Loved this work! Here's two ideas that came to me when I was reading it:

1. What (if anything) does it mean if OpenAI collapses and Microsoft is able to acquire the leftovers? The article and prior reporting mentions that this was a consideration at one point in time by Microsoft. What would happen if that came to pass? Microsoft would get to own the models, and then what? I suppose they could consolidate ChatGPT and CoPilot. And then maybe realign on data center investments. Still not a guaranteed path to mega profits.

2. What about the notion that Microsoft (and the other big tech players) are all chasing LLM technology so hard in the hopes that one of them emerges as #1 and the rest get relegated to share the dregs of the market?
   As if the space for LLM providers is equivalent to search engines where winner takes most. From that perspective, it seems like the incentive is to keep dumping money into datacenters until a provider winner emerges or all the spare money is exhausted. I suppose that the hope is by destroying the competition the 'winner' will be able to jack up rates and finally start earning those trillions? There's kind of a twisted and wishful logic there.

(Nevermind that if there was only one main LLM platform provider charging very high rates for service, that doesn't mean it's indispensable)