Nvidia(US:NVDA) Sou Hu Cai Jing·2026-01-29 12:38Core Viewpoint - Hugging Face, an AI startup, unexpectedly rejected a $500 million investment offer from Nvidia, aiming to avoid a single dominant investor influencing its decisions [1][3]. Group 1: Company Overview - Hugging Face operates a platform hosting 2.5 million public AI models and over 700,000 public datasets, allowing users to download freely [3]. - The company has 13 million global users and promotes open-source models for developers, contrasting with major players like OpenAI and Google, which focus on proprietary models [3][4]. - Hugging Face has raised a total of $400 million, with a valuation of $4.5 billion in 2023, and retains half of its funds on hand [4]. Group 2: Business Model and Financials - The company employs a "freemium" business model, with about 3% of customers, typically large enterprises, paying for additional features [4]. - Hugging Face aims for profitability by 2025 but reported a loss in the first quarter of this year due to investment in datasets [4]. - The company does not prioritize revenue maximization but encourages developers to provide open-source alternatives for text, image, and visual models [4]. Group 3: Strategic Direction and Employee Dynamics - In 2022, Hugging Face launched the multilingual AI model BLOOM but has since exited the self-developed model space to control costs [5]. - The company is investing in robotics, datasets, and scientific research AI, having acquired a robotics company, Pollen, last year [5]. - Hugging Face's decentralized AI development philosophy allows employees to work remotely from various locations, although some former employees feel marginalized in strategic decisions [5]. Group 4: Employee Compensation and Culture - Salaries for researchers at Hugging Face typically range from $100,000 to $200,000, which is lower than top tech companies but competitive for startups [5]. - The company allows employees to publicly discuss their work, contrasting with larger tech firms that enforce strict communication protocols [6]. - Hugging Face's culture attracts talent committed to its mission of countering Silicon Valley dominance, as exemplified by its chief ethics scientist, who declined higher-paying offers to maintain her voice [6].