TechFlow News, June 24: Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and investor in Anthropic and OpenAI, recently shared his views on multiple AI companies during the “Pioneers of AI” podcast. Hoffman bluntly stated that SpaceX “is not an AI company,” describing its acquisition of Cursor and other moves as “buying relevance.” He labeled xAI a “complete disaster”—all 11 original co-founders have departed, the company has undergone three reorganizations, and its flagship model Grok consistently lags behind competitors in benchmark tests.
Regarding the U.S. government’s forced removal of Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models under export control regulations, Hoffman expressed strong concern, criticizing the government’s approach as “authoritarian and principle-free,” and highlighting the markedly asymmetric regulatory standards applied to Anthropic versus OpenAI. Additionally, Hoffman emphasized that Anthropic and OpenAI are not engaged in zero-sum competition; each holds distinct advantages—in coding, design, legal frameworks, and consumer applications—and both stand poised to become “infrastructure-level” companies in the AI era. He also announced his resignation from Microsoft’s Board of Directors to fully dedicate himself to Manas AI, an AI-driven drug discovery company.
