> is being 6 months behind the frontier actually a structural, long term disadvantage?
Yeah, this is one of the things I find so weird on the discourse. If you get there negligeably later, but without astonishing spend and waste, you might even be better off in the long term.
I have thought that for a while and assumed that was apples approach to AI. Wait until everyone burns through investor cash, invents the better tech, and can monetize. Then copy that business model and polish it, or buy out the competition and polish. That’s usually apples move and it makes sense for google to do something similar.
It depends entirely on whether they're trying to and failing vs. being strategic. It smells a lot more like the former to me.