That shouldn't have been a problem given that AI can fully replace talent. The whole company should in theory only have needed a dream and an Anthropic subscription.
Well one of those two names was a core contributor to the Attention paper, arguably the top contributor, before leaving Google to make Character Ai, no wonder the re-hired him back (before he left again).
That's a long time ago. They should have been able to make a go of it in these hyped times.
how exactly did character.ai lose $2b in 2 years?
Sounds like this money went to individual employees/shareholders and not the company itself?
lawsuits maybe?
They have all the money to shareholders. The company that existed after the aquihire is effectively a different company from the original.