News Apple has contacted Thinking Machines Lab, a former CTO startup company, but failed to negotiate acquisition

Passionategeekz On June 24, according to Bloomberg Mark Gurman in his latest “Power On” newsletter, in addition to having internal discussions on the potential acquisition of Perplexity, Apple has also discussed the possibility of a deal with another company that has attracted much attention in the field of artificial intelligence – Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati.

Mira Murati served as chief technology officer at OpenAI until she left the company last year due to turbulence on the company’s board of directors. The turmoil ultimately led to the brief ousting of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. According to the book The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future, Murati and OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever are key figures behind this bizarre board coup. Murati even briefly served as Interim CEO of OpenAI after Sam Altman was ousted. However, she soon threatened to resign unless Sam Altman resumed his position. As the coup failed, Murati and other relevant personnel took back their positions in an attempt to save the company and their positions.

Less than a year later, Murati left OpenAI to create a new AI startup Thinking Machines Lab. Meanwhile, Ilya Sutskever also left OpenAI and founded his own company, Safe SuperIntelligence. According to Gurman, Apple met with Murati earlier this year.The possibility of acquiring Thinking Machines Lab was discussed, but no substantial progress was made in the negotiations.

Thinking Machines Lab is a typical representative of the current field of artificial intelligence. Although the company has not launched any products yet, it has just completed its largest seed round of financing ever, raising $2 billion (Passionategeekz Note: the current exchange rate is approximately RMB 14.362 billion), led by Andreessen Horowitz. This has caused the company’s valuation to soar to US$10 billion (current exchange rate is approximately RMB 71.809 billion).

Public information about Thinking Machines Lab is currently limited to its mission. The company is committed to building “a future where everyone has access to AI knowledge and tools to meet their unique needs and goals.” In the launch declaration released on its official website, the company notes: “The scientific community’s understanding of cutting-edge AI systems lags behind the ability to grow rapidly. The training knowledge of these systems is concentrated in top research labs, limiting public discussion of AI and the ability of people to use AI effectively. Despite the potential, they are still difficult to customize to people’s specific needs and values. To bridge these gaps, we are building Thinking Machines Lab to make AI systems easier to be widely understood, more customizable, and more powerful.”

Despite Apple’s interest in Thinking Machines Lab, unlike Perplexity’s ongoing internal assessment, negotiations with Murati allegedly “never advanced to the advanced stage.”

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