Comment by torginus
3 days ago
Isn't this just shitty capitalism fighting shitty capitalism?
If I hire a bunch of super smart AI researchers out of college for a (to them) princely sum of $1M each, then I could go to a VC and have them invest $40m for and 1% stake.
Then since these people are smart and motivated, they build something nice, and are first to market with it.
If Google wants to catch up, they could either buy the company for $4B, or hire away the people who built the thing in a year, essentially for free (since the salaries have to be paid anyway, lets give them a nice 50% bonus).
They'd be behind half a year recreating their old work, but the unicorn startup market leader would be essentially crippled.
You might ask what about startup stock options, but those could easily end up being worthless, and for the researchers, would need years to be turned into money.
VCs aren't going to give $40m to a startup for a 1% stake
My numbers might not be accurate but the point stands, there's 'salary' kind of money, and 'startup valuation' money.
Hiring away key researchers costs tens to hundreds of millions of dollars (an eye-watering never before seen amount of money before AI), but buying the startup costs billions.
Then again, I'm merely a pundit when it comes to this, there's money (the cash Apple has locked in its vaults), and 'money' (Google executes a merger with a stock swap arrangement, essentially costing them nothing, and the stock jumps 5% at the announcement, even making them money)