News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Google agrees to invest up to $2B in OpenAI rival Anthropic. Parent comment

Re:Google agrees to invest up to $2B in OpenAI rival Anthropic by TuringNYC on Saturday October 28, 2023 @09:51AM (#38049788)
1. OpenAI is too large a supplier for LLMs, and they are trying to create supplier diversity

2. $2B is a drop in the bucket for Google. Even after the severe fall this month, the Google Market Cap is $1.536 Trillion. Consider the investment as a % of market cap

3. It is undeniable that small players can move fast, so even if Google's AI is amazing, the slope is probably not as high as a fast moving startup

4. These products have 2nd order revenue boosters -- you might use Anthropic's marketplace app, as a theoretical example, but you end up spending much more on compute/storage/cloud in doing so, helping the cloud majors

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google agrees to invest up to $2B in OpenAI rival Anthropic by HNDen21 on Saturday October 28, 2023 @10:15AM (#38049976)
I would not consider the investment as a % of market cap since Google doesn't own all that market cap... I would consider the non float shares + short term investments + cash on hand or Revenue/Profit better
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google agrees to invest up to $2B in OpenAI rival Anthropic by WrongAssumption on Saturday October 28, 2023 @11:34AM (#38050601)
Not seeing how that distinction matters. Google’s owners (shareholders) do own all that. And google represents the collective financial interests of the shareholders.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google agrees to invest up to $2B in OpenAI rival Anthropic by staticman2 on Saturday October 28, 2023 @01:08PM (#38051500)
Google's shareholders own stock. Nothing more nothing less.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google agrees to invest up to $2B in OpenAI rival Anthropic by sangnoir on Saturday October 28, 2023 @01:28PM (#38051722)
> I would not consider the investment as a % of market cap since Google doesn't own all that market cap.

Market cap does matter because you can use it to gauge how easily Google could hypothetically raise the same amount[1] by issuing additional shares without a shareholder revolt.

1. Or complete an all-stock deal or acquisition.

[ Parent | on HN ]