AI startup founders are in flux
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Lilian Weng last month stepped down as a cofounder of Thinking Machines, just a year after it raised $2 billion from venture capitalists at an $8 billion pre-money valuation.
- Then she rejoined OpenAI, one of the 800-pound gorillas that Thinky is trying to unseat.
The big picture: Past generations of tech founders earned a reputation for eating glass before bailing on the mission. Let alone on their employees and investors.
- AI founders, however, often seem more interested in sipping from the glass until they're sated.
Catch up quick: This is something we first discussed last October, suggesting that VCs should put tighter founder retention policies in their term sheets. But that didn't happen.
- Instead, things moved in the opposite direction as founders have gained increased access to early liquidity via secondaries.
Here are four reasons why so many AI founders are different than their predecessors, while acknowledging that each individual situation is unique:
1. AI founders are often researchers at heart, not entrepreneurs. More conceptual than capitalist.
2. AI labs are often building such similar products — with an eye toward AGI — that the lines between competition and collaboration can blur.
3. The moat for launching a new AI company is relatively low, at least compared to more capital-constrained tech eras. The result is that founders haven't necessarily put in the blood and toil that would convince them to see it through.
4. It's hard to have golden handcuffs when almost every AI startup looks like a gold mine. Plus, the aforementioned secondaries situation and concerns about grabbing the brass ring before AI eats into job security.
The bottom line: AI valuations keep rising while loyalty lowers.
