@karpathy: A conventional narrative you might come across is that AI is too far along for a new, research-focus...
A conventional narrative you might come across is that AI is too far along for a new, research-focused startup to outcompete and outexecute the incumbents of AI. This is exactly the sentiment I listened to often when OpenAI started ("how could the few of you possibly compete with Google?") and 1) it was very wrong, and then 2) it was very wrong again with a whole another round of startups who are now challenging OpenAI in turn, and imo it still continues to be wrong today. Scaling and locally improving what works will continue to create incredible advances, but with so much progress unlocked so quickly, with so much dust thrown up in the air in the process, and with still a large gap between frontier LLMs and the example proof of the magic of a mind running on 20 watts, the probability of research breakthroughs that yield closer to 10X improvements (instead of 10%) imo still feels very high - plenty high to continue to bet on and look for. The tricky part ofc is creating the conditions where such breakthroughs may be discovered. I think such an environment comes together rarely, but @bfspector & @amspector100 are brilliant, with (rare) full-stack understanding of LLMs top (math/algorithms) to bottom (megakernels/related), they have a great eye for talent and I think will be able to build something very special. Congrats on the launch and I look forward to what you come up with!