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points by brookst 3 days ago | 0 comments

Anthropic is not in the model business. They were smart and they are building productivity ecosystem business. Look at what claude artifacts are doing now -- inline multi-user editing, comments that users and/or models can respond and take action on, import/export from all common formats. It's at least a Google Docs killer if not an M365 killer.

And claude code as a harness and skill/plugin/mcp ecosystem is far more valuable than any one model.

And coward for long-running tasks, though they're slipping on that one because they're really trying hard not to make Claude an assistant. We'll see if they react to Muse and change course.

But the Chinese free-weight models? Not a competitor. If/when those companies (or others) build vertically integrated productivity stacks on those free models, then we'll talk. Microsoft certainly saw that opportunity but couldn't get out of their own way and are basically roadkill at this point.

[–] njovin 3 days ago

I have a hard time believing that making “a really good harness” justifies pre-ordering half the world’s GPU compute for years in advance.

[–] jacquesm 3 days ago

It doesn't. But it did stop a lot of other projects in their tracks because the hardware cost suddenly more than doubled.

[–] brookst 3 days ago

Did you really read me whole comment and come way with "a really good harness"?

[–] nrclark 2 days ago

That might be true for general consumers, yes. Not so true for software developers though. For developers, the tooling is definitely not a moat, and that means the models are what must differentiate.

Claude code is very polished, but I can get the same jobs done using Cursor CLI or any number of open-source coding harnesses (I like Pi, personally). Most plugins/skills/mcps are portable between harnesses with minimal or no effort.

I use the same skills, rules, and MCPs across claude code, cursor, and pi. My tools/plugins aren't identical between harnesses, but porting them from one to another is just a prompt away.

[–] OtherShrezzing 3 days ago

>Anthropic is not in the model business. They were smart and they are building productivity ecosystem business... It's at least a Google Docs killer if not an M365 killer.

Google Workspace revenues are something like $25bn/q, and that's the entire workspace division, (including enterprise gmail sales, so the productivity suite is meaningfully smaller than that figure). It's taken Google a long time to carve that slice out of Microsoft's entrenched market position. It's not small money, but they'd basically be going to war with two of the largest and most profitable companies in history on their turf.

I don't think they can credibly take that business plan to the market and say it'll be worth $1.75tn. They're all-or-nothing on being in the model business, and everything else is superfluous.

[–] brookst 3 days ago

What do you think Google Workspace would sell for, if Google divested?

$100B/year in revenue; SaaS so call it 70% gross margin, 30% net, NPV is about $500B.

Not enough if you think that's the only revenue Anthropic could every have. But even if they only peel off $100B NPV, it's incremental to an IPO valuation.

[–] redanddead 3 days ago

>claude code

The same one that leaked itself a few months ago?

[–] brookst 3 days ago

The same way a source code leak of M365 would totally wipe out its revenue?

[–] redanddead 3 days ago

M365 is a terrible example

[–] brookst 3 days ago

Hard to argue with that level of depth

[–] redanddead 3 days ago

Not everything needs to be an argument, and regardless you didn't change my mind

The value is in the harness! The harness leaked itself

[–] stefan_ 3 days ago

I mean, a lot of people before them were "not in the model business" (Cursor et al) and it seems they got disintermediated by the model companies. Step 1 is still to have the best model, or hope for model progress to taper out.

[–] brookst 3 days ago

Vertical integration is hugely valuable, but revenue comes from the top of the stack, not the bottom.

Apple makes great margins on hardware. They are 100% not in the CNC milling business. But their investments at that low level and vertical integration allow for higher margins at the top.

Cursor had... nothing. A minor, indefensible value add to a much larger and wealthier supplier.

[–] jacquesm 3 days ago

> or hope for model progress to taper out

No, that would kill them for sure. Or did you mean 'open model progress'?