Arthur Mensch, French founder of artificial intelligence startup Mistral AI, attends the Viva Technology Show at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, France on May 22, 2024.
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PARIS — At industry conferences around the world, it's not uncommon to see prominent tech CEOs surrounded by fans and startup founders looking to network.
But it wasn't celebrities who were in the spotlight, it was the founders of some of the world's hottest newest artificial intelligence startups who are drawing attention and trying to shake it off.
Attending VivaTech, one of Europe's largest technology shows, were Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral AI, and Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic.
Just over a year after its founding, Mistral AI is a French startup that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and is backed by Microsoft. The company is valued at $2 billion, but some recent reports suggest the company is seeking further funding at a valuation of $6 billion. Mistral AI's phenomenal growth, which develops AI models similar to OpenAI, has put CEO Mensch in the spotlight.
After finishing his panel discussion on VivaTech's official stage in front of an audience on Wednesday, he was escorted quickly from the speakers' waiting room into an adjacent conference room in a special, restricted-access area of VivaTech events called the Viva Lounge.
When the meeting was over, Mensch was hurried out of the meeting room by two colleagues, who seemed reluctant to let him be surrounded by reporters and representatives from other startups, and escaped through a back door. One of them managed to briefly shake Mensch's hand.
Anthropic's Amodei also attracted a lot of attention. Shortly after the VivaTech session onstage on Wednesday, he emerged from the Viva Lounge to be greeted by a large group of people and, presumably, a few media cameras.
Amazon invested approximately $4 billion into Anthropic, which was just founded in 2021.
Both Mistral AI and Anthropic represent the overnight rise of AI companies into the spotlight, fueled by huge investments from industry giants and hype around the technology.
For example, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has become a much better-known figure as the company grows at a breakneck pace and its stock price continues to soar.
