from Hacker News

xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

by frisco on 5/27/24, 5:30 AM with 271 comments

• by lionkor on 5/27/24, 6:00 AM

  > The company’s mission is to understand the true nature of the universe.

  I yawned so hard my jaw unlocked.

  Can't wait to see groundbreaking... checks notes... "advancements in various applications, optimizations, and extensions of the model".

  Do these companies only hire yes men?

• by klunger on 5/27/24, 7:14 AM

  > xAI will continue on this steep trajectory of progress over the coming months, with multiple exciting technology updates and products soon to be announced.

  There is a lot of potential for using AI in drug discovery and development, biotech more broadly and chemistry/material science. Pharma is investing heavily in this right now. If useful, the output here could potentially also support Neuralink and even SpaceX.

  Coupled with the line about the "true nature of the universe", I guessed this was really about entering that space.

  But when you look at the careers page [https://x.ai/careers#open-roles], they are only hiring AI engineers. No biochemists or MDs, material scientists or any other natural science domains. So, if natural science discovery is actually on the road map, either: - it is in the long term future - they have no idea what they are doing

  More likely, they are not going for natural science and this is basically just a play to compete with openAI. And, in that case, I don't understand how they convinced investors to put 6 billion dollars into it.

• by keyle on 5/27/24, 6:40 AM

  What could have they possibly shown to the investors to get that kind of cash thrown at them? Asking for a friend...

  Did x.ai just become worth more than x.com? We must be nearing the bubble popping...

• by aredox on 5/27/24, 2:33 PM

  6 billion dollars less for really innovative ventures. 6 billion dollars less for us hackers.

  And certainly 6 billion dollars down the drain, funneled to stave the collapse of X/Twitter and Musk paying his dues.

• by Aeolun on 5/27/24, 1:06 PM

  How is it that some people get 6B to understand the true nature of the universe? It’s not like they have a track record of doing anything other than absolutely devastating a previously successful company…

  If I ask someone to give me 6B to understand the true nature of the universe they’d laugh in my face, but I sort of assume I’d have an even chance of doing better.

• by chambo622 on 5/27/24, 5:53 AM

  What is the bull case here? They close the gap to Anthropic and become a 4th place player?

• by yumraj on 5/27/24, 9:02 AM

  These investors seems to haven’t learnt a lesson after the Twitter/X eff-up.

  NVIDIA must be happy, $5.9B will go to it.

• by retrac98 on 5/27/24, 6:06 AM

  I wish he’d just focus on SpaceX or Tesla (the cars, not the robot).

• by MP_1729 on 5/27/24, 5:12 PM

  “You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.” - Robert M. Pirsig

  The Musk reasoning here is stupid, but smart. If he makes a superhuman intelligence, he can only ask it "What is dark matter?" and it might figure out.

  I have some big problems with this idea, but it isn't 100% stupid. Just 98% stupid.

• by croes on 5/27/24, 8:08 AM

  So we push billions of dollars into text and picture generators which contribute to more carbon dioxide emissions like MS already showed.

  At least we will go down with enough spam texts and cat pictures.

• by dagmx on 5/27/24, 5:59 AM

  Are there any notable people associated with this other than Elon?

  I’m curious what they’re bringing to the table to be able to fetch that valuation.

• by ergocoder on 5/27/24, 6:12 AM

  Did they raise 6B or at 6B valuation?

• by purple-leafy on 5/27/24, 8:28 AM

  Sometimes I pray for a meteor

• by qeternity on 5/27/24, 9:14 AM

  Quite a few comments here in disbelief and hating on Musk.

  For all the criticism of Elon, he has been foundational in Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX and OpenAI. Even if you think Tesla is troubled/overvalued, he has built multiple enormous companies, and one of a handful of people to have built a company into a $1T valuation (however fleeting).

  So yes, the arithmetic for VCs is very straightforward: for better or for worse, Elon Musk is able to execute in the only way that matters to investors.

• by Brajeshwar on 5/27/24, 6:14 AM

  First (from the title before reading), I thought - wow, I think I should retry using x.ai (Amy) for my Calendar. How much did they sold the domain for?

• by shreezus on 5/27/24, 8:48 AM

  Nvidia just added $6B in revenue.

  We’re witnessing an arms race for compute, as compute will likely be the primary constraint for building AGI.

• by light_triad on 5/27/24, 7:36 AM

  > We partner closely with X Corp to bring our technology to more than 500 million users of the X app.

  Investors paid about $12 per X user/bot.

  Interesting they are opting for a spinoff rather than doing this in house. Perhaps to capitalise on the hype and attract researchers who don't want the baggage of being associated with polarising brands?

• by lars_francke on 5/27/24, 6:19 AM

  X.ai used to be a service similar to calendly. I still mourn its shutdown and, seeing this, had hoped that it is resurrected :(

• by hydroreadsstuff on 5/27/24, 8:22 AM

  Did they raise 6B or are they valued at 6B and don't disclose the raised amount? Probably the latter?

• by rullopat on 5/27/24, 6:22 AM

  He is the richest man in the world and he doesn’t have 6B in the pocket to finance it on his own?

• by naveen99 on 5/28/24, 2:58 PM

  $6B seems like not enough ? Google, meta have spent far more, and have less to show for it than openai (which has also spent more).

• by mvkel on 5/27/24, 6:38 AM

  > The company’s mission is to understand the true nature of the universe.

  I would think full-throated development of a diffusion model would make a lot more sense to achieve the mission, since its chief mechanism is separating signal from noise.

  Considering we're the only beings in the known universe that have language, I'm not sure there are many universal insights to be gleaned from an LLM

• by sidcool on 5/27/24, 6:49 AM

  That's a huge round.

• by wiradikusuma on 5/27/24, 6:37 AM

  So.. tech winter over?

• by 1vuio0pswjnm7 on 5/28/24, 4:58 AM

  "xAI is primarily focused on the development of advanced AI systems that are truthful, competent, and maximally beneficial for all of humanity. The company's mission is to understand the true nature of the universe."

  As if we are currently living in some _false_ representation of the universe.

  As it happens "AI" is proving to be a challenge to the meaning of the word "true".

  This makes "the 'true' nature of universe" a particularly amusing usage.

• by abdussamit on 5/27/24, 6:15 AM

  This is insanity ... 6B!

• by ulfw on 5/27/24, 11:04 AM

  What is wrong with investors to give Elon Musk more money for his me-too products? Why would they waste $6,000,000,000?

• by floppiplopp on 5/27/24, 6:02 AM

  Anything Musk is now too many inferior products and broken promises for any sensible investor. Might as well just burn the money.

• by andrewstuart on 5/27/24, 6:11 AM

  Do venture capitalists usually back companies with part time founder/CEOs?

• by rvz on 5/27/24, 6:09 AM

  Like how I have questioned so much ridiculous unjustified valuations in the AI space, with the likes of Perplexity, Stability, Inflection, etc which these AI labs are not making enough money to support themselves.

  How is xAI worth $24BN? I bet the reason is because Elon Musk.

  But until I see a significant jump in xAI making at least $100M+ a quarter, I don't think that is enough to justify that valuation to even be any where near close to Anthropic.

  In fact, this means Anthropic should be worth much more and the majority of other AI companies / labs (excluding OpenAI, Midjourney, Cerebras and Groq) to be worth much less.

  To downvoters:

  To date as of 2024, Anthropic's valuation is around $15BN - $18BN.

  So you are telling me that xAI's valuation is justified and should be worth more than Anthropic?

  Care to elaborate and discuss? (Especially if you're an insider.)

  [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/technology/amazon-anthrop...

• by stealthcat on 5/27/24, 6:03 AM

  Unitree is better than Optimus.

  Qwen et al is better than Grok.

  BYD is better than Tesla.