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How Index Ventures jumped to the front of the AI GPU line on August 19, 2023 at 7:10 am
Earlier this week, the New York Times shone a light on some of the desperation that founders are experiencing as they try and fail to secure compute power for their nascent artificial intelligence startups, thanks to the big companies (and even rich nations) racing to snatch them up. One founder reportedly said of the graphics processing units, or GPUs, that he needs for his company: “I think about [them] as a rare earth metal at this point.”
According to that Times piece, founders are trying numerous measures to amass the chips, including calling in favors from friends at large equipment vendors that might have GPUs to spare, and navigating an obscure U.S. government program called Access.
At least one firm, the global investor Index Ventures, happened on an additional idea, it told the outlet. To help ensure its portfolio companies aren’t hamstrung by the shortage, it struck a deal with Oracle to provide its founders with some of these sought-after chips (specifically Nvidia’s H100 chips and Nvidia’s A100 chips).
To learn more about the arrangement — one that other venture firms are undoubtedly trying to replicate — we talked earlier today with Erin Price-Wright, a Bay Area-based partner with Index who focuses on enterprise software and AI and who, before joining the venture firm in 2019, was the head of product for Palantir’s data analytics and machine learning platform. Excerpts from our chat have been lightly edited for length and clarity below; you can hear our longer conversation here.
TechCrunch: Tell us about this partnership with Oracle.
Erin Price-Wright: Access to compute is one of the biggest challenges that AI companies face, and it’s especially hard for an early-stage company to get their hands on GPUs. It’s less about the cost in particular but the fact that something like more than 95% of GPU capacity is already allocated to large players in this space [because] they make these pretty big pre-commitments with cloud vendors. So if you’re an early-stage company, and you’re just trying to get started training, or fine tuning the model, there’s usually a really long lead time between when GPUs are even available. It can be three months to a year in some cases and it’s really hard to just get started.
If you’re an early-stage company that’s still figuring out what your product is, you don’t even know how many GPUs you need. So even that process of discovery of understanding what your workloads are going to look like can be super challenging for early-stage companies. So we’re partnering with Oracle to provide GPUs to our earliest-stage portfolio companies, because we want to help remove that barrier of access so that they can really focus on what matters from day zero. Ultimately, the goal is to help all of these companies graduate to their own cluster. We’re not in the business of providing these massive GPU clusters to our companies. . .but we really want to give them a head start, so that they can start building faster as a way to help level the playing field.
How did the deal come together?
We wanted to make sure that people who are building against very tangible business problems didn’t feel like they had to change their business model or change the way they were representing themselves or change the way they were fundraising in order to just get access to GPUs. So it was really born out of seeing this pattern again and again with early stage companies where we were like, ‘This is where Index as a fund actually has real leverage. And we can use our position in the market, our relationships, and the fact that we can kind of aggregate this demand across multiple companies to really provide value-additive services’ [to our founders].
Did Index put a down payment together or has it purchased chips outright from Oracle? Are you giving Oracle a stake in these startups?
We’re not purchasing any chips outright. So the partnership with Oracle is that Index makes the pre commitment on the behalf of our startups and pays the cloud bill. Oracle manages the cluster — they’ve been a fantastic partner — and then our companies get access to that GPU cluster for free.
So you’re paying [this cloud bill] in advance. Did you have to talk with your own investors about that? That’s not typical of what [a venture firm] would do historically.
In terms of the actual structure of how the agreement works, I’ll probably hold off on sharing too many of those details.
Is this an exclusive relationship? Is there anything to prevent other venture firms from doing the same thing?
Yeah, of course [they could do the same], there certainly isn’t [an exclusive relationship with Index].
One benefit that Oracle gets out of it is to meet the next generation of fantastic companies as early as possible. In the process of using our GPU cluster, we’re actively helping our companies navigate the process of signing their own dedicated cloud deal. So the idea is not for them to [do] this in perpetuity; it’s for them to develop relationships with Oracle and AWS and the other large cloud providers and sign their own dedicated contract.
One of your portfolio companies, Cohere, counts Oracle as one of its backers along with Nvidia, which are two of the companies you most want to have involved with your portfolio companies right now.
One of the ways we really can help our portfolio companies is making sure they’re connected to the right people at the right time, so that they get the resources they need.
Index has at least 20 portfolio companies that fall into the AI/ML bucket, including Cohere [which has already raised $445 million] and another company that recently raised a huge seed round, Mistral AI in France. Is too much money being invested broadly in generative AI or are we still in the ‘early innings,’ as VCs like to say?
We are in the early innings. I do think we’re rapidly entering a cooling off period in terms of sentiment, especially for some of these very large rounds and especially from traditional VCs. There’s still a really big gap between the promise and power of the core models of technology and what it’s going to take for them to be actually used and useful across many use cases in the enterprise. There’s just a huge infrastructure gap missing that needs to be filled, and it’s not going to be filled overnight; it’s going to take some time.
Over the coming 12 months, while I’m still very excited about the power of the core technology and how transformational it’s going to be for the world, I think we’re going to see a little bit of a backing off as companies really grapple with it, figure out the ROI, kind of prioritize use cases and start actually building real things beyond maybe the one or two prototype demo apps that they’ve been working on for the last six months. That’s when we’re going to start seeing the infrastructure emerge that’s going to start supporting these use cases at scale.
How do you as an investor ensure that your AI companies don’t overlap? And is that any harder or more difficult than when it comes to traditional startups?
I don’t think it’s massively different than how we think about competition elsewhere. Everyone paints AI as this standalone category. But if I look forward even two years, let alone five or 10, every single piece of software that we use will have AI as its beating heart. There will be no piece of code, no software, no application, no website that you visit, that doesn’t have AI as a core component of it. I almost think about it like SaaS. Is every single SaaS company the same? No. Every single SaaS company has a database, every single SaaS company has a front end, every single SaaS company has some interaction between the two. AI is kind of similar to a database in that respect. It’s just kind of a core building block in how you build software.
We’re very early in the market, so there’s going to be some movement and some change as companies figure out how to use these tools and what specific problems to go after. But it’s not different than how we think about traditional SaaS investing from my perspective.
Earlier this week, the New York Times shone a light on some of the desperation that founders are experiencing as they try and fail to secure compute power for their nascent artificial intelligence startups, thanks to the big companies (and even rich nations) racing to snatch them up. One founder reportedly said of the graphics
President Donald Trump says the United States might one day get rid of federal income tax because of money the government collects from tariffs on imported goods. Tariffs are extra taxes the U.S. puts on products that come from other countries.
What Trump Is Saying
Trump has said that tariff money could become so large that it might allow the government to cut income taxes “almost completely.” He has also talked about possibly phasing out income tax over the next few years if tariff money keeps going up.
How Taxes Work Now
Right now, the federal government gets much more money from income taxes than from tariffs. Income taxes bring in trillions of dollars each year, while tariffs bring in only a small part of that total. Because of this gap, experts say tariffs would need to grow by many times to replace income tax money.
Questions From Experts
Many economists and tax experts doubt that tariffs alone could pay for the whole federal budget. They warn that very high tariffs could make many imported goods more expensive for shoppers in the United States. This could hit lower- and middle‑income families hardest, because they spend a big share of their money on everyday items.
What Congress Must Do
The president can change some tariffs, but only Congress can change or end the federal income tax. That means any real plan to remove income tax would need new laws passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. So far, there is no detailed law or full budget plan on this idea.
What It Means Right Now
For now, Trump’s comments are a proposal, not a change in the law. People and businesses still have to pay federal income tax under the current rules. The debate over using tariffs instead of income taxes is likely to continue among lawmakers, experts, and voters.
Former President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing federal agencies to declassify all government files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier whose death in 2019 continues to fuel controversy and speculation.
The order, signed Wednesday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, instructs the FBI, Department of Justice, and intelligence agencies to release documents detailing Epstein’s network, finances, and alleged connections to high-profile figures. Trump described the move as “a step toward transparency and public trust,” promising that no names would be shielded from scrutiny.
“This information belongs to the American people,” Trump said in a televised statement. “For too long, powerful interests have tried to bury the truth. That ends now.”
U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that preparations for the release are already underway. According to sources familiar with the process, the first batch of documents is expected to be made public within the next 30 days, with additional releases scheduled over several months.
Reactions poured in across the political spectrum. Supporters praised the decision as a bold act of accountability, while critics alleged it was politically motivated, timed to draw attention during a volatile election season. Civil rights advocates, meanwhile, emphasized caution, warning that some records could expose private victims or ongoing legal matters.
The Epstein case, which implicated figures in politics, business, and entertainment, remains one of the most talked-about scandals of the past decade. Epstein’s connections to influential individuals—including politicians, royals, and executives—have long sparked speculation about the extent of his operations and who may have been involved.
Former federal prosecutor Lauren Fields said the release could mark a turning point in public discourse surrounding government transparency. “Regardless of political stance, this declassification has the potential to reshape how Americans view power and accountability,” Fields noted.
Officials say redactions may still occur to protect sensitive intelligence or personal information, but the intent is a near-complete disclosure. For years, critics of the government’s handling of Epstein’s case have accused agencies of concealing evidence or shielding elites from exposure. Trump’s order promises to change that narrative.
As anticipation builds, journalists, legal analysts, and online commentators are preparing for what could be one of the most consequential information releases in recent history.
What Happened at the United Nations
On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, defending Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza. As he spoke, more than 100 delegates from over 50 countries stood up and left the chamber—a rare and significant diplomatic walkout. Outside the UN, thousands of protesters gathered to voice opposition to Netanyahu’s policies and call for accountability, including some who labeled him a war criminal. The protest included activists from Palestinian and Jewish groups, along with international allies.
Why Did Delegates and Protesters Walk Out?
The walkouts and protests were a response to Israel’s continued offensive in Gaza, which has resulted in widespread destruction and a significant humanitarian crisis. Many countries and individuals have accused Israel of excessive use of force, and some international prosecutors have suggested Netanyahu should face investigation by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, including claims that starvation was used as a weapon against civilians. At the same time, a record number of nations—over 150—recently recognized the State of Palestine, leaving the United States as the only permanent UN Security Council member not to join them.
International Reaction and Significance
The diplomatic walkouts and street protests demonstrate increasing global concern over the situation in Gaza and growing support for Palestinian statehood. Several world leaders, including Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, showed visible solidarity with protesters. Petro called for international intervention and, controversially, for US troops not to follow orders he viewed as supporting ongoing conflict. The US later revoked Petro’s visa over his role in the protests, which he argued was evidence of a declining respect for international law.
Why Is This News Important?
The Gaza conflict is one of the world’s most contentious and closely-watched issues. It has drawn strong feelings and differing opinions from governments, activists, and ordinary people worldwide. The United Nations, as an international organization focused on peace and human rights, is a key arena for these debates. The events surrounding Netanyahu’s speech show that many nations and voices are urging new action—from recognition of Palestinian rights to calls for sanctions against Israel—while discussion and disagreement over the best path forward continue.
This episode at the UN highlights how international diplomacy, public protests, and official policy are all intersecting in real time as the search for solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains urgent and unresolved.
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