These billion-dollar AI startups have no products, no revenue and eager investors

about his intentions.

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It is tough for startups to hold on to prized researchers.

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“The way I would describe it is that there are some ideas that I think are promising and I want to investigate them,” Sut skever said on a November episode of the Dwarkesh Podcast, making no promise that such ideas would lead to a breakthrough, a product or revenue. He also said AI is returning to an “age of research” after scaling up from 2020 to 2025.

In the past, the most ambitious AI research happened inside academic institutions or corporate research arms like Google’s DeepMind. Startups focused on finding applications of that research that could make money. The AI boom has pushed investors toward funding research itself.

“A venture-backed lab—this is a new thing,” said Pete Sonsini, co-founder of Laude Ventures, “It’s not traditional venture capital.”

US AI startups raised a record $222 billion last year, according to research firm PitchBook. Investors say they are seeing a rising number of researchers pitching neolabs.

Not everyone is convinced these researchers can generate financial returns.