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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n
A few months ago we marvelled<\/a> at how the AI bacchanal had enticed venture capitalists into moving from backing pre-revenue companies to pre-product companies like Ilya Sutskever\u2019s Safe Superintelligence.<\/p>\n Oh how sweetly innocent we were back then\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. The new hot thing seems to be pre-plan companies. From MainFT <\/a>on Friday evening, with Alphaville\u2019s emphasis below:<\/p>\n OpenAI\u2019s former chief technology officer Mira Murati has raised $2bn for her new artificial intelligence start-up, in a deal which values the mysterious six-month-old company at $10bn.<\/p>\n The deal, which closed recently, according to multiple people familiar with the transaction, was one of the largest \u201cseed\u201d \u2014 or initial \u2014 funding rounds in Silicon Valley\u2019s history. <\/p>\n San Francisco-based Thinking Machines Lab had not declared what it was working on, instead using Murati\u2019s name and reputation to attract investors<\/strong>, said those familiar with the fundraise.<\/p>\n .\u2009.\u2009. Because of its highly clandestine nature, a number of funds that Murati pitched to passed on the deal, said multiple investors who were approached. One of these people added Murati\u2019s pitch offered no information about a product or financial plans.<\/strong><\/p>\n Another person said Thinking Machines was working on \u201cartificial general intelligence\u201d, a hypothetical point where computers have similar or superior levels of intelligence to humans. But they added that, at the moment, the group was still \u201cstrategising\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Well, at least that $2bn should get Andreessen Horowitz, Conviction Partners and other VCs some oversight rights. Right<\/a>? <\/p>\n The deal would give Murati a board vote that is structured to be equal to all other board votes combined \u2014 plus one. In other words, Murati would have a level of control beyond even the tight grip wielded by supervoting-share-owning founders like Mark Zuckerberg.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Oh. <\/p>\n We\u2019re not even sure what stage of the cycle it is when investors are willing to fork over $2bn to a founder with no disclosed product, financials or business strategy, and bake in zero control. <\/p>\n But this is a world where Meta is willing to make a $14bn acqui-hire of an AI CEO with good connections but uncertain technical prowess<\/a>, and a small Nvidia-dependent, highly leveraged cloud computing company<\/a> is valued at $88bn (17x revenues), so maybe Murati\u2019s Thinking Machines will prove a smart bet. <\/p>\n\n
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