But maybe there is some gain that I can't just imagine...
(Note that it's much more legitimate to scrutinize scientific research, since it's mostly publicly funded, as opposed to VCs investing in startups.)
> Overall it is not efficient use of resources or time to me.
I mean, the tech world has done a lot of good and advanced humanity a lot. More than most industries, IMO. Most of that is by inventing new things. A society could dial down useless spending by dialing down innovation, but it's not clear to me that there's a way to get more innovation with less waste than the current system.
I think many industries are far more of an "inefficient use of resources". I think if the world as a whole would spend 10x more on scientific and technological advancement, at the cost of less e.g. fashion, less investment in entertainment, less investment in (some forms of) finance, etc, the world would be far better off. (I'm not advocating that this should be forced on society, just stating my opinion on what a more optimal way of allocating resources would be.)
I think it lies at the intersection of a lot of topics where HN comments are hostile: VCs, large fundraising, AI, OpenAI related employees. These are all topics where HN comments are more hostile than pragmatic.
Most of the hostility is just a proxy for “VCs bad” banter.
In the case of a bubble, hostility is pragmatism.
Of course, nobody knows that it's a bubble, but nobody knows it's not a bubble either.
Many people know it's a bubble. You see lots of HN comments that it's a bubble. We certainly did in 2007.
In a bubble, the predominant notion is not "I wonder if it's a bubble", but rather "It's a bubble, I hope I can make my money before it pops". A perfect example of this was the Tulip craze in the Netherlands. Nobody actually believed tulip bulbs were worth that much, they just wanted to find a bigger sucker to make a profit, if you read accounts from the time.
Why does it represent a "sorry state of affairs"?
VCs are risking money they manage, it's not like they're putting anyone else at risk. Do we really prefer a world in which we don't take risks to develop new technology?
The VC sector is probably an order of magnitude smaller then, say, fashion. Isn't money better spent taking risks to develop new technologies that have a chance to legitimately change the world for the better?
Note: If you think the technology could be a negative (which, to some extent I do because of the elements of AI safety, that's a separate argument. Not sure that that's what you're referring to though.)
I do see some value in it, we need to take risks with our capital and on a long term horizon it's fine.
But there has to be some rationale behind it at least, some evidence based approach.
But I imagine there's immense pressure to do so. Returns are tracked relative to others. All distorted by big jumps in valuations. In the long term, there might be a more prudent/sustainable use of some of that capital but we'll never know, everyone's chasing share price go up, not value added / profit go up.
Yes, it's good to have your finger in the pie. But the stake may be overpriced, given current behaviour.
But no risk for them, everyone paid for them to keep their billions.
They're putting everyone at risk.
As others in this thread have pointed out what these VCs do is make wildly risky gambles. When it pays off they make billions of dollars in profit and congratulate themselves for their foresight and the power of capitalism. When it doesn't they go cap-in-hand to the federal government, saying that if they're allowed to collapse it'll destabilize the entire economy.
If it were just some rich billionaires who might have to sell their second private jet when this collapses I'd agree with you: who cares what they do with their own money. But what's going to happen is that the taxpayer will end up footing the bill for their reckless behavior, and millions of people will end up worse off for it as governments cut back on welfare, healthcare, and aid programs to balance the books. In a very real sense, people are going to be paying for VC greed with their lives.
But that's not actually true.
The Silicon Valley Bank situation aside - because it was a unique situation, we can open it if you want - when have VCs asked to be bailed out on failed investments? This kind of moral hazard is absolutely a thing in banks and finance in general, but afaik, not in the VC industry.
With the public information there is neither a point in positivity not negativity. It would be speculation either way. A question that could be worth pondering is what exactly the investors are shown? What would you need to see to put all your money in thinking machines?
“I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration.”
To create time and space and even able to explore it is far beyond cutting edge physics of today. If she is able to do it in just few billion dollars it is investment worth making.
1. https://www.wired.com/story/mira-murati-thinking-machines-la...
It is a position that is completely unreachable for 99.9999% of people even in tech.
It is of course easy to write off critics as jealous has-beens and bozos.
you imply that VCs are rational because bet their own money, which in current complicated world probably is not true. VC funds get money from complicated funnel likely including my/your retirement account and country public debt, VC managers likely receive bonuses for closed deals and not long term gains which may materialize in 10 years. So, investing 2B into non-existing product with unclear market fit/team/tech moat smells very strongly.
Correct. Most VCs are using someone else's money. See Softbank. And making extremely poor judgements on how to use that money.
there is a funnel of investors: say retirement account holders put money into some retirement fund, fund manager put money into some "innovation fund", "innovation fund" put money in VC fund. All middlemen get % cut, VC likely watch slides about some product roadmap, but they more interested in closing the deal, get % cut and move on.
it is likely they won't suffer any significant consequences
(Sure -- that background is somewhat self earned.)
Murati: “hold my beer”.
(They could have just as well picked Skynet.)
Can’t help but feel there’s some sexism attached to the pushback here.
https://makeagif.com/gif/im-actually-not-sure-about-that-mir...
More generic, grandiose and oft-repeated someone's claims are, more skepticism is warranted.
> significant OpenAI talent on board, including Murati herself.
because ppl on this website don't consider her a 'talent'.
"Presumably" they have "some" idea. Oh really? Are you "sure" about that? Is that a $12B type confidence?
Anyway, if Mistral is for sale then if not Apple it'll be another big company.
> if Mistral is for sale
At the moment there's no public information about that, it's all about Apple being interested into buying but we don't know if Mistral is interested into selling at all. That's the gap.