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Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

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Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#361

Post by YetAnotherNick »

dragonwriter wrote: post #243
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If head start is a moat, why wouldn't you count OpenAI's headstart as moat?

A head start is a moat iff you can't move easily from the leader to a competitor that catches up qualitatively; nvidia’s headstart against AMD is a moat to the extent that you can't just take the software written against NVidia GPUs and run it on AMD if AMD catches up. (That is, being currently ahead isn't a moat, but it can impose switching costs which are.) Taking code that runs against one hosted LLM and running i…

ROCM is close to being perfected and I think in few years and some investment you can use it directly to run 99% software written in CUDA with similar performance.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#362

Post by BobbyJo »

ipaddr wrote: post #287
BobbyJo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language matters quite a bit when deciding how to build an application though. I see having no strong opinions on language to be a sign the person hasn't developed a wide enough variety of projects to get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses.

The more senior I get the less opinionated I am. Someone wants to do something in some different or some different way.. why not. In the end the language matters little the tech stack doesn't matter unless you are going down a specific path and even then it probably doesn't matter that much if you have a choice on what to use.

I honestly couldn't disagree more. Having built very similar systems in Golang, Python, and Java in different companies, and having used MongoDB and other NoSQLs as well as Postgres to similar ends, I have very strong preferences about which I'd rather use in the future.

Even simple requirements can rule out languages for me. Like, if you need async or concurrency, Python is awful. If you need SQL in your code, Golang isn't great. If you are building a simple CRUD backend, Java is waste of time. If you aren't doing anything compute heavy or embedded, why even consider C++ or Rust. The list goes on.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#363

Post by nashashmi »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #31

A couple of days ago it leaked that OpenAI was planning on launching new pricing for their AI Agents. $20K/mo for their PhD Level Agent, $10K/mo for their Software Developer Agent, and $2K/mo for their Knowledge Worker Agent. I found it very telling. Not because I think anyone is going to pay this, but rather because this is the type of pricing they need to actually make money. At $20 or even $200 per month, they'll…

That's also the kind of pay structure that will temper expectations. Win-win

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#364

Post by nashashmi »

erikerikson wrote: post #342
rossdavidh wrote: post #275

"Microsoft has poured over $13 billion into the AI firm since 2019..." My understanding is that this isn't really true, as most of those "dollars" were actually Azure credits. I'm not saying those are free (for Microsoft), but they're a lot cheaper than the price tag suggests. Companies that give away coupons or free gift certificates do bear a cost, but not a cost equivalent to the number on them, especially if they…

Not only that but they are happy to buy market share to expand their relative position against AWS

And invest back into their own product for a market cap return.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#365

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

cavisne wrote: post #283
bsimpson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a prominent subset of the tech crowd who are ladder climbers - ruthlessly pursuing what is rewarded with pay/title/prestige without regard to actually making good stuff. There are countless kidding-on-the-square jokes about projects where the innovators left at launch and passed it off to the maintenance team, or where a rebrand was in pursuit of someone's promo project. See also, killedbygoogle.com.

Thats nothing during peak ZIRP people would move tech companies before the launch (or after a project was cancelled) and still ladder climb. "Failing upwards"

Or as Moral Mazes calls it, outrunning your mistakes.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#366

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

chronid wrote: post #289
saturn8601 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This motivated part of Musk's moves at Twitter(and now DOGE). You can't reliably evaluate which people are checked out and when you are against the clock, you have to take a hatchet and accept that you will break things that are in motion.

You can somewhat reliably evaluate what works and what does not, what brings you forward and what is slack you can cut. It takes time (6-12 months at least) of very engaged work of a very engaged team - which you can bring with you. You can go the hatchet way - I am strongly unconvinced it is indicative of anything resembling good management, mind - but most people and companies cannot rely on banks or investment fir…

The banks have mostly sold the loans at par now, fyi.

I agree with everything you said, though.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#369

Post by hyperbrainer »

winterismute wrote: post #345
BeetleB wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew someone who got his PhD at EPFL. He earned almost triple what I did in the US.

ETHZ and EPFL are also top of the market in EU/UK.

Pedantic, but they are top of the market in neither since Switzerland is not in the EU, and definitely not in the UK.

But it is true that in Europe, Switzerland PhDs (and professors too) make most. Not just ETH/EPFL as well. UZH (Uni Zurich) has salaries of 50K CHF per year for PhD candidates (with increments every year) -- that's almost 60K USD by your fourth year. This is also true for other universities. And while Zürich is expensive, it is not _that_ expensive.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#370

Post by DidYaWipe »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #71
partiallypro wrote: post #61

Microsoft is just so bad at marketing their products, and their branding is confusing. Unfortunately, until they fix that, any consumer facing product is going to falter. Look at the new Microsoft 365 and Office 365 rebrands just of late. The business side of things will still make money but watching them flounder on consumer facing products is just so frustrating. The Surface and Xbox brand are the only 2 that seem…

Yeah, the office suite is such a cash cow. It is polished, feature rich, and ubiquitous compared to alternatives and somehow has remained so for decades. And yet, I'm increasingly getting seriously concerned they are going to break it so badly I'll need to find an alternative.

If you don't already think it is broken beyond repair, you're never going to get there.

Office is disgraceful trash now, a sad fall (especially of Word) from where it once was.

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