Jeff Bezos is putting $6.2 billion-and himself as co-CEO-behind a new AI startup. Bubble? That's no trouble | Fortune

"As the New York Times reported yesterday, Bezos has helped fund a new AI startup called Project Prometheus, which-with $6.2 billion in backing-would make it one of the most well-financed early-stage startups in the world. Notably, as co-CEO alongside Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who previously worked at GoogleX, the company's "Moonshot Factory," Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company for the first time since stepping down as Amazon CEO in July 2021."

"According to the article, the company is focusing on AI-powered engineering and manufacturing in areas including computers, aerospace and automobiles, and has poached researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta. According to someone familiar with Project Prometheus' work, the startup seeks to apply AI to physical tasks, which requires systems that can learn not just from massive amounts of digital data, like LLMs do, but from real-world trial and error."

"Still, even in the high-flying, multi-billion-dollar AI startup space, the competition is fierce: Besides the billions poured into the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Elon Musk's xAI, former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's Thinking Machines raised $2 billion earlier this year, while former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever has raised $3 billion for his research startup, Safe Superintelligence. Then there is Paris-based Mistral, which closed a Series C of about $2 billion in September, and even You.com's Richard Socher is rumored to be trying to raise $1 billion for a new research lab."

Jeff Bezos has funded and taken an operational co-CEO role at Project Prometheus with $6.2 billion in backing. Project Prometheus focuses on applying AI to engineering and manufacturing across computers, aerospace, and automobiles. The company has recruited researchers from leading AI organizations including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta. The startup aims to build systems that learn from real-world trial and error as well as digital data, addressing the challenges of applying AI to physical tasks. Project Prometheus enters a crowded landscape where multiple competitors and research labs have raised multibillion-dollar funding. Bezos acknowledges an AI bubble but distinguishes it from the dot‑com collapse.

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