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xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

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Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#241

Post by cosmic_cheese »

alterom wrote: post #178
Suppafly wrote: post #171

If this is something their users actually wanted, they'd be paying xAI, not the other way around.

[flagged]

Even if all this true, there’s unlikely to be a mass switch campaign until an alternative with better privacy and security gains the smoothness, flexibility, and platform coverage that Telegram has. Most people I know who use it do so because it runs everywhere, is nice to use, and isn’t a Facebook product (which while perhaps not being as bad as a foreign government, is a more prominently perceived threat for most people).

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#243

Post by pier25 »

ben_w wrote: post #215
game_the0ry wrote: post #103

Call me stupid, but I fundamentally do not grasp why xAI would pay Telegram for access to its users. $300M seems like a crazy amount of money to put into a chat app. I am genuinely curious about the business strategy behind the move bc that would be a market worth exploring - having something that the AI industry would pay for bc they are willing to spend a lot right now.

> Call me stupid, but I fundamentally do not grasp why xAI would pay Telegram for access to its users. Perfectly valid question. IMO, because xAI is the junior partner in this relationship. Telegram is bigger and more important than X. Unlike the 45 billion self-purchase price xAI paid for X, the realistic value for X is, what, 9 billion? I've heard Telegram is estimated to be in the 30-40 billion range: https://web.…

TIL Telegram has like 1 billion users.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#244

Post by juliend2 »

mystified5016 wrote: post #236
dist-epoch wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is why I switched from free Linux to paid Windows. I don't want to be the product.

You're being deliberately obtuse

It's just a troll (although not valid in this context) counter-argument to the saying above.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#245

Post by overfeed »

afavour wrote: post #100
fourseventy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have no idea who the CEO of the various tech companies are and don't care.

True, but Musk is an exception. And deliberately so, his media image was one of the things that made Tesla so notable. But we’re seeing recently that it goes both ways.

Musk was the PR, press and Marketing departments rolled into one for Tesla and X, so much so that he fired the PR team at Twitter.

"The public doesn't care who the CEO is" is certifiably not true for Musk ventures, and Musk exploited that brand value in the past positively. The inauguration Seig Heil, and the subsequent DOGE misadventures are the other side of that "personal brand" coin, which very much exists for this CEO.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#246

Post by hintymad »

jedberg wrote: post #235
hintymad wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get the sentiment of everything Russia. Russia has the GDP of a province of China. Russia does not have a thriving manufacturing sector. Russia has increasingly less influence or power over the world. Why would powerful people in the US succumb to to Russia's influence? That just does not make sense. If anything, maybe the Lenin-loving Stalin-admiring Marxists would love Russia, like half of the univer…

They have nuclear bombs. A lot of them. And the person who controls them has little to lose in using them. So we have to be nice and keep that person happy.

That's diplomacy? That does not mean that high officials and the richest people in the world bought Russia's propaganda machine, if any, or worse, get bought by Russia, right?

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#247

Post by nickpsecurity »

Suppafly wrote: post #171

If this is something their users actually wanted, they'd be paying xAI, not the other way around.

I thought that. Then, I remembered PayPal straight up paying people to use their platform. We saw how that worked out.

So, the question is whether they should pay to generate demand in a new market. Then, who to pay and how much?

I'll also note that OpenAI took the market by offering an expensive service for free (ChatGPT). Then, they offered a monthly plan that may or may not have been profitable. One could argue that OpenAI has been paying people to use its service for a long time.

I also wonder if xAI gets something out of it. For instance, they might get all the conversations with the AI. I believe ChatGPT similarly put free, user conversations to use internally in ways that boosted their paid apps. xAI might have some plays like that.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#248

Post by overfeed »

seangrogg wrote: post #185
abletonlive wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By number of fully EV sold each quarter. Take out hybrids from the metric because Tesla does not make hybrids

Valid. And I do think they'll continue to own the lion's share of total sales for a while. But is there any concern over their being down YOY for Q1 while other manufacturers are largely growing? Or is the expectation that it's a temporary blip and they'll continue growing in the upcoming quarters from previous YOY numbers?

> And I do think they'll continue to own the lion's share of total sales for a while

Maybe in the US where they are protected from Chinese competition. Tesla's fall in Europe has been precipitous, falling by more than 50% YoY. BYD sales overtook Tesla for the first time ever in the last quarter in Western Europe.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#249

Post by jbverschoor »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #204
eqvinox wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google pays Apple because Google has paying customers for that in their advertisers. For xAI to pay Telegram... where does xAI get value back out of that? I guess we'll be seeing AI with ads soon?

That’s the industry consensus. Sam Altman talked about something similar on a Stratechery podcast. It not exactly unrealistic to imagine that people will ask LLMs about flights, hotels, restaurants or even insurance. All that needs to happen is for LLMs to add a “buy now” button, and for the provider to take a 15% commission (still a lower take rate than Expedia FWIW).

Will? Are :)

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#250

Post by jedberg »

hintymad wrote: post #246
jedberg wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have nuclear bombs. A lot of them. And the person who controls them has little to lose in using them. So we have to be nice and keep that person happy.

That's diplomacy? That does not mean that high officials and the richest people in the world bought Russia's propaganda machine, if any, or worse, get bought by Russia, right?

Well the side effect of everyone playing nice with Putin is that he's most likely a multi-billionaire, possibly even in the top 10 richest in the world.

It's billionaires helping billionaires.

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