"The Cognitive Revolution" | AI Builders, Researchers, and Live Player Analysis

How Hugging Face raised $235M

Aug 31, 2023

01:02:47

Snipd AI

The podcast analyzes Hugging Face's recent funding round, community and defensibility, competitors in the space, and its ability to fulfill its valuation. It also discusses the importance of curation, keeping AI content fresh, and challenges faced by scaling communities. The potential of Replit as an independent company and the value and risks of Hugging Face in the AI industry are explored.

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Quick takeaways

Hugging Face needs to ensure that its products stand out in terms of performance and value to retain users.

Managing the diverse needs and expectations of its community and balancing open source ethos with profitability are key factors in determining Hugging Face's future success.

Hugging Face should focus on improving the performance and scalability of its inference endpoint to compete effectively.

Deep dives

Overview of Hugging Face and its Role

Hugging Face is a company that started as a chatbot company and is now a leading online hub for sharing and discovering various AI models, datasets, and demos. It has become a central platform for the open source AI community and is known for advocating for equal access to AI tools. However, while Hugging Face has a strong community and offers valuable resources, it may face challenges in building a sustainable business model. It competes in the fiercely competitive compute market and its commitment to open source everything could make it difficult to maintain competitive advantages and margins in the future.

The Importance of Community Size and Goals

02:21

Introduction

5min

Hugging Face's Rise and Community Focus

12min

Challenges Faced by Scaling Communities

2min

Building and Maintaining Online Communities

29min

The Potential for Replit to Become a Massive Independent Company

8min

Assessing the Value and Risks of Hugging Face in the AI Industry

7min

In this episode, Nathan and Erik sit down to analyze Hugging Face in light of its recent $235M Series D round. They analyze Hugging Face’s community and defensibility through the lens of other community businesses like ProductHunt and Yelp, assess its ability to fulfill its $4.5 billion valuation, and assess competitors and other notable companies in the space like Replit, Character, and Runway. If you're looking for an ERP platform, check out our sponsor, NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/cognitive

We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: eriktorenberg.com.

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00:57) Episode Preview

(00:01:52) Nathan’s Introduction

(00:04:57) Overview of Hugging Face and recent fundraising announcement

(00:08:13) Hugging Face’s product line

(00:16:47) Sponsors: Netsuite | Omneky

(00:18:36) Community driven businesses and HuggingFace’s moat

(00:23:23) Discovery and inference

(00:28:04) Hugging Face’s ideological nature

(00:31:31) Curation is key

(00:33:46) Keeping content fresh when AI moves so fast

(00:35:44) If Hugging Face is a $50 billion company one day, what would it look like?

(00:48:08) Hugging Face vs Replit

(00:57:19) Contrasting Hugging Face with other companies like Character and Runway

LINKS MENTIONED:

Hugging Face's LLM leaderboard

X/TWITTER:

@labenz (Nathan)

@eriktorenberg

@CogRev_Podcast

SPONSORS: Shopify | NetSuite | Omneky

Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. Shopify powers 10% of ALL eCommerce in the US. And Shopify's the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen, and 1,000,000s of other entrepreneurs across 175 countries.From their all-in-one e-commerce platform, to their in-person POS system – wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. With free Shopify Magic, sell more with less effort by whipping up captivating content that converts – from blog posts to product descriptions using AI. Sign up for $1/month trial period: https://shopify.com/cognitive

NetSuite has 25 years of providing financial software for all your business needs. More than 36,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅ head to NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/cognitive and download your own customized KPI checklist.

Omneky is an omnichannel creative generation platform that lets you launch hundreds of thousands of ad iterations that actually work customized across all platforms, with a click of a button. Omneky combines generative AI and real-time advertising data. Mention "Cog Rev" for 10% off.

Music Credit: GoogleLM

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