The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: Mistral's Arthur Mensch: Are Foundation Models Commoditising | How Do We Solve the Problem of Compute | Is There Value in the Application Layer | Open vs Closed: Who Wins and Mistral's Position


Listen Later

Arthur Mensch is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mistral AI. Since its inception in May 2023, Mistral has raised over $520M in funding from investors like Andreeseen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Microsoft with a current valuation of $2 billion. Before founding Mistral, Arthur was a research scientist at DeepMind, one of the leading AI institutions in the world.

In Today’s Episode with Arthur Mensch We Discuss:

  1. From Models to Team Building: Arthur’s Greatest Lessons at DeepMind

  • What were Arthur’s biggest lessons from his time at DeepMind?

  • How did DeepMind shape how Arthur built Mistral?

  • Why does Arthur believe smaller teams are better for AI?

  • Why did Arthur decide to leave DeepMind and start Mistral?

  1. Scaling Mistral to $2 Billion Valuation Within a Year

  • What made Mistral 7B so successful? What did Arthur learn from the model release?

  • What are the biggest barriers at Mistral today?

  • How does Arthur balance the sales and research teams at Mistral?

  • What does Arthur know now that he wishes he had known when he started Mistral?

  1. How to Win in AI: Open Source, Cost, & Adoption

  • Why did Arthur open-source some models? Why did he close some?

  • How quickly will the cost of compute go down? Why does Arthur believe marginal costs will not go to zero?

  • How will open-sourcing LLMs affect the marginal cost?

  • Does Arthur think open source is ready for enterprise adoption?

  • What questions should enterprises be asking about AI adoption today?

  • What are the biggest challenges to AI adoption today?

  1. The Future of LLMs

  • What does Arthur think are the largest bottlenecks of model quality today?

  • Does Arthur think future models will be more generalized or vertical-focused?

  • What does Arthur think about the future of commoditization in models?

  • Why is Arthur optimistic about the profitability of the application layer of AI?

  • How should models differentiate themselves today?

 

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The PitchBy Harry Stebbings

  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4

4.4

478 ratings


More shows like The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

View all
This Week in Startups by Jason Calacanis

This Week in Startups

1,279 Listeners

a16z Podcast by Andreessen Horowitz

a16z Podcast

1,043 Listeners

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors by SaaStr

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

177 Listeners

Founders by David Senra

Founders

1,943 Listeners

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy by Colossus | Investing & Business Podcasts

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

2,290 Listeners

Equity by TechCrunch, Rebecca Bellan, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, Max Zeff, Theresa Loconsolo

Equity

339 Listeners

Y Combinator Startup Podcast by Y Combinator

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

227 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

9,264 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

129 Listeners

The Ben & Marc Show by Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz

The Ben & Marc Show

125 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

465 Listeners

AI + a16z by a16z

AI + a16z

32 Listeners

Lightcone Podcast by Y Combinator

Lightcone Podcast

21 Listeners

Training Data by Sequoia Capital

Training Data

43 Listeners

Uncapped with Jack Altman by Alt Capital

Uncapped with Jack Altman

36 Listeners