I have gotten to the point where I just give zero credibility to unnamed sources. And Forbes is sadly nowhere near as credible as it once was. It’s basically white collar Buzzfeed now.
Which is not to say that I disagree with anything they said here or think they are lying, but if someone thinks it’s a hit piece, 30-some mostly unnamed sources won’t change their mind. A journalist can never be caught making up an unnamed source, it’s like saying “I don’t recall” on the stand.
Bloomberg article is better, but note they also ran that I said was spy for the British government when I worked in counter extremism work including writing in this topic for Reuters, Wall Street Journal and others.
These are details we gave them and they chose not to run.
In addition they ran reporting that we raised less than $25 million of additional funding when we raised well over that when we said that was false based on sources again.
We had to take it legal and right up to lead editor.
Here is me predicting ISIS as they would later be known would likely topple Western Iraq the following summer in December of 2013, top of business insiders chart of the year (which I think is very interesting)
People don't seem to have wrapped their heads around the consequences of media abundance coupled with media coordination. You can find 32 sources to back up anything.
On the other hand, if you believe some venture is scam, or is actually rotting under a glossy exterior, then it makes sense to keep writing about it and attempt to expose the situation over time. Especially if the subject keeps trying to cover up and advance the false narrative.
I mean facts are facts. Emad is gone, the company has lost people (researchers and executives), and they have not announced a blockbuster AI funding round.
Emad is still the company's majority shareholder and is also commenting on this thread, so I would not describe him as gone.
Not sure if this article is a hit piece but it certainly is reporting a lot of normal situations for startups as if they're extremely bad or fraudulent. There's nothing new about tech companies not being profitable, or researchers leaving once they've done their research projects.
Emad is Robin Hood. Took VC wealth and redistributed it to the masses. Would love to see this more often. Do we really want Microsoft to monopolize AGI? At this rate average citizens won't even have computers capable of running a command prompt, all devices will be like iOS consumption only. "Sorry Dave, you're not allowed to open a terminal."
VCs don't have wealth, the people with money are called LPs or angels. I also don't know the particulars in this case, but they're usually pension funds rather than individual rich people.
(Which does mean VCs are stealing from pensioners by taking a lot of fees to invest in something worse than an index fund.)
I'd be interested to know if Amazon has a client risk group, because I've seen a few of such large monthly bills, and I sure hope they don't settle these in arrears at such a low frequency as monthly payments.
There has been a lot of news/retrospectives but this is new, and is based off of "Company documents and interviews with 32 current and former employees, investors, collaborators and industry observers"
I kinda gave up on these reporters when they insisted on posting obvious lies, like in this case I don’t speak to Jensen since October 2022 and numbers and other reports were clearly fabricated.
Like what do you do?
I think you just ignore and ship good things, some great models coming across modalities and Stability AI is one of the fastest growing revenue companies ever despite the BS against us
Wasn’t Emad working at a hedge fund before this? I’m surprised the article glosses over the fact that he had 0 experience in the tech industry before starting one of the most ambitious tech projects ever
Getting a job at a hedge fund is not particularly noteworthy. Being really good at it, however, is rare and those people don’t simply leave, as you’re earning the equivalent of a successful startup exit every year.
Someone leaving a hedge fund while still early in their career is a strong negative signal. e.g. SBF and Caroline both from Jane Street.
I started as a hedge fund manager at 23 doing global macro at Pictet & quit when my son was diagnosed with autism to build an NLP team to analyse clinical trial & other data and undertook pathway analysis of neurotransmitters focusing on GABA/Glutamate balance to repurpose medicine to help him filter, after which he went to mainstream school.
One of the things I am focused on now is bringing that research with the new medical LMs so for autism, cancer, MS, Alzheimer’s & more everyone has comprehensive, authoritative and up to date knowledge at their fingertips on these and also a guide so they never feel alone and helps them on their journey if they or a loved one gets this diagnosis.
It will be open and transparent, took a while to build to here but looking forward to next steps.
Yeah, I'm probably thinking of the perceived motives of some outspoken capitalists (Note that I would call myself a hippy capitalist). And amoral is probably a better word than immoral. I only have near experience with one hedge fund manager - not so common in New Zealand. So my own biases are coloured by the mediums I learn from.
The big companies here and more promised me tech to build the system and didn't deliver which is why I did Stability to make sure there were open alternatives.
Still achieving the output we did based on completely diverse global team form mostly untraditional backgrounds outside SF & the resources we had is a positive not negative story.
The first 20 employees I hired were graduates from the job centre in Ilford and we built this above a chicken shop.
