在硅谷，投资竞争对手已成为一种越来越普遍的做法；但公开诋毁竞争对手则属于不道德的行为。Khosla Ventures的创始人Vinod Khosla在周三公开表态支持Cognition（一家人工智能初创公司），反对Factory AI（另一家竞争对手），引发了广泛的批评。尽管他的投资机构同时持有这两家公司的股份。Khosla称Factory AI为“表现不佳的二线竞争对手”，并指责其创始人出于“绝望”而撒谎。
In Silicon Valley, investing in competitors is increasingly standard practice. Publicly trashing one of them is not. Vinod Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures, sparked a wave of criticism on Wednesday after publicly taking sides in a spat between Factory AI and Cognition — two rival AI coding startups — even though his firm has invested in both of them. Khosla sided emphatically with Cognition, calling Factory a “struggling second tier competitor” and accusing its founder of lying out of "desperation."
此前，Factory AI的首席执行官Matan Grinberg表示，该公司解雇了董事会观察员兼顾问Chris Degnan，原因是他“涉及Cognition的不道德行为”。Degnan则声称自己早在被解雇前就已经辞职，并否认自己曾向Cognition泄露过任何公司内部信息。不久之后，Degnan宣布将加入Cognition担任首席收入官。Cognition的首席执行官Scott Wu否认公司曾要求员工秘密收集竞争对手的信息。
Khosla's comments came after Factory CEO Matan Grinberg said the company was terminating Chris Degnan, its board observer and advisor, for "unethical conduct involving Cognition." Degnan said he had resigned before any termination and disputed sharing Factory information with Cognition. Degnan announced shortly afterward that he was joining Cognition as its chief revenue officer. Cognition CEO Scott Wu denied the company had asked employees to gather information about competitors “under-the-table.”
所有这些事件都发生在公开的平台X上，Khosla的言论遭到了众多初创企业创始人及投资者的反对。
All of this played out in the very public arena of X, and Khosla's comments were met with disagreement from startup founders and investors.
一位名为Palmer Luckey的防御技术公司Anduril的联合创始人写道：“你们不过是一群表现不佳的、毫无道德可言的二线竞争者；仅仅因为自己缺乏基本礼仪和行为规范，就选择撒谎。竟然公然否认Chris被解雇的事实，这种行为实在令人难以接受。”Khosla Ventures是Factory AI上个月完成的2亿美元融资轮的投资方之一。不过，Khosla Ventures并未对相关质疑作出任何回应。
You are a struggling second tier competitor that is more unethical and lying just because you have no decency or sense of proper behavior and shows your desperation. Straight out lying about if Chris being fired I thought would be below even you. "If they are struggling second-tier losers, why did you just invest in them a few weeks ago at a multi-billion dollar valuation?" wrote Palmer Luckey, the cofounder of defense technology company Anduril, in a Thursday reply on X. Khosla Ventures was a key investor in Factory's $200 million funding round that it announced last month.
Amplitude公司（一家专注于产品分析的初创企业）的首席执行官Spenser Skates表示：“这又是另一个‘不应该从Vinod那里获得投资’的理由。”他称Khosla为“风险投资生态系统中最具压迫性的投资人之一”，并指出Khosla的这种行为竟然针对的是他自己投资的公司之一。Khosla Ventures的董事总经理Keith Rabois则站在Factory AI这一方的立场上，他在X平台上写道：“即使掌握了董事会层面的信息，仍然选择接受面试且不辞职，这种行为简直荒谬至极。”
Khosla Ventures did not respond to a request for comment. Spenser Skates, the CEO of product analytics company Amplitude, wrote that it was “another great reason not to raise from Vinod." He called Khosla “one of the biggest bullies of founders in the VC ecosystem” and added that the investor was doing so to “one of his own portfolio companies no less.”Khosla Ventures' managing director, Keith Rabois, appeared to take the side of Factory AI.
Factory AI的创始人兼天使投资人Nathan Lands指出，Khosla的行为“显然已经越界了”，并强调创始人绝不能允许风险投资家们声称利益冲突无关紧要。这场争论以及Khosla的言论引发了大量网络恶搞（meme）的传播。Andreessen Horowitz公司的合伙人Olivia Moore也加入了这场调侃，她发布了一条带有讽刺意味的微博：“风险投资家们所谓的‘创造价值’，其实只是在做些无意义的事情罢了。”
"To even sit for an interview while having access to board-level information and without resigning is absolutely insane," Rabois wrote on X. Nathan Lands, an entrepreneur and angel investor in Factory, said Khosla had “clearly crossed a line,” adding that founders should not let VCs tell them that conflicts of interest do not matter. The spat and Khosla's comments also opened the meme floodgates. Olivia Moore, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, joined in with a meme captioned: “VCs ‘adding value.’”
这种争议凸显了人工智能领域一个尴尬却又日益普遍的现象：风险投资机构会同时投资多个相互竞争的初创企业。例如，开发AI编程工具Devin的Cognition公司，在9月份筹集了超过20亿美元后，其估值达到了480亿美元；而Factory AI公司的估值则在上个月达到了50亿美元，该公司销售的AI工具旨在自动化软件开发流程中的各种任务。
VCs "adding value" The backlash puts a spotlight on an awkward yet increasingly common practice in the AI boom: venture firms spreading bets across rival startups. Cognition, the maker of the AI coding agent Devin, is valued at $48 billion after raising more than $2 billion in September. Factory AI, which hit a $5 billion valuation last month, sells AI "Droids" designed to automate work across the software-development process.
在前沿科技领域，Sequoia Capital和Founders Fund等投资机构同时支持了OpenAI和Anthropic这两家竞争对手。根据Wired杂志对PitchBook数据的分析，大约有90位投资者同时持有这两家公司的股份。Salesforce Ventures也投资了其他竞争对手——Cohere和Mistral AI。
At the frontier-lab level, Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund are among the firms that have backed both OpenAI and Anthropic, despite the companies' fierce competition for talent, customers, and computing. In June, a Wired analysis of PitchBook data found that roughly 90 investors hold stakes in both labs. Salesforce Ventures has also invested in competing AI labs, Cohere and Mistral AI.