Sorry, but I DO have business investing in early stage startups. I called huggingface being this big back in 2019. And given your first sentence, I'm going to 100% call this out as projection on your part.
Folks who work in AI/ML know how to invest in the space! You're welcome to ignore the fact that Unsloth is objectively going to pop off (likely be acquired by huggingface) and anyone who invests in it will come out ahead.
The Venn diagram of people who are sophisticated enough to make these kinds of investments with better odds than gambling and people for whom $10k is hard to scrape together is indistinguishable from two circles. I'm sure there are some in the intersection but it's such a small piece of the pie we can effectively call it zero.
If you want to gamble that's your right I'm sure there is a roulette table somewhere near you. But the social harm caused by allowing dentists and grandmothers to invest in seed stage startups greatly outweighs any social good caused by letting that near-zero overlap get rich a little easier.
People here get u on their high horse about investment minimums and the like. Sure, they get real excited about some startup and they may turn out to even be right. I also know people who do angel and seed investing who are beating the bushes for capital or are just holding tight. Startup investing isn’t some magic money tree reserved for the well off. Heck, I’m pretty selective about even purchases of even individual public companies.
In 2019 they didn’t need your $10k of funding. If you contacted them within the 6 months they were starting they would have said yes. In 2019 it was more time consuming than it was worth. So they encourage you to go through a pool of investors which you are scoffing at.
In reality, my project needs funding now. If i bootstrap and get customers, I don’t need to worry about your lunch money. I need someone (or customers) who can fund that same amount for a year.