Business Model Evergence
Hittin’ triples
The U.S. AI labs on the frontier used a three-fold pricing ladder as a business model:
Free to get you started
Subscription to get you retained (once you reach the free limit)
Usage to get you paying (once you reach the subscription limit)
As a result, Chinese open-source models used a different strategy:
Give away the models and weights for free
Charge you for usage in the cloud (since frontier-grade open source models can’t be run locally due to their size)
The Enterprise was caught between a rock and a hard place:
U.S. frontier models were too expensive, where ROI-seeking and data siphoning trojan horses became the narrative
Chinese open-source models were untrusted for use in sensitive American companies
The next move by Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Thinking Machines was a simple “middle way” solution:
Give you our American-made open source model (e.g., generic)
Charge you to fine-tune it to your enterprise business and use cases (e.g., customization)
The evergence of new business models from the convergence of emerging tech. So far, our prediction algorithm for how this all plays out is batting 1000.
—Sean
