new on @airstreetpress: @percyliang of @stanford and @togethercompute, who joined our @stateofaireport launch in SF a few weeks ago, answers a few questions on truly open AI.

We talk about why it matters, where the field’s going wrong and some solutions. First up, the term ‘open source’ is often a bit of a misnomer.

If we apply the bar for open source we use for most software to LLMs - they fail.

🪩The @stateofaireport 2024 has landed! 🪩

Our seventh installment is our biggest and most comprehensive yet, covering everything you *need* to know about research, industry, safety and politics.

As ever, here's my director’s cut (+ video tutorial!) 🧵 For a while, it looked like @OpenAI’s competitors had succeeded in closing the gap, with frontier lab performance converging significantly as the year went on…

New on @airstreetpress - last year we evaluated ~450 opportunities and countless even earlier stage ideas

In the end, we made 3 seed investments

The biggest single reason for passing was that ideas were unexciting

So, what makes for an exciting opportunity?

Thread! We look for ideas that are non-consensus today, but have the potential to flip into being voted consensus by the market in a few years’ time.

Non-consensus doesn’t just mean ‘whacky’ or ‘mad - there are instead three main things ideas have in common.

Open source is one of the biggest drivers of progress in software - AI would be unrecognizable without it.

However, it is under existential threat from both regulation and well-funded lobby groups.

The community needs to defend it vigorously. 🧵 While open source may win a partial stay-of-execution in the EU AI Act, a large number of well-funded lobbying organizations are trying to ban already existing open source models.

🪩The @stateofaireport 2023 is now here.

Our 6th installment is one of the most exciting years I can remember. The #stateofai report covers everything you *need* to know, covering research, industry, safety and politics.

There’s lots in there, so here’s my director’s cut 🧵 2023 was of course the year of the LLM, with the world being stunned by @OpenAI’s GPT-4.

GPT-4 succeeded in beating every other LLM - both on classic AI benchmarks, but also on exams designed for humans.

🧬Today is a big day for AI-first biology!

🤓@thisismadani et al in @NatureBiotech: LLMs learn to generate protein sequences with a predictable function across large protein families.

🆕@ProfluentBio launches w/$9M from @airstreet @insightpartners!

🧵🔽
endpts.com/exclusive-prof… Summer is my queue to start pulling together narratives for @stateofaireport.

By '20, it was clear to me that biology was experiencing its "AI moment": a flurry of AI+bio papers and AlphaFold 2.

In summer '21, I dove deeper and crossed paths with Ali's work at @SFResearch...

Companies born in our universities need more than government spin...

In the @thetimes, I argue that rewriting the playbook for creating companies from uni inventions is critical to tech sovereignty.

Britain won't be a Science Superpower w/out spinouts.

thetimes.co.uk/article/d4e53a… Without an efficient engine to transform our R&D spend into real-world companies and products, how are we to see British inventions improve lives, deliver value to our society and strengthen our economy?

<5% of the £24B raised by UK startups in 2022 went to spinouts.

Here's part 2 of our 2022 Year in Review!

1) @spinoutfyi, creating companies from uni research
2) @stateofaireport, the annual temp check for AI
3) other fun things with great collaborators!

...let's go :) Starting w/@spinoutfyi 🧑‍🔬

The world's most needed and impactful technologies emerge from our universities, but inventors still struggle to build companies from their work.

June '22, we open sourced 143 spinout deal terms from 71 global universities.

spinout.fyi/blog/data-laun…

I look back at what we were up to in 2022 👀

Part 1
- @airstreet, portfolio + team news
- Lots of writing!

Part 2
- @spinoutfyi, creating companies from uni research
- @stateofaireport, the annual temp check for AI
- @londonai + @raais, communities building AI

...let's go 😉 On the @airstreet front, we looked closely at >300 opportunities and many more before that stage.

Fund 1 made 3 new and 5 follow-on investments.

We raised Fund 2, which made 2 new investments.

We set up 2 SPVs for 1 new and 1 follow-on investment.

Now, for some highlights!

🪩The @stateofaireport 2022 is live!🪩

In its 5th year, the #stateofai report condenses what you *need* to know in AI research, industry, safety, and politics. This open-access report is our contribution to the AI ecosystem.

Here's my director's cut 🧵:
stateof.ai This year, research collectives such as @AiEleuther @BigscienceW @StabilityAI @open_fold have open sourced breakthrough AI language, text-to-image, and protein models developed by large centralized labs at a never before seen pace.

Here I show you the GPT model timeline:

In May 2021, I wrote an @FT oped to catalyse a discussion on rewriting the university spinout playbook.

We've since crowdsourced deal terms from spinouts all over the world.

Today, we’re sharing the @spinoutfyi database: The largest of its kind spinout.fyi/blog/data-laun…🧵 The database includes 143 unique entries from 71 universities from around the world.

47% are based in the UK, 37% in Europe, and 11% in the US.

41% raised Seeds, 17% raised Series As, 2% raised Series Bs, 15% were pre-funding, 3% no longer exist, 3% IPO'd, 7% exited via M&A.

The @stateofaireport 2021 is live!

Est. 2018, @soundboy and I compile the most important work in AI research, industry, talent, and politics to inform conversation about the #stateofai. Our report is open-access to all.

Here's a director's cut 🧵:
stateof.ai This year, we have seen AI become increasingly pivotal to breakthroughs in everything from drug discovery (ref: @exscientiaAI @RecursionPharma - 2020 Report IPO predictions!) to mission critical infrastructure like electricity grids and logistics warehouses.

🌟 @airstreet update! 6 months after public launch our $17M Fund has upscaled to $26M!

The market to build AI-first tech and life science companies to solve huge global challenges is massive.

Our largest investor is @PrimaMateria_ led by @shak @eldsjal @brettbivens! Thread 🔽 I started in VC after finishing my bio PhD in 2013.

After investing in a range of industries, biz models, and tech approaches, I became convinced that tomorrow’s winners will be AI-first by design.

I made the case in @techcrunch in 2015: techcrunch.com/2015/12/25/inv…

Yesterday, @imperialcollege President @Alicegast wrote a letter in the @FinancialTimes in response to my oped urging a rewrite of the spinout playbook.

I would like to respond here because the letter does not make sense and misses my point. Thread 🔽

https://twitter.com/imperialcollege/status/1394184304448704512

The letter is entitled "Universities need investors to bridge the start-up funding gap". " Prof Gast essentially says that there is *no* problem w/how universities spin out companies, pointing to "750 active companies that raised £800M" at Imperial, i.e. £1m per spinout on avg..

So many golden replies in the @FT comments section. Thread 🔽

https://twitter.com/nathanbenaich/status/1391822103561834496

Today, EU+UK universities have the ingredients to be spinout powerhouses: world-leading research, ambitious academics, and VC funding.

Instead, our unis propagate an unproductive downward spiral of short-termism that hamstrings founders.

Thread 🔽

ft.com/content/fd0383… As a researcher-turned-investor, I've seen this first hand. Forming spinouts back then was discouraged, miring colleagues in bureaucracy that undermined their work. Today, startups are still not rewarded in our academic culture; worse, founders are considered problem children.

A few live notes from a webinar run by @TTCP_SF and @CooleyLLP for GPs:

- VC funds investing through the GFC were some of the best for vintages 2000-2019 by TVPI, esp 2008 vintage

- M&As likely delayed by 2 years from now

- Valuation cuts by 30% sets pricing to 2017 levels
👇 Communication is key across the board: LPs-GPs-startups

Some LPs starting to look at opportunistically at selling non-core, unfunded commitments

HNW/FOs proactively seeking liquidity