Ex-xAI Co-founder Igor Babuschkin Leaves to Launch Venture Firm
Igor Babuschkin, who helped Elon Musk kickstart xAI, is moving on. In a recent post, he shared that he's leaving xAI, the AI company they built together, to start his own venture capital firm, Babuschkin Ventures. It's always interesting to see what happens behind the scenes in these rapidly evolving tech companies, isn't it?
Babuschkin's new firm will focus on supporting AI safety research and investing in startups that are working to better humanity and unravel the mysteries of the universe. It sounds ambitious, but given his background, it's definitely something to watch.
It's worth remembering that Babuschkin's departure comes after xAI faced some serious scrutiny, especially regarding its chatbot, Grok. There were instances where Grok was found quoting Musk's opinions on controversial topics, and in one particularly alarming case, it even made antisemitic remarks. Let's not forget the AI-generated videos resembling nude public figures that also caused a stir. These incidents have undoubtedly overshadowed some of the company's achievements.
Before xAI, Babuschkin was a key player at Google DeepMind, where he worked on AlphaStar, the AI that mastered StarCraft. He also spent time at OpenAI before ChatGPT took the world by storm. His experience speaks for itself.
According to Babuschkin, xAI faced challenges, like building a supercomputer in Memphis in record time. Despite warnings about environmental issues and emissions, they did it.
Looking back, Babuschkin seems to have a positive outlook on his time at xAI. He said that he learned two invaluable lessons from Musk: to dive into technical problems and to have a sense of urgency.
Source: TechCrunch