Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

Meta is fumbling hard. Winning the AI race is about marketing at this point - the difference between the models is negligible.

Chat GPT is the one on everyone's lips outside of technology, and in the media. They have a platform by which to push some kind of assistant but where is it? I log into facebook and it's buried in the sidebar as Meta AI. Why aren't they shoving it down my throat? They have a huge platform of advertisers who'd be more than happy to inject ads into the AI. (I should note I hope they don't do this - but it's inevitable).

Winning the AI race is winning the application war. Similar to how internet, OS has been there for a long time, but the ecosystem took years to build.

But application work is toiling and knowing the question set even with AI help, that's doesn't bode well for teams whose goal is owning and profiting from super AI that can do everything.

But maybe something will change? Maybe adversarial agents will see improvements like the alpha go moment?

Meta is the worst at building platforms out of the big players. If you're not building to Facebook or Metaverse, what would you be building for if you were all-in on Meta AI? Instagram + AI will be significant, but not Meta-level significant, and it's closed. Facebook is a monster but no one's building to it, and even Mark knows it is tomorrow's Yahoo.

Microsoft has filled in their entire product line with Copilot, Google is filling everything with Gemini, Apple has platforms but no AI, and OpenAI is firing on all cylinders.. at least in terms of mindshare and AUMs.

Surely winning the AI race is finding secret techniques that allow development of superior models, with it not being apparent that anyone has anything special enough that he actually is winning?

I think there's some firms with special knowledge: Google, possibly OpenAI/Anthropic, possibly the Chinese firms, possibly Mistral too, but no one has enough unique stuff to really stand out.

The biggest things were those six months before people figured out how O1 worked and the short time before people figured out how Google and possibly OpenAI solved 5/6 of the 2025 IMO problems.

OpenAI marketing and hype feels like things we've seen before.

Just like Adam Neuman who was reinventing the concept of workspaces as a community.

Just like Elizabeth Holmns who was revolutionizing blood testing.

Just like SBF who pioneered a new model for altruistic capitalism.

And so many others.

Beware of prophets selling you on the idea that they alone can do something nobody has ever done before.

> Just like SBF who pioneered a new model for autistic capitalism

Oh, wow. I think you meant altruistic capitalism.

> the difference between the models is negligible

I mostly agree with this but make an exception for MetaAI which seems egregiously bad compared to the others I use regularly (Anthropic's, Google's, OpenAI's)

They are shoving it down, WhatsApp has two entry points on the main view. I've received multiple requests for tips on how to hide them, I don't think people are interested. And I'd hide them too if I just could.

I think that depends on how optimistic/pessimistic one is on how much more superior the models are going to get. If you're really pessimistic then there isn't all too much one company could do to be 2x or more ahead already. If you're really optimistic then it doesn't matter what anyone is doing today because it's about who finds the next 100x leap.

I don't think it does.

The models have increased greatly in capabilities, but the competitors have simply kept up, and it's not apparently that they won't continue to do that. Furthermore, the breakthroughs-- i.e. fundamentally better models, can happen anywhere where people can and do try out new architectures, and that can happen in surprisingly small places.

It's mostly about culture and being willing to experiment on something which is often very thankless since most radical ideas do not give an improvement.

If you actually try Llama you'll see it's significantly worse than the top dogs.

Lol, yes. Although the unintentional slight is somehow hilariously appropriate.

> Winning the AI race is winning the application war

This. 100% This.

As an early stage VC, the foundational model story is largely over, and understanding how to apply models to applications or how to protect applications leveraging models is the name of the game now.

> Maybe adversarial agents will see improvements...

There is increased appetite now to invest in those models that are taking a reasoning and RL problem.

>Winning the AI race is about marketing at this point - the difference between the models is negligible.

Meta is paying Anthropic to give its devs access to Claude because it's that much better than their internal models. You think that's a marketing problem?

Which is why getting rid of friction is a good idea.

This is R&D. You want a skunkworks culture where you have the best people in the world trying as many new things as possible, and failure is fine as long as it's interesting failure.

Not a culture where every development requires a permission slip from ten other teams, and/or everyone is worried if they'll still have a job a month from now.

Yes, definitely.