alt.hn

5/21/2025 at 4:10:06 PM

Introducing the Llama Startup Program

 https://ai.meta.com/blog/llama-startup-program/?_fb_noscript=1

by mayalilpony10

5/21/2025 at 4:49:35 PM

Better hurry:

> Applications for the initial cohort close on May 30, 2025 at 6:00 pm PT.

by neilv

5/21/2025 at 7:08:30 PM

Nice, just a little over a week. I'm sure they'll get many great applications.

by yellow_lead

5/21/2025 at 8:19:56 PM

Takes more than a week to fill out a form with 3 text boxes?

by paxys

5/21/2025 at 8:40:18 PM

Great natural filter for startup talent.

by bjornsing

5/22/2025 at 12:43:58 PM

Obviously you're meant to have Llama generate your application for you

by mystified5016

5/21/2025 at 5:53:26 PM

> Funding + Support -> Apply for Llama Startup Program by May 30 -> Vision

Feels a little backwards, no? Perhaps should have consulted Gemini.

by rgbrgb

5/21/2025 at 10:41:32 PM

This was my thought too. But somewhat revealing of the mindset involved in an awful lot of the AI "industry".

First, start with a pile of money and the vague notion of an AI tool. Usefulness will come later, surely, definitely, before we run out of pile of money.

by Fomite

5/21/2025 at 11:35:44 PM

Is it the AI industry or just VC in general? YC quite famously invests in founders, not ideas. Other accelerators are similar. They start with a pile of money and the vague notion of a startup idea. Usefulness comes later, after however many pivots, before they run out of the pile of money.

by pocketarc

5/22/2025 at 5:21:40 AM

"Yes."

by Fomite

5/21/2025 at 4:35:44 PM

Quick summary: Apply for up to $6K reimbursement per month for up to 6 months for Llama usage (wherever you use it). Incorporated startups with less than $10 million USD in funding are eligible. (disclosure: I work at Meta as Llama Partner Engineer)

by adamloving

5/21/2025 at 9:26:16 PM

> ... to receive cloud reimbursements of up to $6,000 USD per month for up to six months

by concerndc1tizen

5/21/2025 at 5:39:14 PM

> Employ at least one developer

What kind of developer? full/part-time or 1099 contractor?

by kjok

5/21/2025 at 7:27:09 PM

Do I count as the founder? I use contractors from Eastern Europe to do frontend, does that count?

Overall seems like a very niche offering, considering $6K is peanuts these days. You can get more by applying for any of Microsoft, Google, or Amazon startup programs. MSFT for instance straight up gives > $100K in cloud credits when you are funded (and if not, how do you pay your developer?)

by lostmsu

5/22/2025 at 2:11:44 AM

Is your business incorporated? I'm checking on whether contractors count towards the 1 developer requirement.

by adamloving

5/22/2025 at 2:22:08 AM

Can I incorporate tonight and apply?

by ivape

5/22/2025 at 4:19:28 AM

It is. But the question is more hypothetical. The offer seems to have a very limited value.

by lostmsu

5/22/2025 at 2:07:52 AM

Let me check on that just to be sure.

by adamloving

5/21/2025 at 4:51:44 PM

Does this just apply to API cost or finetuning/hosting on prem cost?

by YetAnotherNick

5/22/2025 at 2:19:24 AM

Great question, I'll check on that.

by adamloving

5/21/2025 at 4:48:43 PM

Is this pure reimbursement or are there any strings attached?

by bix6

5/21/2025 at 5:38:53 PM

The 6k is only for AI cloud hosting.

> Join us for the opportunity to receive cloud reimbursements of up to $6,000 USD per month for up to six months, technical resources, and a vibrant community

by joshuanapoli

5/22/2025 at 2:24:15 AM

It's reimbursement for Llama usage, and Meta is hoping you'll provide feedback on how Llama works for your scenario.

by adamloving

5/21/2025 at 5:20:06 PM

> disclosure: I work at Meta as Llama Partner Engineer

Do you know of any programmes for Tertiary Education initiatives?

by teruakohatu

5/22/2025 at 2:22:05 AM

Not that I know of for Llama... but checkout https://forwork.meta.com/meta-for-education/

by adamloving

5/22/2025 at 3:28:34 AM

Thanks :) A/VR is not my thing. Hopefully they will do something in the future. Tertiary Education is in crisis thanks to AI, but it’s also going to supercharge it and that’s where research is needed.

by teruakohatu

5/21/2025 at 6:35:46 PM

How does this program, or the adoption of Llama in general, benefit Meta?

by maxloh

5/21/2025 at 9:28:17 PM

If you come up with a great idea, then Facebook can either steal it from you or buy you out without them having to spend the funds to test all of the potential options.

Facebook hasn't had a good idea for over a decade (and even that one was trash), so they need a little help now and again.

by BizarroLand

5/22/2025 at 2:15:40 AM

Meta wants feedback from startups on how Llama can be improved.

by adamloving

5/23/2025 at 8:10:57 AM

Shut it down is the best thing you could do for it and for society. You work for a spyware company.

by mdhb

5/22/2025 at 2:23:12 AM

Meta doesn't have a business providing straight up API usage. This is a new market, if they can get startups relying on Llama hosting, then there's no reason this can't be a whole new market.

by ivape

5/22/2025 at 12:18:05 AM

Will payments to OpenRouter for hosted llama calls qualify?

by sbrother

5/22/2025 at 2:03:29 AM

Yes. You will just need to document how much of your OpenRouter bill was for Llama usage (like provide screenshots if its not broken down on your invoices or receipts).

by adamloving

5/22/2025 at 5:02:49 AM

Can one apply to this program if they have incorporated in the US (via Stripe Atlas, say), but aren't a US resident?

by ignoramous

5/21/2025 at 5:55:40 PM

Hi! Does it have to be a legally incorporated company?

by theanonymousone

5/21/2025 at 7:07:45 PM

What is a non-legally incorporated company?

by dbbk

5/21/2025 at 7:14:01 PM

An unincorporated association or sole proprietorship, for example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unincorporated_association

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sole_proprietorship

by valleyer

5/21/2025 at 8:21:47 PM

You literally linked to something called "unincorporated".

by paxys

5/21/2025 at 8:28:51 PM

Yes. That's what the "does it have to be legally incorporated" question is implicitly contrasting with, by my reading. (Not against some putative "non-legally incorporated company".)

by valleyer

5/21/2025 at 7:25:12 PM

A ton of one-person shops don’t spend the effort and money to legally incorporate in some manner.

by ghaff

5/22/2025 at 2:19:08 AM

Yes

by adamloving

5/21/2025 at 5:02:24 PM

Does anyone know of a good list of similar programs (cloud credits for startups)?

by ks2048

5/21/2025 at 9:55:25 PM

Azure and GCP both offer startup credits if you're incorporated, more if you've raised funding or have revenue. Not sure about AWS.

by shooker435

5/22/2025 at 12:43:04 AM

You don’t have to be incorporated for Azure startup program. Sole proprietor LLC works fine. It’s kind of an insane deal… $125k credits for a $150 LLC and a YouTube demo.

by alex1115alex

5/21/2025 at 6:35:54 PM

How does this program, or the adoption of Llama in general, benefit Meta?

by maxloh

5/21/2025 at 6:48:37 PM

I want to know the same thing, but the other day I heard an interesting stat that ChatGPT is the #4 top site by traffic, just behind Instagram and ahead of X. We mustn’t let all of that attention go elsewhere shall we?

by reilly3000

5/21/2025 at 5:13:46 PM

"for early-stage startups in the United States"

by k__

5/21/2025 at 10:53:06 PM

> and may help to fund their use of Llama models.

I love open weight (and better open source) LLMs and wish Llama all the best! But God help Meta if they have to pay startups to entice them to use their open weights model.

by lr1970

5/21/2025 at 7:09:29 PM

This image in the article has a size of 3MB: https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/499353575_...

by I_am_tiberius

5/21/2025 at 7:33:07 PM

I'm surprised they're leveraging a png for it instead of webp or some other compression format. Mainly surprised that compression of blog assets isn't automated for them.

by jjcm

5/22/2025 at 8:40:20 AM

> Eligibility: Based in the U.S.

_sigh_

by drclegg

5/21/2025 at 6:00:56 PM

Unfortunately, limited to US only.

by busymom0

5/21/2025 at 8:12:29 PM

To confirm, an LLC with a solo dev wouldn’t qualify?

by flaviuspopan

5/22/2025 at 2:36:29 AM

I am not affiliated with the program, but I suspect an LLC would count as incorporated, and therefore an LLC with a solo dev (that has raised less than $10m) would qualify.

by lgas

5/22/2025 at 2:28:13 AM

Am I the only one disappointed that it wasn’t a desktop app with a big splash screen picture of a llama on startup?

by rubitxxx10

5/21/2025 at 5:51:06 PM

Waiting for an obligatory WinampAI post because... It Really Whips the Llama's Ass.

by slowhand09

5/21/2025 at 4:44:13 PM

Make a good model first. Then you can start pushing for usage. Llama 4 isn't even the best open source non-reasoning model.

by seunosewa

5/21/2025 at 4:52:43 PM

It is a good model, but I think my bar is to stop faking benchmarks first.

by phillipcarter

5/21/2025 at 4:54:30 PM

What Llama4 model is good in your opinion?

by littlestymaar

5/21/2025 at 5:08:51 PM

I've only used Scout, but I found it more than acceptable as a "GPT-4 or better" level model for coding questions. I've not stress tested it in any way because I didn't need to. So it's fine! It's just not special.

by phillipcarter

5/21/2025 at 6:03:43 PM

> Llama 4 isn't even the best open source non-reasoning model.

It isn't even open source. There is a 700 million monthly active users limit.

https://huggingface.co/meta-llama/Llama-4-Scout-17B-16E-Inst...

by maxloh

5/21/2025 at 10:25:56 PM

> There is a 700 million monthly active users limit.

...so? Who cares? Why does it matter if big megacorporations cannot use it for free? I sure as hell don't care.

If you want to complain about the license a better target is the annoying advertising clause:

> i. If you distribute or make available the Llama Materials (or any derivative works thereof), or a product or service (including another AI model) that contains any of them, you shall (A) provide a copy of this Agreement with any such Llama Materials; and (B) prominently display “Built with Llama” on a related website, user interface, blogpost, about page, or product documentation. If you use the Llama Materials or any outputs or results of the Llama Materials to create, train, fine tune, or otherwise improve an AI model, which is distributed or made available, you shall also include “Llama” at the beginning of any such AI model name.

by kouteiheika

5/22/2025 at 4:03:31 AM

[dead]

by curtisszmania

5/21/2025 at 4:45:22 PM

[flagged]

by datavirtue

5/21/2025 at 7:44:00 PM

[flagged]

by HelpHumanity

5/21/2025 at 7:47:24 PM

Heh, I had a go at doing something in this space with AI a while back: finding properties via a prompt. It didn't end up working very well. Way too much hallucinations.

by dom96

5/21/2025 at 7:48:58 PM

Nice, what was it called is it still up? I'd love to hear why it didnt work out.. As of now, my product isnt using prompts and analyzes deals using a stacking ensemble model I made on recently trained data

by HelpHumanity

5/21/2025 at 5:42:17 PM

love it. any llm can be made to perform reliably and accurately which is the biggest pre-requisite when it comes to creating an "AI Agent". I think this gives people the opportunity to start somewhere because they can leverage multi-pass prompting frameworks like TSCE to scale: https://github.com/AutomationOptimization/tsce_demo. despite the fact that "llama isn't the best"

by airylizard

5/21/2025 at 8:13:19 PM

Our definitions of "reliable" and "accurate" must differ wildly.

by moron4hire

5/21/2025 at 11:23:22 PM

Exactly what leads to inaccurate output in LLM's. The semantic interpretation of each individual token isn't the same between us and it. "Interpretation", we likely define accuracy and reliability pretty closely the same you and I, but that interpretation is where we differ. As for my "definition" it's in the repo. I'm not funded by anyone, don't get paid, and have no product to sell. So if you're genuinely interested in discussing, I'm all for it!

by airylizard

5/21/2025 at 8:24:43 PM

My company qualifies for their criteria but Llama has been so bad compared to actual frontier models it doesn't seem worth it.

They should probably remove the restriction that you need to be incorporated and open it up to college students or something.

by CSMastermind