Probably you already saw how it all turned out. On the very same day that Altman offered public support to Amodei, he signed a deal to take away Amodei’s business, with a deal that wasn’t all that different. You can’t get more Altman than that.
But here’s the kicker: Per The New York Times,
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](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TftA!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6608686e-a3ed-4420-8dd2-b3ece2c60a4b_1206x582.jpeg)
Let that sink in. Altman had secretly been working on the deal since Wednesday.
- before he announced his support for Dario
- before Trump had denounced Anthropic
- but after Brockman had donated 25M to Trump’s PAC
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It was all theatre. Dario never had a chance.
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It’s one thing for the government to reject Anthropic’s terms—and entirely another to banish them permanently and, absurdly and punitively declare them a supply chain risk. Worse, they did it in favor of someone else who took pretty similar terms and happened to have given more campaign contributions.
Anthropic deserves a chance at EXACTLY the same terms; anything else reeks of corruption.
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I am no fan of Amodei. I think he often overhypes things, many of which I have publicly challenged. The company ripped off a lot of writer’s work (per the $1.5B settlement), and recently walked back its core safety pledge.
But I believe in fair play. This wasn’t that.
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In capitalism, the market decides.
In oligarchy, connections and donations decide.
It sure look like the US is transitioning from the former to the latter.
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