ijeffApple may be quiet on AI, but it’s also the biggest buyer of AI companies
Apple may be quiet on AI, but it’s also the biggest buyer of AI companies - Lemdro.id
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rivermonsterWe need to spend the next 3-4 decades breaking up all these monoplies and duopolies. And then not allow it again, since this will be the second time we’ve had to do this.
These startups just wouldn’t exist at all then.
They start up with the intention of being bought out by a bigger fish.
bob_wileyThe only reason this is the case is companies, particularly Google, have used ads to fund all their consumer facing services for “free”. Which means starts up only have a few options.
I use Kagi, which is a paid service competing with free services. It’s still relatively new and not something the average person on the street is aware exists yet. I hope they make it, and if they do, they’ll be a unicorn in the startup space, as the entire market pushes against the idea that anything can cost money, which is death to startups that are trying to get to profitability in a world where “free” is the status quo.
If these giant companies didn’t exist to fund free services with their cash cows, there would be a much more level playing field for startups.
It’s been this way forever. Long before Google even. My uncle made millions during the dot com bubble by starting up a website, getting some traffic, then selling it off a bigger company. He did that 2 or 3 times and then retired in his 30s lol.
Hell that’s what the dot com bubble was in the first place. A million startups all trying to get bought by a bigger player.
The fact that it was a bubble should tell us that’s not a good sustainable model. Those people were just looking for a quick cash grab. The crypto bros of the era.
And we’re currently in one for “AI”. That’s kind of my point. All of these AI companies are in it to sell off before the bubble pops. They have one little seed of good idea but no fully fleshed out path because they’re hoping for their idea to be bought out.
It’s how it is, how it’s been, and how it will always be in the early stages of any new technology. You will always have small startups/inventors trying to get one idea bought up to get their big payday.
The situation I was talking about never really stopped after the dotcom bubble. Of course Google Ads was started in 2000, which meant we never had a chance to see what other business models might look like at scale.