Okay, let’s see you guys get passed the inference costs disclosure. According to WSJ it is enough to kill the frontier shop business model. It’s one of the biggest things blocking OpenAI
It's interesting that Amazon don't appear interested in acquiring Anthropic, which would have seemed like somewhat of a natural fit given that they are already partnered, Anthropic have apparently optimized (or at least adapted) for Trainium, and Amazon don't have their own frontier model.
It seems that Amazon are playing this much like Microsoft - seeing themselves are more of a cloud provider, happy to serve anyone's models, and perhaps only putting a moderate effort into building their own models (which they'll be happy to serve to those who want that capability/price point).
I don't see the pure "AI" plays like OpenAI and Anthropic able to survive as independent companies when they are competing against the likes of Google, and with Microsoft and Amazon happy to serve whatever future model comes along.
> It seems that Amazon are playing this much like Microsoft - seeing themselves are more of a cloud provider, happy to serve anyone's models, and perhaps only putting a moderate effort into building their own models (which they'll be happy to serve to those who want that capability/price point).
Or, as a slight variation of that, they think the underlying technology will always be quickly commoditized and that no one will ever be able to maintain much of a moat.
Bezos is playing it smart: sell shovels to all of the gold diggers. If he partners with one of the gold diggers he won't be able to sell shovels to the remainder.
> It's interesting that Amazon don't appear interested in acquiring Anthropic
1. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
2. Amazon doesn't appear interested in acquiring Anthropic _at its current valuation_. I would be surprised if it's not available for acquisition at 1/10th its current price in the next 3-5 years
AI isn't going anywhere, but "prop model + inference" is far from a proven business model.
The employees/VCs of companies that IPOd in 1999, and early 2000 cashed out leaving bag holders. The companies that IPOd in 2000/2001 had a mixed bag. The six-month-lockup had many employees salivating but unable to cash out. It all depended on the timing of the thing. This time around there are private markets that apparently are allowing the employees to become liquid. Nevertheless, earlier is better for startups to IPO particularly when the tide appears to be turning.
Incorrect. They're not a C corp, they're a public benefit corporation. They have a different legal obligation. Notably, they have a legal obligation to deliver on their mission. That's why Anthropic is the only actual mission-driven AI company. They do have to balance that legal obligation with the traditional legal obligations that a for-profit corporation has. But most importantly, it is actually against the law for them not to balance prioritizing making money and prioritizing AI safety!
I was thinking this is going to happen because last night I got an email about them fixing how they collect sales taxes. Having been part of a couple of IPO/acquisitions, I thought to myself: "Nobody cares about sales taxes until they need to IPO or sell."
I love claude, but looking at google it seems like it will just be a matter of time before Google/Gemini will be a better product. Just looking at how much Google have improved their AI game the last couple months. I'm putting my money on google, I assume the reason they are doing an IPO right now is to be able to cash in on the investment before google surpasses them.
Google are deep in the enshittification spiral and can't help themselves in kneecapping Gemini or imposing strict limits. Anthropic seem to atleast be a bit more customer centric.
Does this mean that Anthropic has more than reached AGI, seeing as OpenAI has officially defined "AGI" as any AI that manages to create more than a hectocorn's worth (100 unicorns, or $100B) in economic value?
There's a difference between a good product and a good business. It's easy to see this is a great product but it's really difficult to see how it's a great business. All the traditional things we look for from great businesses seem to be absent here - they don't have network effects like facebook or uber, they don't have lock-in they way Apple has, and to a large extent they don't have the traditional economics of SAAS. They have a product that is interchangeable with 3 or 4 other companies, they have extremely high initial investment costs to train models, and it's not clear they can actually sell tokens for more than it costs to make them.
It's like the foundry business, an ever increasing cost of moving to the next node requires ever increasing scale which naturally kills off competition.
Honestly these IPOs are likely to kill the market. Once the necessary disclosures are out, and the worse-case math people are assuming turns out to have been way more optimistic than the actual truth, the entire market is likely crashing since the money is so spread out. So far there has been zero good news from an investment perspective out of LLM centered companies outside of what are ultimately just complex financial engineered investments.
Whatever you think about AI, it is a good that Anthropic go public and I argue it’s consistent with their mission. It’s better for the public to have a way to own a piece of the company.
In an interview Sam Altman said he preferred to stay away from an IPO, but the notion of the public having an interest in the company appealed to him. Actions speak louder than words, and so it is fitting from a mission standpoint that Anthropic may do it first.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 71.3 ms ] threadThey are going public.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/big-techs-soaring-profits-have-a...
It seems that Amazon are playing this much like Microsoft - seeing themselves are more of a cloud provider, happy to serve anyone's models, and perhaps only putting a moderate effort into building their own models (which they'll be happy to serve to those who want that capability/price point).
I don't see the pure "AI" plays like OpenAI and Anthropic able to survive as independent companies when they are competing against the likes of Google, and with Microsoft and Amazon happy to serve whatever future model comes along.
Or, as a slight variation of that, they think the underlying technology will always be quickly commoditized and that no one will ever be able to maintain much of a moat.
I guess they're taking the old adage about selling picks and shovels when everyone else is digging for gold to heart
1. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
2. Amazon doesn't appear interested in acquiring Anthropic _at its current valuation_. I would be surprised if it's not available for acquisition at 1/10th its current price in the next 3-5 years
AI isn't going anywhere, but "prop model + inference" is far from a proven business model.
Hard to buy a company that is part-owned by your competitors.
The employees/VCs of companies that IPOd in 1999, and early 2000 cashed out leaving bag holders. The companies that IPOd in 2000/2001 had a mixed bag. The six-month-lockup had many employees salivating but unable to cash out. It all depended on the timing of the thing. This time around there are private markets that apparently are allowing the employees to become liquid. Nevertheless, earlier is better for startups to IPO particularly when the tide appears to be turning.
It is against the law to prioritize AI safety if you run a public company. You must prioritize profits for your shareholders.
It's a hot take, I know :D
It's like the foundry business, an ever increasing cost of moving to the next node requires ever increasing scale which naturally kills off competition.
In an interview Sam Altman said he preferred to stay away from an IPO, but the notion of the public having an interest in the company appealed to him. Actions speak louder than words, and so it is fitting from a mission standpoint that Anthropic may do it first.
If OpenAI IPO's first, it'd be huge. Then Anthropic does, but AI IPO hype has sailed.
If Anthropic IPO's first, they get the AI IPO hype. OpenAI IPO probably huge either way.