Microsoft is strange cause it reports crazy growth numbers for Azure but I never hear about any tech company using Azure (AWS and GCP dominate here). I know it's more popular in big enterprises, banks, pharma, government, etc. and companies like Openai use their GPU offerings. Then there's all the Office stuff (Sharepoint, One Drive, etc). Who knows what they include under Azure numbers. Even Github can be considered "cloud".
My point is, outside of co-pilot, very few consider Microsoft when they are looking for AI solutions, and if you're not already using Azure, why would you even bother check what they offer. At this point, their biggest ticket is their OpenAI stake.
With that being said, I should give them some credit. They do some interesting research and have some useful open source libraries they release and maintain in the AI space. But that's very different than building AI products and solutions for customers.
Anecdotally, Azure OpenAI is a big player in the mid sized enterprise market and up. Lots of corps want to use OpenAI models, and the easiest way to onboard is to just spin up Azure OpenAI. You already have an agreement, your legal department is fine with it, you have a MS rep etc.
I think tons of businesses look to Microsoft first when it comes to AI solutions. I'm not saying they have the best products, but when has that ever stopped them?
Anthropic is a $1T company in the making (by 2030), already raised their last round at ~$200B valuation. Do you really think Amazon can acquire them? They already invested a lot of money in them and probably own at least 20% of Anthropic, which was the smartest thing Jassy did in a while. Not to mention, if Adobe wasn't allowed to buy Figma, do you think Amazon will be allowed to buy Anthropic? No way it's going to be approved.
> 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.
One thing you're right about - Anthropic isn't surviving - it's thriving. Probably the fastest growing revenue in history.
Most companies will much rather have the problem of becoming profitable given amazing revenue growth than the problem of not having growth but being profitable. (e.g. Dropbox)
Well, integrations are also important. Currently everything works first with Github (Codex, Claude Code, Linear, etc. etc.) so it's just easier. There's also Gitlab for people who don't like Github. Personally for what I do, Github does its job well, and the free private repos are great.
Everyone uses AI today for pretty much everything but we're in a bubble... Yeah sure. Big tech with all time revenue and profits, with growing demand for compute quarter after quarter, but we're in a bubble ... Yeah sure.
OpenAI loses billions, that's true. That doesn't mean we're in a bubble. They also make billions. If their losses continue, they will keep losing more and more control. Microsoft already owns 30% of OpenAI. Big tech companies have too much cash on their hands and they cannot acquire their competitors, so instead they invest money in them. Either way, it's called consolidation.
It's well known that they are doing around $10B in ARR. GCP was losing money for many years but now it's a cash cow. AI is following the same trajectory. Not all companies will sustain it, but that doesn't mean it's a bubble, just that we will see consolidation.
OpenAI is now late in the game, way behind Claude and even Google Gemini (which used to be very bad, but now great, despite the few hallucinations), so they may collapse under their own weight if they cannot find new investors to feed the monster.
That's somehow true for enterprise. OpenAI are still leading the consumer side by a large margin over Claude. I'm talking about adoption, not the models. Once they can monetize beyond subscriptions (ads, shopping etc) they will be OK. Most likely once their ads business start growing, they will IPO.
Looks cool! I've been doing this a lot recently - a workflow I set up to create diagrams for code using the Claude cli and mermaid. It works pretty well but it's just a diagram - no links to the actual code. The latter is a neat addition that will likely get me to try codemaps.
Actually demand has being going down and rents have been trending down as a result. The main reason is less immigration and international students. I recall years ago every open house I would go to ended up selling above market value for cash from someone from overseas who "invests" their money on the back of locals trying to buy a house to live in for their family. The billionaires were not the ones to blame for this.
I don't doubt that immigration has probably marginally impacted the market, that doesn't change the fact that rent in NYC is still increasing YoY and is way too expensive.
And yes, the people extracting exorbitant rent cost are in fact the ones to blame. I don't understand people who seem to occupy a fairytale land in which they feel the need to defend billionaires as though they owe some fealty to them.
Second, Amazon had a problem before Andy took over. Way too many managers and incompetent people in very senior levels. The fact that he's doing something about it is a good thing for Amazon. You don't become a CEO of a behemoth such as Amazon and expect to show impact within 6 months. It takes years.
In terms of AI, they did invest in Anthropic early on and are a significant stakeholder. That's critical since Anthropic is a trillion dollar company in the making and they trump everyone in enterprise AI. They are much more likely to succeed with smart partnerships than doing their own thing.
1. Lots of cracks showing in AWS before he took the big job, lack of focus, bloat of too many services with too few users
2. He then hired Adam to take over AWS which didn’t work out well
3. Good to see he’s cleaning things up, but we’re past the “clean things up” phase for a CEO. He’s been in role for a while now. That should have been the first few years of his tenure.
4. Anthropic was a good investment, but Amazon is just one of many investors. It’s nothing like the partnership that MSFT and OpenAI have, which was further strengthened with today’s announcements there. Amazon has nothing comparable to counter that.
That's fair. I actually didn't realize it's been already 4+ years since he took over as CEO. I do think that we haven't heard the last word of Amazon Anthropic's partnership. Microsoft is already deep in OpenAI, and Google, while also a major stakeholder in Anthropic, directly competes with Gemini (API, code, etc). Amazon has foundation models but not really in the game, so this partnership is likely to continue. Both sides need it (Amazon for staying in the AI game and Anthropic for the resources and cash)
From the beginning Adam was intended to be an interim AWS CEO: They didn't have someone who was ready immediately, so Adam was the bridge. Unfortunately, Adam was the bridge to Matt Garman :(
That doesn't tell us what percentage they own, though. When you invest in a company and the value goes up, your percentage doesn't change (unless there are additional investors)
I am not sure what you mean by naive. I also didn't say the percentage wouldn't go down, I literally said other investment rounds would change the percentage they own.
Amazons investment in Anthropic was in the form of convertible notes, which they have converted entirely into equity by march of this year. At that time, Anthropic was valued at 61.5 billion and Amazon (in their filings) said their investment was worth 13.8 billion, so about 22% of the company.
Then, there was another round in September where Anthropic raised 13 billion more at a valuation of 183 billion (so the new investors are buying about a 7% stake in the company). Without more details, that would lower amazons percentage to about 20% (old investors hold 93% of the company, so Amazon's 22% of the remaining 93% comes out to about 20%). There are probably other details that lower that percentage a bit, but i think the 15-19% ownership estimate is pretty accurate.
My point is, outside of co-pilot, very few consider Microsoft when they are looking for AI solutions, and if you're not already using Azure, why would you even bother check what they offer. At this point, their biggest ticket is their OpenAI stake.
With that being said, I should give them some credit. They do some interesting research and have some useful open source libraries they release and maintain in the AI space. But that's very different than building AI products and solutions for customers.
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