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Is anyone keeping track of all these “partnerships” and “investments” in one place? This is all turning into a ton of what looks like PR fodder that appears to

by cmiles8 5mo ago

Is anyone keeping track of all these “partnerships” and “investments” in one place? This is all turning into a ton of what looks like PR fodder that appears to go nowhere.

romaniv 5mo ago
Ed Zitron[1] has a lot of articles and podcast episodes on these deals. The nice thing about it is that he occasionally revisits the old announcements to check what happened with them. Apparently a lot of these deals just evaporate after prolonged contact with reality. [1] https://www.wheresyoured.at/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/
- hnthrow0287345 5mo ago
  This stuff helps prevent the bubble popping, which means when they want the bubble to pop, they stop announcing these deals, giving them a great lever of profit. Crazy how they can just lie to this extent without consequences. Or still get paid millions for making bad deals, meaning incompetence
- davnicwil 5mo ago
  I think a tell that many of these deals likely aren't real and are basically just PR is the numbers are super round and digestable. That's a clear signal that little analysis has gone into the numbers and, most generously, there's nothing but the shape of a deal the details of which will be ironed out and adjusted in practice. I get that the amounts of funding and capital being sat on for the respective parties are collossal and lead to rounding that doesn't make sense from the point of view of an individual any more (what's a few million at this scale, just round up to nearest 10, etc) but deal sizes of literally round numbers of 100s start to stretch credibility on whether any real analysis was involved. In fact it'd be a ridiculous coincidence if it had been. They're the kind of figures where you'd recheck your calculations to check it's right as it seems too perfectly round.
- danielbln 5mo ago
  Ed Zitron is a terrible source, he is so staunchly anti AI that he is effectively blind. Once in a while he'll be right by pure chance, but I wouldn't rely on any of it.
  - surgical_fire 5mo ago
    Eh, this is an ad-hominem. Ed being anti-AI does not adress the validity of his arguments. I think he misses the mark when he insists on AI being useless. It is useful, although far from what the people hyping AI claim. But when he delves in the numbers, his arguments are very solid (and I am still to see someone counter him on that).
    - nateburke 5mo ago
      Agreed. Curious to know if any other prominent voices have delved into the numbers in a similar way?
- lofaszvanitt 5mo ago
  That guy needs to chill down. You listen to it and then after the umpteenth episode you just turn it off. He enjoys his own voice very MUCH. And he repeats the same thing again and again and again, and it is very tiring.
giancarlostoro 5mo ago
Compared to the insanely circular deals that OpenAI made? I have slight more confidence in Anthropics partnerships honestly. This is the Gates foundation dropping 200 million for use of Claude for medical research, unlike OpenaAIs weird "we will buy stuff off you in the future" but I don't know that they actually ever have or did.
georgemcbay 5mo ago
A lot of the recent news just makes me think much worse of Anthropic. If you're going to partner with a charitable Gates, choose the good one (though to be fair, she's probably going to be far more discerning). And Anthropic's decision to become complicit in poisoning Memphis with Grok's methane turbines already put the lie to the idea they are the conscientious ones when it comes to large AI companies.
enugu 5mo ago
This doesn't seem to be investment focussed activity, but rather extending Claude credits for education and research. Which is a good thing, independent of other bad things that might be happening.
- colechristensen 5mo ago
  And a sizable tax deduction.
  - yreg 5mo ago
    Who profits from that deduction and how?
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - mikepurvis 5mo ago
      One assumes Anthropic given it's them doing the donating, but you also have to be actually making a profit to be paying tax.
      - trollbridge 5mo ago
        There are ways one can engage in financial engineering (is "accounting engineering" a term yet?) where despite not making a profit, you segregate a tax break, tax credit, charitable deduction, etc. into some other entity and then can sell that off as an asset that some other business that is making a profit buys and writes off against its own profits.
    - nozzlegear 5mo ago
      Anthropic profits from the PR, for one. And they likely hook these institutions on their products in the long term, for two – much like I was "stuck" on Azure until recently, thanks to their free startup credits pointing me to it a decade ago.
  - 5mo ago
willchis 5mo ago
I make sure I frequently talk about running a marathon someday, just so all my friends think I'm in better shape than I am.
stefan_ 5mo ago
Have you worked in a big company before? I swear they were announcing random partnerships and MoUs every week. They never went anywhere except fancy dinners for the executives involved. Sometimes they were literally announcing partnerships with essentially competitors, because apparently executives on both sides were too stupid to understand their own business. The worst were the ones where long after all the cocktails were drunk, some executive (too stupid to understand the vapid nature of these partnerships) got it into his mind to "check up on the progress of the cooperation". That mess predictably rolled downhill because nobody was willing to tell them the truth.
GorbachevyChase 5mo ago
Like Stargate? We’re investing $0.5T! Well, over 4 years, but $100B now for sure. Well, maybe just $50B and we will borrow the rest, probably. Well… not today. it’s more of a “commitment” than an investment. OK, OK, we haven’t actually raised any money for this.

by cmiles8 5mo ago

Is anyone keeping track of all these “partnerships” and “investments” in one place? This is all turning into a ton of what looks like PR fodder that appears to go nowhere.

romaniv 5mo ago

Ed Zitron[1] has a lot of articles and podcast episodes on these deals. The nice thing about it is that he occasionally revisits the old announcements to check what happened with them. Apparently a lot of these deals just evaporate after prolonged contact with reality. [1] https://www.wheresyoured.at/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/

hnthrow0287345 5mo ago
This stuff helps prevent the bubble popping, which means when they want the bubble to pop, they stop announcing these deals, giving them a great lever of profit. Crazy how they can just lie to this extent without consequences. Or still get paid millions for making bad deals, meaning incompetence
davnicwil 5mo ago
I think a tell that many of these deals likely aren't real and are basically just PR is the numbers are super round and digestable. That's a clear signal that little analysis has gone into the numbers and, most generously, there's nothing but the shape of a deal the details of which will be ironed out and adjusted in practice. I get that the amounts of funding and capital being sat on for the respective parties are collossal and lead to rounding that doesn't make sense from the point of view of an individual any more (what's a few million at this scale, just round up to nearest 10, etc) but deal sizes of literally round numbers of 100s start to stretch credibility on whether any real analysis was involved. In fact it'd be a ridiculous coincidence if it had been. They're the kind of figures where you'd recheck your calculations to check it's right as it seems too perfectly round.
danielbln 5mo ago
Ed Zitron is a terrible source, he is so staunchly anti AI that he is effectively blind. Once in a while he'll be right by pure chance, but I wouldn't rely on any of it.
- surgical_fire 5mo ago
  Eh, this is an ad-hominem. Ed being anti-AI does not adress the validity of his arguments. I think he misses the mark when he insists on AI being useless. It is useful, although far from what the people hyping AI claim. But when he delves in the numbers, his arguments are very solid (and I am still to see someone counter him on that).
  - nateburke 5mo ago
    Agreed. Curious to know if any other prominent voices have delved into the numbers in a similar way?
lofaszvanitt 5mo ago
That guy needs to chill down. You listen to it and then after the umpteenth episode you just turn it off. He enjoys his own voice very MUCH. And he repeats the same thing again and again and again, and it is very tiring.

giancarlostoro 5mo ago

Compared to the insanely circular deals that OpenAI made? I have slight more confidence in Anthropics partnerships honestly. This is the Gates foundation dropping 200 million for use of Claude for medical research, unlike OpenaAIs weird "we will buy stuff off you in the future" but I don't know that they actually ever have or did.

georgemcbay 5mo ago

A lot of the recent news just makes me think much worse of Anthropic. If you're going to partner with a charitable Gates, choose the good one (though to be fair, she's probably going to be far more discerning). And Anthropic's decision to become complicit in poisoning Memphis with Grok's methane turbines already put the lie to the idea they are the conscientious ones when it comes to large AI companies.

enugu 5mo ago

This doesn't seem to be investment focussed activity, but rather extending Claude credits for education and research. Which is a good thing, independent of other bad things that might be happening.

colechristensen 5mo ago
And a sizable tax deduction.
- yreg 5mo ago
  Who profits from that deduction and how?
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - mikepurvis 5mo ago
    One assumes Anthropic given it's them doing the donating, but you also have to be actually making a profit to be paying tax.
    - trollbridge 5mo ago
      There are ways one can engage in financial engineering (is "accounting engineering" a term yet?) where despite not making a profit, you segregate a tax break, tax credit, charitable deduction, etc. into some other entity and then can sell that off as an asset that some other business that is making a profit buys and writes off against its own profits.
  - nozzlegear 5mo ago
    Anthropic profits from the PR, for one. And they likely hook these institutions on their products in the long term, for two – much like I was "stuck" on Azure until recently, thanks to their free startup credits pointing me to it a decade ago.
- 5mo ago

willchis 5mo ago

I make sure I frequently talk about running a marathon someday, just so all my friends think I'm in better shape than I am.

stefan_ 5mo ago

Have you worked in a big company before? I swear they were announcing random partnerships and MoUs every week. They never went anywhere except fancy dinners for the executives involved. Sometimes they were literally announcing partnerships with essentially competitors, because apparently executives on both sides were too stupid to understand their own business. The worst were the ones where long after all the cocktails were drunk, some executive (too stupid to understand the vapid nature of these partnerships) got it into his mind to "check up on the progress of the cooperation". That mess predictably rolled downhill because nobody was willing to tell them the truth.

GorbachevyChase 5mo ago

Like Stargate? We’re investing $0.5T! Well, over 4 years, but $100B now for sure. Well, maybe just $50B and we will borrow the rest, probably. Well… not today. it’s more of a “commitment” than an investment. OK, OK, we haven’t actually raised any money for this.