Yesterday, came from Pres. Trump, OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and MGX. Elon Musk's hot take on X: "They don’t actually have the money." In response, Satya Nadella told CNBC: "All I know is I’m good for my $80 billion." You know what they say: "A few billion here, a few billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money." Speaking of billions…
Google quietly dropped another $1 billion on Anthropic, pushing their total stake to $3 billion. Smart move. While Google has faced some challenges productizing their AI (except NotebookLM), Anthropic's been crushing it; the Claude-maker is pulling $1 billion annually and pioneering computer-control AI systems.
According to sources on the west coast, Anthropic is on the verge of securing an additional $2 billion from venture capitalists that could rocket Anthropic's valuation to $60 billion. Ex-OpenAI folks (Anthropic's founders) building a safety-first AI powerhouse? Investors are all-in.
As always your thoughts and comments are both welcome and encouraged. -s
P.S. Last Saturday, we had about a hundred gifted engineers break into teams to build prototype multi-agent AI systems. On Sunday, a similarly-sized group spent the day developing systems to empower autonomous drones. The most amazing thing about a well-run hackathon is watching highly motivated teams of brilliant engineers achieve (in a single day) what might take some companies weeks or months. If you've got an idea you'd like to realize as a proof of concept or MVP, just reply to this email. We do these almost every weekend.
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named he covers tech and business for , is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular . He's a , and the creator of the popular, free online course, . Follow or visit .
