Who’s the winner in the new Microsoft-OpenAI deal?
It feels like the world’s longest and most public divorce: In late April, Microsoft and OpenAI once again renegotiated the slow-motion breakup that has been playing out between the two over the last several years. At first glance, it looks like a win-win. In the broadest terms, OpenAI gets more freedom to set its own course — it can sell its models to Microsoft competitors such as Amazon and Google, for example — while Microsoft gets a better revenue deal and first rights to the newest OpenAI technologies into the next decade. But in truth, one company got a better deal than the other. Who came out ahead? To figure that out, we first need to look at the most important details of the new agreement. A new deal after a lot of rancor Keep in mind that this new agreement didn’t arise from thin air. It’s a direct result of Microsoft’s threats in March to sue OpenAI when inked a $50 billion deal with Amazon that makes the latter company the only third-party cloud provider for OpenAI’s ent