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Which kinds of GPT startups will thrive?

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Re: Which kinds of GPT startups will thrive?

#21

Post by itake »

tikkun wrote: post #16
icapybara wrote: post #2

Not many of them. Google or Microsoft can see what works for these startups and then put it in their own products. If you don't own the model, you don't have a safe business.

In theory the same was true about the SaaS wave and the mobile wave. In practice, many startups have built valuable businesses around things that Google could've done, but didn't do successfully. The same will be true in the AI wave. In theory, FAANG-co could do it. In practice, they can't. The exceptions to this will be the things where the winner is determined by a dimension that Google will always win on. In pract…

To add,FANGA it does not go after $100 million ideas

Re: Which kinds of GPT startups will thrive?

#22

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

tikkun wrote: post #16
icapybara wrote: post #2

Not many of them. Google or Microsoft can see what works for these startups and then put it in their own products. If you don't own the model, you don't have a safe business.

In theory the same was true about the SaaS wave and the mobile wave. In practice, many startups have built valuable businesses around things that Google could've done, but didn't do successfully. The same will be true in the AI wave. In theory, FAANG-co could do it. In practice, they can't. The exceptions to this will be the things where the winner is determined by a dimension that Google will always win on. In pract…

> In theory, FAANG-co could do it. In practice, they can't.

It's usually more that FAANG doesn't believe in that product.

MS & Blackberry seemed pretty certain that keyboardless smartphones (the iPhone) weren't the future.

That turned out to be a really bad bet.

Re: Which kinds of GPT startups will thrive?

#23

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

I thought this article could have been about 95% shorter (let's just say I saw high irony in the cartoon in the article about using AI to summarize needlessly wordy emails).

I think the only place "GPT startups" will really thrive long term is specific niche business areas where the big boys (Google/MSFT) are not likely to want to compete. For example, there was an HN post about a legal startup that used AI for various purposes. I could see that one building a sizable moat over time as "the go-to place for legal AI support" if their UI is good and very tailored to legal-specific workflows.

My primary point is that I think "generic" AI tool startups are likely to fail because the big boys will just build them into their products. E.g. a tool that just helps you write is going to have a hugely difficult time competing against the integrated functionality of Word or Google Docs (I'd be shuddering if I were Grammarly). Google and Microsoft, though, have largely stayed out of dedicated tools for highly specific verticals, and with all of the antitrust eyes on them I think they're likely to stay out of those spaces.

Re: Which kinds of GPT startups will thrive?

#24

Post by morkalork »

tikkun wrote: post #16
icapybara wrote: post #2

Not many of them. Google or Microsoft can see what works for these startups and then put it in their own products. If you don't own the model, you don't have a safe business.

In theory the same was true about the SaaS wave and the mobile wave. In practice, many startups have built valuable businesses around things that Google could've done, but didn't do successfully. The same will be true in the AI wave. In theory, FAANG-co could do it. In practice, they can't. The exceptions to this will be the things where the winner is determined by a dimension that Google will always win on. In pract…

Google/MS make generic software for businesses and developers. They don't really get involved in specific verticals (aside from obvious ones like cloud, gaming, marketing). Successful start-ups will be the ones taking models from big tech cos and bringing them to the boring verticals those companies have no interest in.

Re: Which kinds of GPT startups will thrive?

#26

Post by karmasimida »

chaoz_ wrote: post #14
icapybara wrote: post #2

Not many of them. Google or Microsoft can see what works for these startups and then put it in their own products. If you don't own the model, you don't have a safe business.

right, or giant corps will treat such startups as marketplace app creators for their LLM API and kinda "outsource" the innovation, while providing the platform and enjoying API income?

Well there isn’t a sure way to guarantee they won’t tap into your business

Just look at Apple

They eventually will, and it is totally legitimate for them to do so.

Re: Which kinds of GPT startups will thrive?

#27

Post by tikkun »

itake wrote: post #21
tikkun wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory the same was true about the SaaS wave and the mobile wave. In practice, many startups have built valuable businesses around things that Google could've done, but didn't do successfully. The same will be true in the AI wave. In theory, FAANG-co could do it. In practice, they can't. The exceptions to this will be the things where the winner is determined by a dimension that Google will always win on. In pract…

To add,FANGA it does not go after $100 million ideas

And, FAANG doesn't go after ideas that look like $100 million ideas that end up becoming $100B ideas.

Re: Which kinds of GPT startups will thrive?

#28

Post by jonathanstrange »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #23

I thought this article could have been about 95% shorter (let's just say I saw high irony in the cartoon in the article about using AI to summarize needlessly wordy emails). I think the only place "GPT startups" will really thrive long term is specific niche business areas where the big boys (Google/MSFT) are not likely to want to compete. For example, there was an HN post about a legal startup that used AI for vario…

So you're saying that Google, Microsoft, etc., do have moat that smaller companies don't have. Otherwise, I see no reason why these companies couldn't continue to compete with large corporations. For example, if the makers of Papyrus Author successfully integrate AI into their writing application, they would continue to have the same competitive advantage over Microsoft Word they had before - unless Microsoft's AI is more powerful and much better.

I don't know, I consider it possible that at least in the beginning large corporations have moat, just wanted to point out that this is what people are wondering / don't really know at the moment.

Re: Which kinds of GPT startups will thrive?

#29

Post by lkbm »

icapybara wrote: post #2

Not many of them. Google or Microsoft can see what works for these startups and then put it in their own products. If you don't own the model, you don't have a safe business.

Has the fundraising environment shifted such that Google/Microsoft can more easily purchase their competitors? I'd assume raising funds has gotten harder, and that that change will make a selling more appealing.

Re: Which kinds of GPT startups will thrive?

#30

Post by jebarker »

nr2x wrote: post #19
cloudking wrote: post #8

I think there are a few opportunities for startups that want to leverage GPT technology: 1) Fine tuning base models with data that big tech doesn't have access to. E.g legal, medical, support data. Offering custom fine-tuned private hosted models for companies that can't leverage the base models APIs due to data privacy and lack of domain specific training. 2) Using GPT on the backend to do data transformation that t…

I would not be so sure about #1, OpenAI has been very cagey about what exactly the newer models are trained on.

I agree. People seem to largely be pretending it's not the case that GPT-4 significantly outperforms every other model right now.
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