5y/reid_hoffman_interviews_his_ai_twin/ https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1ccol5y/reid_h... The interviews are not real-time and are heavily edited, of course, but he's probably one of the few tech execs who've spent so much money and time to personally explore AI.
• nailer 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  • watwut 4mo ago
    Leans left as in "not yet sufficiently captured by far right".
• jauntywundrkind 4mo ago
  I don't have a strong feel for Reid's personal case, but it's worth noting that the media keeps Reid in focus because he is the only visible (and audible) blue Democratic big tech person. There's legions of Republican maga affiliated red red red ultra-wealthy tech people, so having some exception on the other side to point to gives everyone a "both sides" way to take presumed affront.