'My Investment In OpenAI Has No Impact On My Opinions': Venture Capitalist Vinod Khosla Issues Clarification

Pune-born Indian-American venture capitalist Vinod Khosla is known for his commentary on myriad issues, from US politics to the perils of Artificial Intelligence. In a recent instance, Khosla fended off some questions that were raised against him.

Meta On OpenAI Investment

While replying to Khosla's post on the functioning of AI models, particularly in reference to Meta's chief AI scientist Lama Yann LeCun said, "Vinod is a great guy, but he is (1) quite paranoid about China and (2) heavily invested in OpenAI. So, his scepticism of open source/open weight LLMs is understandable."

Investment, Not An Impediment

To this post, Khosla replied and said, quoting the post, "I am paranoid about China but my investment in OpenAI has no impact on my opinions just as my tax status has no bearing on my position on taxes."

Khosla made an early investment of USD 50 million in OpenAI in 2019, when the company was a non-profit.

Khosla further added, "I have lobbied for the carried interest tax the NVCA opposes for example. I think the rich should gain by income redistribution and a more equitable environment. I separate what is good for me and what I think is good for the country."

Vikranth Etikyala: Revolutionizing AI With Multi-Cloud SolutionThere was another response from Yann LeCun on the matter, in which he said, "We are on the same side of almost every issue, Vinod. I do think the benefits of open source/open-weight AI platforms far outweigh the risks related to China and other geopolitical rivals having access to it as well.s

In addition, he also said, "I know we agree on a lot of things. By the way Sun instigated open source more than anyone (NFS etc) as did our company Gitlab."

There was another response from Yann LeCun on the matter, in which he said, "We are on the same side of almost every issue, Vinod. I do think the benefits of open source/open-weight AI platforms far outweigh the risks related to China and other geopolitical rivals having access to it as well. AI foundation models are not some sort of doomsday device. They are more like Linux or Wikipedia."

Furthermore, LeCun also claimed that the Chinese government proscribes its citizens from accessing western chatbots, a move that is similar to its ban on Wikipedia.

According to Forbes, billionaire Vinod Khosla is estimated to be worth USD 7.8 billion.