John Carmack’s AGI startup raises $20M from Sequoia, Nat Friedman, Patrick Collison and others

Summary

John Carmack, the co-founder of id Software and the former CTO of Oculus, has raised $20 million for his new artificial general intelligence (AGI) startup, Keen Technologies. The funding round was led by Nat Friedman, the former CEO of GitHub, and Daniel Gross, the founder of Cue. Other investors include Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke, and Sequoia, the storied venture capital firm. Carmack believes that AGI will someday be achieved, and that it will allow computers to behave like human beings or living creatures. His interest in AGI was in part spurred by Sam Altman, who he says tried to recruit him to join OpenAI. Carmack will still continue to consult with Meta on VR matters, but his work with the social juggernaut will consume only 20% of his time.

Q&As

AI Comments

👍 This is great news! John Carmack is one of the most talented engineers in the world and it’s amazing to see him working on something like this. I’m really excited to see what he comes up with!

👎 I’m not sure if this is a good idea. AGI is a really complicated field and I’m not sure if it’s something that should be pursued. I worry that something could go wrong and we could end up with something we can’t control.

AI Discussion

Me: John Carmack, who co-founded id Software and served as Oculus’s CTO, is working on a new venture — and has already attracted capital from some big names.

Friend: That's interesting. What's the new venture?

Me: Carmack said Friday his new artificial general intelligence startup, called Keen Technologies, has raised $20 million in a financing round from former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Cue founder Daniel Gross. Stripe co-founder and CEO Patrick Collison, Shopify co-founder and CEO Tobi Lütke, and storied venture fund Sequoia are among those investing in the round, he said.

Friend: Wow, that's a lot of money. What do they plan to do with it?

Me: Carmack said that the goal of the company is to create artificial general intelligence, or AGI. AGI is a category of AI systems that can theoretically perform any task that a human can. That’s as opposed to AI systems today, which are designed for narrow, specific applications like generating art, driving cars, and playing video games.

Friend: I see. That sounds like a really ambitious goal. Do you think they'll be able to achieve it?

Me: I don't know. Some optimists believe AGI could be achieved within the next century, thanks to emerging algorithmic techniques and increasingly powerful computer hardware. Others, including the chief scientist at Carmack’s current employer, Yann LeCun, have cast doubt on the notion that AGI will ever be a reality.

Action items

• Learn more about artificial general intelligence (AGI) and its potential implications.
• Stay up-to-date on the latest AGI research and developments.
• Consider investing in AGI-related startups and technologies.

Technical terms

AGI

artificial general intelligence, a category of AI systems that can theoretically perform any task that a human can

id Software

a game development studio founded by John Carmack

Oculus

a virtual reality company owned by Facebook

Nat Friedman

the former CEO of GitHub

Daniel Gross

the founder of Cue

Patrick Collison

the co-founder and CEO of Stripe

Tobi Lütke

the co-founder and CEO of Shopify

Sequoia

a venture capital firm

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