[parnian1268]

Founder here. We have secured partial funding but not all that we intend to raise. This is just a pre-application - an improved website and application will be released later. If you submit your application now we'll follow up with you when we release our full application or convert it automatically.

We're focused on creating a world-class mentorship community before increasing our Fellow outreach efforts.

[growlix]

Very cool idea! Nice to see funding for non-traditional research models.

But I'm a little confused why you made this comment on an earlier HN post about Shannon Labs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17675617

[nicklovescode]

it was posted earlier, but never made it on the top 10 pages for reasons we couldn't figure out despite getting plenty of upvotes on /newest. To check if it was actually alive we posted a couple dummy comments after a while, and then abandoned the post.

(disclosure, I'm a mentor and the post was sent to a few mentors, which likely tripped some bot checker)

[confeit]

Because you also used a voting ring (next to astroturfing). Admire the hustle, though a bit too naughty.

[nicklovescode]

A few of us think the project is very much worth upvoting! The bot checker should appreciate that :)

[confeit]

That's why I called it naughty and not blatant manipulation. Now if this were an ICO or a company looking for an easy flip in the overhyped AI market, it would be different.

[growlix]

Totally reasonable. I was more (be/a)mused than suspicious. I'm excited to see what gets funded!

[throwawaymath]

That's not confusing :)

It looks like the founder was just trying to kick off discussion without being explicit about her involvement. The submitter (Aaron Lin) is also part of the organization.

In the scheme of things, I give them a pass. Raising attention for an initiative like this can be challenging. It's not actually dishonest.

[quickben]

" It's not actually dishonest."

dishonest - Intended to mislead or cheat.

Raising any initiative with multiples of free 100k carrots is super easy. Why do they have to resort to all other tactics?

[paulsutter]

So do you have enough funding to offer fellowships or not?

> We have secured partial funding but not all that we intend to raise. This is just a pre-application - an impr

[mjfl]

why AI?

[nicklovescode]

The mentorship pool is mostly focused on AI and related fields, and it's high leverage for relatively few resources invested (check out https://aigrant.org/)