google + amazon's anthropic markup — aninews ep 3

On Thursday, Big Tech reported quarterly earnings. Alphabet posted sixty-two point six billion dollars in profit. Roughly half of it came from marking up the value of a single investment. An eight-billion-dollar bet, now carried on the books at seventy. Amazon reported sixteen point eight billion dollars in pre-tax gains from the same company. Per Amazon's filing, that represented more than half of its quarterly pre-tax income. The investment, in both cases, is Anthropic. Anthropic priced its latest round near a nine-hundred-billion-dollar valuation. The markups followed. Reports cite an accounting consultant noting that perhaps this wasn't the best idea the standards board ever came up with. The two largest stakeholders in Anthropic are Google and Amazon. Their best-performing AI product this quarter was each other's investment. Forty-five billion dollars in AI profits. Generated by owning a piece of an AI company.