Colonel Altman Ordered the Code Red. I think about AWS a Lot Here

Wow, life comes at you fast right? When times are good and the incumbent is sleeping, things are good. When the incumbent is paying attention (and Google is) then times are tough.

Google is the worldwide leader in mobile operating systems. It is the worldwide leader in browsers. It has a worldwide “not monopoly” on search. Every search on Google essentially now features AI conversations if you want it. Likely this will continue to evolve.

So what is happening? OpenAI is building quite a number of things at the same time:

* datacenters

* a foundational model

* a platform

* a hardware division led by Jonny Ive

* a business & apps strategy led by Fidji Simo

* an ads strategy

* shopping

It looks like a fair amount of this is on lockdown at the moment. It is axiomatic that if your foundational model becomes hot garbage, the rest of this is nonsense.

Can I say it out loud? Sam Altman is arrogant. Not very self-aware, and that does not bode well for the company's long-term prospects.

The company has already proven that its governance model has been an existential risk which has finally recently changed. Perhaps it's time to remove the real source of the problem -- Sam himself. Too much money is at stake.

With the trillions it is planning to spend, the company requires perfection for anyone to ever make any money here. And the governance of OpenAI has already been less than stellar on multiple occasions.

My questions are simple.

* If OpenAI fails, can agentic commerce truly succeed? -- if Google wins, we are still living in an ads world. Google’s commerce record is uh, suspect.

* If the incumbent has caught up, you know, the one with the world's most perfect business model and cash cow, then is it already game over, or not? Is there a chance to reaccelerate?

* How much leash does Sam have before the sharks start to circle?

A relevant example is Amazon - when they were building AWS, they were absolutely terrified by Microsoft. AWS was launched in 2006. Amazon was stunned that Microsoft did not respond until 2010. Amazon lucked out in some ways here.

Google more had an approach problem, which AI approach should win? It was less that the company was completely flat-footed, it was more that the company had multiple competing strategies (Google Brain vs DeepMind) which was not enough to respond to a disruptive upstart like OpenAI.