Comment by tikkun

1 year ago

I'm puzzled. Did Noam get $500mm+ from this?

Character.ai could've been at $100mm+ ARR if they did a bit more of a monetization push based on my very rough estimates. If it was an acquisition I would've been imagining $3b+ price range.

Huge get by Google! (Side note, Gemini 1.5's new alpha release from this week is now at the top of the lmsys leaderboard and sentiment on twitter for it is that it's strong, maybe as strong as sonnet 3.5, so it'll continue to be an interesting race between meta, openai, anthropic, gdm.)

Edit: Okay perhaps it's - Noam keeps his C.ai stock, gets a big pay package from Google ($5mm-$15mm/year kinda range? not sure). Most of the value in C.ai remains, and he keeps his stock.

Noam is pre-IPO google with extensive work done on the most important infrastructure in the company's history; likely he has large monetary reserves as well as a pool of investors more than happy to give him money simply to continue doing his research, regardless of future revenue. You can assume that in returning to google, he will get some base pay which will be prodigious, but also extensive pay in the form of bonuses and stock. From what I know of him, the real motivation is to get more access to large TPUs.

  • Having personally met him, this was my impression. He has zero concerns about finance.

    Actually a nice and polite guy, too.

> I'm puzzled. Did Noam get $500mm+ from this?

where did you get $500mm number?..

  • I imagine he still had 15%+ of the company, so if there was a big payout, he would've gotten a big slice. Treat all my estimates with a grain of salt, though, please. I'm imagining he didn't get a huge payout and he actually kept most of his equity?

    • I think he just steps down as CEO, there is no company acquisition happening, so no one gets paid. I think company essentially failed to generate revenue and/or get new investment round.

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I suppose a lot of the current batch don't have a business model that is sustainable. Another candidate is stability ai.