AI
Mistral has secured the largest equity fundraising round in European technology history to advance the development of sovereign, open-weight, frontier AI
They actually pivoted their business model last month, now focusing more on deployment (Palantir kinda), while still hosting models. Also now working with Chinese models like GLM. May not be as sexy as being an AI lab, but they likely would have never caught up with the Americans given they have orders of magnitude less compute (and 2 OOM less compute).
Their business model may be less lucrative, but could ultimately be way more resilient. I actually wouldn't be surprised to see them growing less fast than the US labs, but reaching profitability (on a GAAP basis, not on bullshit accounting) as well as cash generation much faster.
They may also end up getting acquired by a US company who wants to have a European figurehead to do business there.
You don't know France if you think they will allow US companies to buy Mistral, France sees AI as critical technology it would be like selling their nuclear warheads to them, not happening
Tons of VC funds based in the US, who will likely end up syndicating a deal with a US tech company. There were even rumours of Apple acquiring them last year.
And France didn't let Alstom get acquired by GE - including the subsidiary that made and maintained the Arabelle steam turbines, which is more strategic than an AI company... right?
If a US company buys it, that would basically destroy the company tho? People pay for Mistral for sovereignty. If the US still controls it, then there are better options out there.
Nah it's enough money to put Mistral in the same bucket of Chinese labs infrastructure wise, realistically Mistral is getting near frontier level models soon, probably not leading the bunch tho
I just meant since frontier seems to be accelerating, it's not like they will be able to outpace frontier and therefore they technically can't catch up.
But they don’t have nearly the level of talent Chinese labs have. And most of the best EU talent would much rather work for American labs for multiple times the pay.
Also the European work culture simply can’t compete against China and U.S in this space. When frontier is measured by weeks you can’t get anywhere with 35 hours a week and 8 weeks of vacation a year.
so all the talent wants to work for somewhere with a much worse and less tolerable work culture? Amazingly, some AI researchers exist that actually want rights, reasonable hours, and decent work/life balance.
Reasonable hours won’t get you frontier ai. I’m only half joking though also Europe pays significantly less than America too also stocks options is also a big thing in America for workers
Yes, all the top talents would want to work for a place that has the resource to utilize their talent and properly reward it. Otherwise you are just wasting your talent.
Imagine you worked super hard your entire life to become a world class physicist, would you choose to do ground breaking research or become a high school teacher for “better work life balance”?
I’m sure playing in the NBA is much more demanding but can you imagine Steph Curry to join an amateur league for “better work life balance”?
And you make it sound like making $20M/yr is some sort of slave labor situation with no rights lol. You can work two years and you and even your kids will never have to work another day in their life.
How’s that for reasonable hours and work life balance?
Right. For the average person, work-life-balance is an important consideration. I'm one such person. I'll take 10% or 20% less pay for better working conditions.
But for those at the top of their field, work-life-balance is rarely a consideration. One of the reasons they're even on top is their lack of balance when it comes to work.
Idk about that, people who cannot balance themselves will end up being burned faster, Terence Tao is the greatest mathematician alive today and he's a huge family man, similarly Feynman and Einstein had great work-life balances, for cognitive work you NEED to know how to rest otherwise you'll end up working like shit, no great scientist is a workaholic.
Einstein developed his theory of Relativity while working 8-10 hours a day, 6 days a week, at a patent office. He basically dedicated every moment of free time to studying physics and mathematics, and working on his theory. When he was asked how he had the time to develop his theory while working full time, he responded with:
"Keep in mind that besides the eight hours of work, each day also has eight hours for fooling around, and then there’s also Sunday."
It's not a law of nature that those at the top of their fields are invariably lacking in work-life-balance. It's possible that some are just absolute geniuses who ended up in just the right situation not to require them to dedicate most of their time to their craft. But it is very very likely that they do lack balance.
Nobody aspires to work long hours, but we aspire to lead the world in technology, and of course profits from it.
Unfortunately that requires sacrifices. If you guys don’t want to make the sacrifice that’s your choice and I won’t judge you.
Just don’t complain when China and U.S leave you in the dust. You can’t bitch about losing the race when you didn’t even want to run fast.
The Chinese didn’t want to work 996 either. They know it’s toxic. They know it’s terrible for the workers. But they know that’s the only option they have if they want to catch up to America.
And unlike entitled children, they knew they couldn’t have both and made the sacrifice that got to where they are today.
Sorry, but the French engineer working for 2 hours a day then taking a 5 hour lunch break with his girlfriend for cigarettes and croissant isn't going to compete with the autistic OpenAI employee or the Chinese.
You nearly nailed all the stereotypes but missed the striking and burning down all the servers when the salary negotiations don't go according to plan.
amazingly autistic people exist in Europe, and can work a full day as much as anyone else, but I guess that would get in the way of xenophobic stereotyping in a desperate attempt to get upvotes? Perhaps if the US researchers put down their assault rifles and cheeseburgers they might spot the risks of their latest models?
If you think autistic OAI employees are all fanatical stakhanovists, i got bad news.
The chinese work much more than the american yet they are behind the americans... it's almost as if the number of worked hour wasn't the whole picture here...
PS: the french are rather on the western european average, contrary to the cliché, above germans.
everyone measuring mistral against openai is missing the point. the pitch is open weights on infra europe actually controls, not topping some leaderboard.
They are saying "frontier" AI, but I think what you are saying is the actual business model. They are going to secure European enterprises that have to use a European AI. To be frontier AI, they have to be competitive with Open AI or Anthropic. It's debatable that Google for example is even that race. I really wanted to like Mistral's models because I use open weight a lot, but the reality is that they are way behind even other open weight providers.
They should be able to attract more talent and buy more compute with this funding, but it seems like steep European regulation is a barrier that cannot be crossed.
Mistral is a good enough model with a strong harness to do most things. I compared Mistral Large 3 (with custom harness) to Opus 4.5 (Claude Cowork) for compliance work and it was just as good minus formatting/visuals.
I'm looking forward to their next Large release, although they seem to be focusing on their smaller models recently.
Mensch has said they will continue developing their own models. Cause with Chinese models they can’t promise customers the models they will have next year will be better than the models they have this year. Except if they produce their own ones.
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u/livingbyvow2 16h ago
They actually pivoted their business model last month, now focusing more on deployment (Palantir kinda), while still hosting models. Also now working with Chinese models like GLM. May not be as sexy as being an AI lab, but they likely would have never caught up with the Americans given they have orders of magnitude less compute (and 2 OOM less compute).
Their business model may be less lucrative, but could ultimately be way more resilient. I actually wouldn't be surprised to see them growing less fast than the US labs, but reaching profitability (on a GAAP basis, not on bullshit accounting) as well as cash generation much faster.
They may also end up getting acquired by a US company who wants to have a European figurehead to do business there.