Alright, let's get this straight. OpenAI is taking a stake in Thrive Holdings. Thrive Holdings, for those of you blissfully unaware, is Josh Kushner's (yes, *that* Kushner) vehicle for buying up boring, old-school service companies and "transforming" them with AI. And OpenAI is getting a piece of the action?
Color me skeptical.
OpenAI's "Adoption" Push: Desperate or Just Shady?
The AI "Revolution" That Smells Like Desperation
So, the official line is that this is about "accelerating the adoption of AI." [NYT Dealbook] Right. It's about OpenAI needing to prove that their tech can actually, you know, *do* something useful for businesses beyond generating mildly amusing chatbot responses.
Let's be real: ChatGPT was a fun toy. But turning that into actual, sustainable revenue is proving to be harder than they thought. Hence, the scramble to cozy up to enterprises. And what better way to do that than to literally *own* a piece of the companies they're trying to sell to?
Thrive, offcourse, gets to slap the "AI-powered" label on their acquisitions and hopefully juice their valuations. It's the 2020s version of adding ".com" to your name in the late 90s, except this time it involves even more hype and less actual substance.
But wait, there's more! Thrive was already a huge investor in OpenAI. So, OpenAI is giving equity to a company *funded* by one of its biggest backers...for access to companies that Thrive just bought with all that money. It's circular, it's incestuous, and it smells like a Ponzi scheme with extra steps.
"Circular Deal" or Just Another Way to Hoard Data?
Circular Logic and the Illusion of Progress
The FT calls it a "circular deal," which is putting it mildly. [
OpenAI takes stake in Thrive Holdings in latest circular deal] It's more like a closed-loop system designed to enrich a select few while the rest of us are told to marvel at the "innovation."
And what about the actual AI integration? Apparently, Thrive ran into "research problems much sooner" than expected. Off-the-shelf AI wasn't cutting it for their complex, "domain-specific" tasks. Which is hilarious, because it suggests even *they* were drinking the Kool-Aid about how easy it would be to just sprinkle some AI dust on these businesses and watch the magic happen.
So now OpenAI gets to embed its "AI specialists" (read: overworked engineers) at these companies, presumably to build custom AI models using "reinforcement learning." Which, in plain English, means they'll be training AI on the backs of employees who are already struggling to keep up with the pace of technological change.
I wonder if those employees get equity, too? Don't hold your breath.
Oh, and by the way, Thrive Holdings gets to own all the intellectual property created through this "joint effort." So, OpenAI gets a "meaningful" stake, and Thrive gets to own the actual products. Sounds like a great deal...for Thrive. What's the upside for OpenAI, exactly? Other than access to more data to train their models, which is probably the real goal here.
AI Savior or Just Another Overhyped Bubble?
So, What's the Catch? (Besides Everything)
Look, I'm not saying AI is useless. But this whole thing feels less like a genuine attempt to revolutionize industries and more like a desperate attempt to justify sky-high valuations and keep the AI hype train rolling. They expect us to believe this nonsense, and honestly...
Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one here. Maybe this is all part of some grand master plan to usher in a new era of AI-powered prosperity. Or maybe it's just another example of Silicon Valley's favorite pastime: creating elaborate financial instruments to extract value from things that don't really exist.
I know which one I'm betting on.
It's All Just Smoke and Mirrors
