Wang: VCs who passed on Scale AI now write data think pieces
Alexandr Wang · Alexandr Wang: “This is a Once-in-a-Civilization Opportunity” · Y Combinator · Jul 29, 2026 · at 5:39
Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang reflects on investor skepticism during early fundraising rounds for AI data infrastructure.
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“Every time we would go out to fundraise, even though our numbers were great and we had great revenue, you know, VCs and investors would always be very skeptical. They'd be like, Oh, I don't know if this is a good business. Does it have longevity? Is this durable? And it was really weird to me, but, you know, none of the investors had ever trained a model, so I guess they didn't really get it. And fast forward to today, you know, we managed to raise money, we managed to keep going, managed to keep growing the business, but the very same investors who passed on us and were very dour on the potential of AI are writing think pieces today About how data is so critical and is one of the biggest business opportunities in AI.”
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