On: Mistral: The 9-Month-Old AI Startup Challenging Si...

[robertlagrant]

It might be cynicism, but "I educated myself and others on Google's budget, and left at the perfect time to grab some AI investment cash with the expertise I gained there" feels more likely. Perfectly reasonable move, but why not just say it?

[imjonse → robertlagrant]

That is normal in companies. I am more worried by the cases of 'I educated myself by using public funds for my research at uni, then went of to create a company and privatize the profits'

[rm_-rf_slash → imjonse]

Having spent far too long in the annals of higher education, those who would be comparable stewards of growth are few and far between.

[robertlagrant → imjonse]

I doubt someone who doesn't know that it's profits that get taxed would be able to make much of a company. I wouldn't worry.

[phtrivier → robertlagrant]

> "I educated myself and others on Google's budget"

Do you assume he did not produce anything valuable at Google while working there ? (That's entirely possible, but not certain.)

As the old joke goes:

    A: "What if I train them, and they leave ?"
    B: "Sure. What if you don't train them, and they stay ?"

[robertlagrant → phtrivier]

> Do you assume he did not produce anything valuable at Google while working there

Oh - I'm not saying that. I assume he did, but was also paid to do that.

I'm more commenting on the marketing, rather than the person.

[zorowithenma → phtrivier]

He's the main lead in developing a model called chinchilla, which at that time provided results as good as those of gpt-3

[kozinc → robertlagrant]

Even if it's true, it would be a terrible move marketing-wise.

[spiderfarmer → kozinc]

It's good for memoires, around a decade after the hype died down.

[dmarchand90 → robertlagrant]

"Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it." Bill Gates

[pavlov → robertlagrant]

> “I educated myself and others on Google's budget, and left at the perfect time to grab some AI investment cash with the expertise I gained there”

That’s been the Silicon Valley way ever since 1957 when Fairchild Semiconductor was started by the “traitorous eight” who later jumped ship again to found companies like Intel and AMD.