| ▲ | _jab 5 hours ago |
| This agreement feels so friendly towards OpenAI that it's not obvious to me why Microsoft accepted this. I guess Microsoft just realized that the previous agreement was kneecapping OpenAI so much that the investment was at risk, especially with serious competition now coming from Anthropic? |
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| ▲ | DanielHB 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Microsoft is a major shareholder of OpenAI, they don't want their investment to go to 0. You don't just take a loss on a multiple-digit billion investment. |
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| ▲ | snowwrestler 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think you’re right about this deal. But it’s kind of funny to think back and realize that Microsoft actually has just written off multi-billion-dollar deals, several times in fact. | | |
| ▲ | nacozarina 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | One (1) year after M$ bought Nokia they wrote it off for $7.6 Billion. There’s no upper limit to their financial stupidity. | | |
| ▲ | snek_case 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The metaverse is another example if anyone doubts the bounds of corporate stupidity. | | |
| ▲ | lesuorac an hour ago | parent [-] | | Why? FaceBook largely requires an Apple iPhone, Apple computer, "Microsoft" computer, "Google" phone, or a "Google" computer to use it. At any point one of those companies could cut FaceBook off (ex. [1]). The Metaverse was a long term goal to get people onto a device (Occulus) that Meta controlled. While I think an AR device is much more useful than VR; I'm not convinced that it's a mistake for Meta to peruse not being beholden to other platforms. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-... | | |
| ▲ | everforward 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I think this is sane washing their idea in the modern context of it having failed. I think at the time, they thought VR would be the next big thing and wanted to become the dominant player via first mover advantage. The headsets don’t really make sense to me in the way you’re describing. Phones are omnipresent because it’s a thing you always just have on you. Headsets are large enough that it’s a conscious choice to bring it; they’re closer to a laptop than a phone. Also, the web interface is like right there staring at them. Any device with a browser can access Facebook like that. Google/Apple/Microsoft can’t mess with that much without causing a huge scene and probably massive antitrust backlash. | |
| ▲ | latexr 37 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > I'm not convinced that it's a mistake for Meta to peruse not being beholden to other platforms. Devoid of other context, it’s hard to disagree. But your parent comment only asserted that the metaverse specifically as proposed by Facebook was an obviously stupid idea. | |
| ▲ | corford 25 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >Why? Patrick Boyle did a nice video a few weeks back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BaSBjxNg-M | |
| ▲ | PKop 20 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Because it's been a massively expensive failure. They can't just will their own platform into existence just because it would be good to have, consumers have a say and they've rejected it completely. | |
| ▲ | IshKebab an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Because it's been very clear for a long time that the vast majority of people do not want to play VR Second Life. | | |
| ▲ | snek_case 10 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Meta's vision was worse than that. They were trying to hype doing work meetings in VR. There's a case to be made that VR games and VR universes can be fun... But work meetings? |
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| ▲ | turtlesdown11 35 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | so after $80 billion spent, they must have an ecosystem of hundreds of millions of users? Right? Maybe they should have spent that on the facebookphone |
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| ▲ | 24 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | dkrich 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Probably more that they are compute constrained. In his latest post Ben Thompson talks about how Microsoft had to use their own infrastructure and supplant outside users in the process so this is probably to free up compute. |
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| ▲ | HWR_14 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is probably a delayed outgrowth of the negotiations last year, where Microsoft started trading weird revenue shares and exclusivity for 27% of the company. |
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| ▲ | dinosor 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI. I feel this looks like a nice thing to have given they remain the primary cloud provider. If Azure improves it's overall quality then I don't see why this ends up as a money printing press as long as OpenAI brings good models? |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | OpenAI was also threatening to accuse "Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior during their partnership," an "effort [which] could involve seeking federal regulatory review of the terms of the contract for potential violations of antitrust law, as well as a public campaign" [1]. [1] https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-and-microsoft-tensions-ar... | | | |
| ▲ | aurareturn 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Does this mean Microsoft gets OpenAI's models for "free" without having to pay them a dime until 2032? And on top of that, OpenAI still has to pay Microsoft a share of their revenue made on AWS/Google/anywhere until 2030? And Microsoft owns 27% of OpenAI, period? That's a damn good deal for Microsoft. Likely the investment that will keep Microsoft's stock relevant for years. | | |
| ▲ | dzonga 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | own 27%. but are entitled to OpenAI profits of 49% for eternity (if OpenAI is profitable or government steps in) | | |
| ▲ | aurareturn an hour ago | parent [-] | | own 27%. but are entitled to OpenAI profits of 49% for eternity (if OpenAI is profitable or government steps in)
Where is the 49% coming from? The new deal does not talk about that. |
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| ▲ | lokar 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Does anyone expect azure quality to improve? Has it improved at all in the last 3 years? Does leadership at MS think it needs to improve? I doubt it | | |
| ▲ | gchamonlive 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | No and at this point tying yourself to azure is a strategic passive and anyone making such decisions should be held responsible for any service outage or degradation. | |
| ▲ | alternatex 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | MS incentivizes feature quantity, and the leadership are employees like any other. Product improvements are not on the table unless the company starts promoting people based on it. Doesn't look this will start happening any time soon. | |
| ▲ | jakeydus 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Don’t worry I’m sure there’s a few products without copilot integration still. They’ll get to them before too long. |
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| ▲ | guluarte 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I think MS wants OpenAI to fail so it can absorb it |
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| ▲ | Oras 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | MS put 10B for 50% if I remember correctly. OpenAI is worth many multiples of that. | | |
| ▲ | marricks 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > OpenAI is worth many multiples of that valued at --which I'd say is a reasonable distinction to make right about now | | | |
| ▲ | HWR_14 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | When they put 10B in, they got weird tiered revenue shares and other rights. That has been simplified to 27% of OpenAI today. I don't know what that meant their 10B would be worth before dilution in later rounds. | |
| ▲ | bmitc 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > OpenAI is worth many multiples of that. How? | | |
| ▲ | senordevnyc 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Because they recently issued shares at a price many multiples of that, and people bought them. How else would you define financial worth? | | |
| ▲ | andriy_koval an hour ago | parent [-] | | I would use your number adjusted by some demand elasticity curve. | | |
| ▲ | tanseydavid 24 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The "back-of-the-napkin" only has enough room to estimate based on recently issued share price. Seems reasonable to me. |
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