Mira Murati, the former chief technology officer of OpenAI,
just raised one of the biggest seed rounds ever. In that seed round, Murati
raised $2 billion for Thinking Machines Lab, a business so young that it has
not even disclosed its current project. Silicon Valley is taking notice of the
move, which is just the most recent in a string of elite researchers leaving
OpenAI to pursue their own AI aspirations.
The hosts of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec,
Rebecca Bellan, and Anthony Ha, discuss what is driving the OpenAI talent
shuffle, investor excitement, and an inside look at the firm from a former
employee. In any case, the club acknowledges that seed rounds have undergone
significant alteration.
Listen to the full episode to hear more news from the week, including:
- Researchers
from OpenAI and Anthropic have openly criticised Musk's AI business for
Grok's most recent problems and what they expose about wider AI safety
flaws, adding to the turmoil surrounding xAI's safety procedures.
- Uber
is spending hundreds of millions on Lucid and Nuro's high-end robotaxis.
Rebecca and Kirsten share their opinions on whether this is a wise move or
more AV déjà vu.
- With
significant acquisitions, the AI coding assistance market is booming. In
what is turning into a trend of reverse acquisitions, Devin-maker
Cognition purchased Windsurf a few days after Google stole the latter's
leadership.
- Additionally,
Jack Dorsey has always advocated for decentralised technology, as
evidenced by his recent wave of vibe-coding initiatives and charity
hacking groups.