Ashton Kutcher, co-founder of Sound Ventures, believes that every company will become an AI company, but that there may be no winners in this space.
The actor and investor spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 on Tuesday alongside Sound co-founder Guy Oseary and partner Effie Epstein and discussed what the company looks for in founders and startups. , and detailed how they believe fundamental AI companies are setting the stage for the future.
“Foundation layer AI companies are going to be some of the most valuable companies in human history,” Kutcher said.
He said it's easy to underestimate how important AI is and believes that basic AI models will be the foundation for everything going forward.
“In the future, there won't be a company in the world that isn't using AI in some way,” Kutcher said. “So every company is going to be an AI company, and whether it's open source AI or closed systems like Anthropic or OpenAI or World Labs, they're going to use Magic.dev to build software. Our theory is that those things are the foundation for everything else.”
But he doesn't think there are any winners in this field. He believes that while fundamental AI companies are converging in some ways, they are also trying to differentiate.
“Sometimes we get too smart and too cute and think we can pick a winner, but there may not be a winner,” Kutcher said. “In general, there are different people who stand to gain a lot from AI and AGI, so they may not be in one of these exclusive areas.”
While some people fear AI, Kutcher says everyone should be excited about the possibilities the technology offers.
“When the personal computer first came out, I think a lot of people were afraid of it. And I think a lot of people were afraid of the car when it first came out, and a lot of people were afraid of the Industrial Revolution. I think, 'It happened,''' Kutcher said. “And I think the next level of innovation for humans, humans should be very excited about the possibilities, because we're all going to be able to do so much more than what we've been able to do historically. Because I think it will.”
Kutcher and Sound have been betting big on AI, launching a $265 million AI fund last year to invest in leading language modeling companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Hugging Face.
The actor, who has known OpenAI CEO Sam Altman since they founded Loopt, said Altman has no problem with Sound investing in multiple different AI companies.
“We're very good at keeping information in silos and not sharing it outside the company or across companies,” Kutcher said. “And we felt like we believed in this space.”
Kutcher noted that Sound has not taken any money from OpenAI, which is currently worth $157 billion.
Kutcher also took some time to share some advice for founders, advising them not to spend too much time on their decks, and that he and other sound partners remember OpenAI's decks. I pointed out that there was no.
“It's about the people and the humans who are in the building, who are building the building, and the capabilities that they have and why they win, and what the market theory and insights are, and that's the breakthrough,” he said. said. Said. “It's not a deck. Don't spend too much time on it.”