Hugging Face, a company started by 3 Frenchies, announced it is being bought by Tech Titan Nvidia for $12.93 billion in what is probably the biggest exit of a French-related company in the nation's history.
And so naturally, this has been deemed...a national tragedy.
Of course, leave it to the French to find the dark cloud behind every silver lining. Perhaps it is the Catholic heritage that is baked so deeply into the DNA that makes them such a reflexively self-flagellating bunch. But lo, this is cause to rehash the narrative about how the nation fails to nurture and scale its most promising startups.
To be sure, it would have been, like, totally awesome if the Hugging Face cap table had been chock full of French VCs. But the fact that it isn't says less about the ecosystem than it seems. And the reflexive doomerism that inevitably arises also fails to consider the bigger picture of the impact and the lessons we can draw from the success of a company like Hugging Face. Venture capital is too narrow a criterion for measuring a company's impact.
Again, that's not to say things are perfect because, of course, they are not. There are problems a-plenty. But it's also important to recognize progress when it happens, understand the context, and get the diagnosis right rather than using the latest news to sell your favorite narrative.
To that end, let's start by addressing some of the Hugging Face myths...
