OpenAI and Anthropic are the Microsoft and Apple of today’s world. People keep pitting them against each other and framing this as a winner-takes-all race, but that is far from the truth. Both of them can comfortably exist and end up as winners. One party does not need to fail for the other to succeed. The market demand is bigger now than at any time in history, and can accommodate multiple winners without limiting it to these two.
The rivalry between the two companies is a story that will make for a blockbuster cinema in a couple years from now. The founders of Anthropic (makers of Claude AI) started out at OpenAI and then left to build their own thing when they got into loggerheads with the leaders at OpenAI. Dario Amodei and his sister Daniella were both at OpenAI and left to found Anthropic. Several other folks have left OpenAI to start their own thing, but none have been as successful as the Amodeis.
Dario is a maverick and very contrarian and I can see why he got into trouble with the folks at OpenAI, when someone sees the world in a different light, in a way that most people cannot grasp, people tend to dismiss them, but when you’re very sure of what you’re seeing, you take the dismissal head on, and go on to do your thing with one mission in mind – revenge. Dario must have left OpenAI seething, with one mission: to show OpenAI that they were wrong and he was right. You can tell that he’s still very obsessed with OpenAI and is probably not happy that they are also winning. But he’s got one part right; he’s proven that he was right all along and that he had different ideas on AI that others couldn’t see. He should be satisfied with the success of Anthropic.
The folks at OpenAI should not be sad at Anthropic’s success. On the contrary, they should be glad it happened. That success not only expanded the market, of which OpenAI is also benefiting, but it also pushed them to work harder and become better. Thank you, not loath Dario. The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Dario Amodei were both speakers at an event recently, and the apathy between them was so visible that they refused to touch hands, which made for an awkward scene. If history is anything to go by, these men will end up with great mutual respect ten years from now. This is not the first time it has happened.
In the 1980s, Apple and Microsoft were at loggerheads; they were both competing for the biggest share in the market, and Steve Jobs did not hide his disdain for Microsoft, even openly saying that Microsoft copied Apple’s GUI. The battle then was for who was going to win the PC market, and the two companies chose to go about it in different ways. Very quickly, Microsoft became the big brother and market leader, but Apple refused to give up, focusing narrowly on its niche. In some ways, Dario is like Steve Jobs. Both are maverick, contrarian, and very adamant in what they believe, and not afraid to pick up a fight. Steve picked up fights with everyone, including folks at Adobe who were poaching his workers, and engineers who said a specific feature couldn’t be built, and Dario took that up a notch, fighting the Government and anyone else who stood in the way. He goes on podcasts and is not scared to speak his mind. That was Jobs.
Microsoft decided to focus on Enterprise customers, while Apple focused on end users. Two different ways to win. But Microsoft won very quickly, while Apple took the long, arduous path, nearly going bankrupt before eventually finding its way back. Both companies won, and the two feuding founders became friends. Actually, Microsoft ended up bailing Apple out at one point in the 90s with 5 billion USD. This is something Sam and Dario should bear in mind: don’t burn bridges too far during this period of animosity, making it difficult to mend them in the future. There are more wins in your future when you collaborate than compete – compute, power, regulation.
Today, Anthropic looks to be going the enterprise route while OpenAI is going the end-user route. Every average AI user knows ChatGPT, and only the really technical folks know Claude. The thing with this approach is that Enterprise will always pay more, while end-users can decide to opt out next month. It looks like ChatGPT learnt from Apple’s early days and has been making serious efforts to incorporate enterprise alongside, and for this reason, I think they will win. As for Anthropic, I think Dario’s drive will make them win too.
OpenAI vs Anthropic, Microsoft vs Apple, FedEx vs UPS, Pepsi vs Coca-Cola…
There you have it.