I’m still flabbergasted by the business model, it reminds me of SEO services: if you were any kind of good at it there is infinite money to be made partnering with established players and selling goods and services directly.

Selling tools to others when you’re not using them yourself says everything about the underlying utility of what’s being sold.

xAI could be threatening Office, or Windows, or Unreal Engine, Chromium, SalesForce, global ERP, tax software for citizens and governments alike, or Apples manufacturing prowess… but, no, forget that lame nonsense, let’s see what I have in my wallet! Maybe I can give some to Elon to cover up his sketchy business practices. Sounds logical.

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MagicMoonlight 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I mean you could say that about anything.

“If you’re so good at building salesforce, why don’t you simply sell paper yourself?”

	▲	bonesss 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No, you really can’t. Centrally, I mentioned partnering, and specifically in the context of tools being sold for less value than the profit they could make. That is is fundamentally different to the retort provided (direct sales of paper). The issue applies quite specifically to tooling and services (ie SEO and super coding LLMs), that improve customer profitability through capabilities. If the tool/service utility is so high and profitable then selling it to third parties is far less profitable than leveraging the tool/service fully as an owner. If someone is selling you something for less money than they can make using that thing, the business model is suspicious. Scams, normally. What unique process advantage does SalesForce sell that applies to paper production and end customer delivery? None. Cutting edge coding agents with cheap tokens for any IT work? Massive, in theory… If SalesForce is selling a subscription tool that makes my paper cost 30% less, why not partner with the #3 largest paper supplier, fully integrate and give them a 30%+ exclusive competitive advantage, making SalesForce a part owner of the #1 paper company? … one of those business models relies on scale, credit cards, and customer loyalty for small money, the other only on effective technology for huge money (and far less risk). This is not a new point, there are well regarded essays breaking it down. “I’m so rich I want to sell you info about how to sell instead of more money for less work.”, is a scammy pitch present in MLMs, bad Real Estate courses, Get Rich courses, etc.