The conversation

AurornisHNSource author
Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

I’ve worked for multiple startups and I’ve watched startup job boards most of my career

… I’ve worked for multiple startups and I’ve watched startup job boards most of my career. A lot of VC backed startups have a founder with a research background and are focused on providing out some hypothesis. I don’t see anything uncommon about this arrangement. If you live near a University that does a lot of research it’s very common to encounter VC backed startups that are trying to prove out and commercialize some researcher’s experiment. It’s also common for those founders to spend some time at a FAANG or similar firm before getting VC funded.

Original discussionYann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'653 source comments · at import
3

What was this responding to?

Parent context · original excerpt

ME
mehulashahHN

Most of the folks on this topic are focused on Meta and Yann’s departure. But, I’m seeing something different. This is the weirdest technology market that I’ve seen. Researchers are getting rewarded with VC money to try what remains a science experiment. That used to be a bad word and now that gets rewarded with billions of dollars in valuation.

Full original

Community replies 0

No community replies yet. Add your perspective.

Replies from the source 3

Direct replies available in this import. Original-language excerpts.

ME
mehulashahHN

Certainly research has made it into product with the help of the innovators that created the research. The dial is turned further here where the research ideas have yet to be tried and vetted. The research begins in the startup. Even in the dotcom era, the research prototypes were vetted in the conferences and journals before taking the risk to build production systems. This is no longer the case. The experiments have yet to be run.

Full original
CA
calmbellHN

I agree there is nothing uncommon about that type of arrangement, but the amount of money involved is unprecedented.

Full original
HA
HarHarVeryFunnyHN

Yeah, but Sutskever and Murati wouldn't even tell investors what they were working on, and LeCun only has a long-term research direction - not any breakthrough or prototype to commercialize.

Full original
Continue on Hacker News

Respect different perspectives. Share concrete experiences.

Sign in to post, reply, repost, and quote.