Charles HudsonFounder and Managing Partner, Precursor Ventures

The Poker Game of AI Investments #deepseek #ai #tech #venturecapital

5 Mar 2025 · 1 min

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1:02

A short transcript excerpt from a March 5, 2025 YouTube conversation in which Charles Hudson and another speaker discuss strategic positioning in AI funding rounds. They frame large-model investing as a high-stakes "poker game" where having capital ('chips') matters for staying competitive, and note a specific funding round is $1.5 billion larger than Reuters previously reported. The speakers express concern that some well-funded LLM providers may fall behind if they cannot continue to raise capital.

Chapters

I never thought anything going on with Deep SEQ or probably any other competitors in this space would dry up any interest in OpenAI, anthropic, et cetera. But it's even more clear to me now that the carrot at the end of the stick of strategic positioning that is one from being part of these rounds is such an important part of this investment mindset. So the funding round is actually even larger than what Reuters reported last month by $1.5 billion. So curious to know where your thoughts are since we have a continuing thread about this on our team and in the podc.
I've long felt like a lot of this big ticket large model stuff is a big poker game and you got to have the chips to stay in the game. And if you don't have the chips, you can't invest in the next generation of your model. And if you can't invest in the next generation of your model, you're not competitive. And I think at some point this year or next year we will find out is there any residual value in a LLM provider who can't keep going? To me it's an evil that at least one or two of the reasonably well funded people will fall behind and won't be able to continue to raise this money.