alt Hacker NewsAsk HN: If the models are so good, why doesn't OpenAI just start 100 companies?
Title is a bit of an exaggeration but the question is more: if the frontier models are so good, why even sell them as your primary money maker?
Couldn't OpenAI or Anthropic make a lot more money by just starting companies themselves that leverage the models and building their own products?
Is selling tokens really the best strategy?
Especially with commodification and prices declining wouldn't that indicate there is more money to be made on the application-side of the models rather than the utility side
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It's basically the same reason why Apple didn't create every app in the App Store. No single company can be specialised in everything, and more importantly, selling tokens is risk-free money since they get a cut for every app without taking any business risk.
There was/is a youtube commericial I think that gave away the game to some extent with regards to this. It was selling some platform to create apps. Everybody in the office rejoicing because they were all creating apps. Inevitably, like three people in the office make the same app.
I've experienced the same thing in real life a couple of times over.
I think Einstein's quote "A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels." is apt. Apps will solve a bunch of problems, but if anyone can create those apps, there will be no market for them. I don't have the answers, but long term, it probably doesn't lie in selling apps. We've only just started.
At my regular job, we're just catching up on all the internal work we had. I think there is a real crunch in trying to figure out how to build moats and things that are hard to replicate that are sellable.
Maybe it will be the physical. Probably most of the moat will be made up of network effects and capital intensive processes. If I had the answer I'd probably be working on it right now.
They are doing that. That is why they have moved into the app layer. They are counting on software being replaced with agentic super apps. The only reason they aren’t starting actual service companies is that those still require human boots on the ground. But they are pushing their way into consulting (they bought my friends consulting firm)
Selling tokens in conjunction with a phone number or credit card yields signals for surveillance for intelligence agencies that can be tied to individuals. This keeps the firms relatively out of trouble with the federal government. This makes them too big to fail. Being subject to such surveillance is in fact is a strong reason for conscious individuals to seek to move away from them in the long term once the quality of competing AIs reaches a shared plateau.
They're doing the other thing too via numerous startup acquisitions.
Because running 1 business is easier than running 100 businesses. It takes a lot more than writing good software for a company to be successful.
Better to sell spades than mine for gold...
reframed question - if their shovels are so good why dont they dig gold and sell gold themselves.
Why don't they simply run a quantitative hedge fund on the side?
During a gold rush, sell shovels. They are investing heavily in in-house custom silicon, which is the shovel end of things. They could open more jewellery chains, but that is a very different kind of operation and it is in their interest to let others compete for that and use their resources on the shovel side of things.
Why aren't they vibe coding millions of dollars of licensing costs away?
Why Even Anthropic Can’t Vibe-Code Away Salesforce
https://www.salesforceben.com/why-even-anthropic-cant-vibe-c...
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1. They are starting to do it. Take a look at OpenAI's product portfolio, there's a galaxy of attempts at application.
2. Selling tokens via long running agents is the only thing that's provably working with respect to revenue growth.
3. They need revenue yesterday. Increases in borrowing rates means access to capital isn't what it was in the 10s. Their runway is much shorter than you would imagine.
4. Some of the decision makers at these companies believe AI will exhibit Jevons Paradox and that any decrease in price will result in induced demand.
5. The frontier models are still subject to the limitations of AI. They're not good at everything. Better to have someone else learn that on their dime rather than yours.