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The Case for Apple Buying OpenAI for $500B

https://www.suffsyed.com/Future(memo)/the-case-for-apple-buying-openai-for-500b
2•suffsyed•4h ago

Comments

msgodel•4h ago
Apple does their own language model development and worst case could host eg Qwen or Deepseek. That would be an absolutely insane waste of cash.

Their problem isn't inability to develop or lack of access to technology, they're extremely good at that, They're like a vertically integrated combination of Microsoft and Nvidia.

Their problem is the lack of vision and inability to productise what they develop. IE their problem is that they're Apple, buying other companies won't change that.

znpy•4h ago
> Apple does their own language model development and worst case could host eg Qwen or Deepseek. That would be an absolutely insane waste of cash.

At those levels you don't buy other companies to only get the tech, you also acqui-hire the talents.

msgodel•4h ago
That's the thing though. Apple's internal ML team has amazing output for the small amount of money they're given. There are very few companies with better talent. If they scaled up the Capex for ML they could probably match other big tech's language models.

They don't have to though. Language models are commodities and the weights are free.

bitpush•2h ago
> Language models are commodities and the weights are free

That's like saying chips are a commodity. You can buy from Intel, or AMD. Why bother making something yourself. And yet, Apple has proven that unless you vertically integrate you're not going to differentiate.

msgodel•2h ago
Eh. Apple's chips are good but not exactly game changing. At the end of the day if they're doing anything useful they still run the same software everyone else's do with roughly the same performance. It's a great analogy for the situation with language models.

Can you get a slight edge with the particular RL tuning on some models? Sure. Does it actually result in qualitative changes in what the model can do? No not really, all of them can do MCP, all of them still hallucinate etc.

fasthands9•4h ago
I am not bearish on AI by any means, but don't really get why Apple needs the best AI in-house other than to improve Siri. That doesn't take 500B.

As long as you can download apps and set permissions for communication between apps/devices, then it seems like 3rd party developers will make Apple devices more valuable for them.

bitpush•2h ago
Apple buying OpenAI would be the end of the facade Apple has built over many years of being privacy & user first.

OpenAI is at the state it is in, because of massive amount of data is hoovers from the internet. Apple is culturally not set to do that kind of work.

Imagine an Apple+Open AI releasing Sora, which can produce images based on [christopher nolan] or [another-famous-visual-style], personalized the way users want.

And no, you cannot do that on-device and get away, because that is (if at all possible) is several years away. Apple has to demonstrate leadership right now, and the only way to show that is by dealing with data, a ungodly amounts of it, which Apple has themselves said to be radioactive.

Apple painted themselves to a corner, and now they are paying the price for it.

Do Car Buyers Care Which Engine Is Under the Hood? A Ford Exec Doesn't Think So

https://www.thedrive.com/news/do-car-buyers-care-which-engine-is-under-the-hood-a-ford-exec-doesnt-think-so
1•PaulHoule•2m ago•0 comments

CertMate – SSL Certificate Management System

https://github.com/fabriziosalmi/certmate
1•indigodaddy•4m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How to build a LifeOS using vibe coding?

1•agcat•5m ago•0 comments

Show HN: On-chain Fund Administration Protocol

https://www.fume.finance/
1•fume_protocol•5m ago•0 comments

Portal, for the C64

https://www.jamiefuller.com/portal/
1•rbanffy•6m ago•0 comments

Defending Savannah from DDoS Attacks

https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2025/spring/defending-savannah-from-ddos-attacks
1•HieronymusBosch•11m ago•0 comments

Beltabol: An eager functional esolang based on the Expanse

https://github.com/demaere-oiie/beltabol
1•akkartik•14m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Transform handwritten chess notation to Lichess or chess.com instantly

https://chess-notation.com
1•coolwulf•16m ago•0 comments

Dias on the Web – Pandas Rewriter

https://www.pandas-rewriter.com/
1•baziotis•17m ago•0 comments

Bulk Lots of DB-19s for Sale

https://www.bigmessowires.com/2025/06/30/bulk-lots-of-db-19s-for-sale/
1•zdw•17m ago•0 comments

The Impact of Early Galaxy Formation on the Cosmic Microwave Background

https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.04687
1•sb057•18m ago•0 comments

My Database Is My Application: Rethinking Webhook Logic with DuckDB and SQL

https://www.hey.earth/posts/duckdb-webhook-gateway
3•chw9e•23m ago•0 comments

Jony Ive's AI gadget might be a pen

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-06-30/jony-ive-s-first-ai-gadget-clues-point-to-a-pen
1•theyinwhy•23m ago•0 comments

"Fuck the algorithm"?: What to learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco (2020)

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/08/26/fk-the-algorithm-what-the-world-can-learn-from-the-uks-a-level-grading-fiasco/
1•djoldman•24m ago•0 comments

Senate GOP budget bill has little-noticed provision that could hurt your Wi-Fi

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/06/senate-gop-budget-bill-has-little-noticed-provision-that-could-hurt-your-wi-fi/
16•spenvo•24m ago•3 comments

iOS Dev Weekly: Swift Everywhere: Bringing Swift Packages to Android

https://iosdevweekly.com/issues/697/
1•wahnfrieden•25m ago•0 comments

Machine Consciousness Psuedocode

1•cladking•25m ago•0 comments

Nuclear Matters Handbook [pdf]

https://www.acq.osd.mil/ncbdp/nm/NMHB2020rev/docs/NMHB2020rev.pdf
1•handfuloflight•25m ago•0 comments

Ted Chiang on Superintelligence in "The Hampdenshire Wonder"

https://lithub.com/ted-chiang-on-superintelligence-and-its-discontents-in-j-d-beresfords-innovative-work-of-early-20th-century-science-fiction/
1•laacz•26m ago•0 comments

Apple Loses Bid to Dismiss US Smartphone Monopoly Case

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/apple-loses-bid-dismiss-us-smartphone-monopoly-case-2025-06-30/
1•jmsflknr•27m ago•0 comments

New band surges to 500k listeners on Spotify, but turns out it's AI slop

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/half-a-million-spotify-users-are-unknowingly-grooving-to-an-ai-generated-band/
7•Willingham•27m ago•0 comments

Mechanism shrinks when pulled [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QTkPfq7w1A
3•sandebert•28m ago•0 comments

Ukrainians Built a Jammer That Tells Russian Drones They're in Peru

https://daxe.substack.com/p/a-ukrainian-team-built-a-radio-jammer
2•vinnyglennon•28m ago•0 comments

Economic Nihilism

https://www.palladiummag.com/2025/06/30/economic-nihilism/
1•jebarker•29m ago•0 comments

Microsoft AI tool outperforms doctors in diagnosing complex medical cases

https://www.geekwire.com/2025/ai-vs-mds-microsoft-ai-tool-outperforms-doctors-in-diagnosing-complex-medical-cases/
2•JaakkoP•32m ago•0 comments

I still choose no-code vs. vibe code

https://twitter.com/marinatrajk/status/1939774832431780069
3•marince00•32m ago•0 comments

Perplexity Is Doomed

https://medium.com/utopian/perplexity-is-doomed-721abbca1228
3•bentcorner•32m ago•1 comments

How to Opt Out of Your Car's Surveillance State

https://www.carsandhorsepower.com/featured/how-to-opt-out-of-your-car-s-surveillance-state-before-it-s-too-late
3•Anumbia•32m ago•0 comments

Why Don't AI Agents Work (Yet)? [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpOWmwA6tJc
1•ngruhn•32m ago•1 comments

Want to stand out in IT job interviews? a home lab can help

https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/want-to-stand-out-in-it-job-interviews-10-ways-a-home-lab-can-help/
2•mooreds•34m ago•0 comments