If they are a year from AGI, then the private investors can hang on and use their new super intelligence on their own tasks to make themselves considerably more wealthy now and into the future, so why would they want to sell that power to anyone else?

> These companies believe they're a year from AGI, and that's how they'll be profitable.

What I don't get is that if Company A is a year from AGI (I don't think that's true, but then again, I don't think anyone even has a good definition of AGI), then surely Companies B–ZZ are only a few years (at most!) from AGI as well. There is no moat. Or if there is a moat, the moat is hardware scarcity – but that's systemically outside of the control of these companies.