The "innovator's dilemma" seems to have a new chapter: having enough TPU capacity to simply out-brute-force the competition once the direction is clear. It's less about "who built it first" and more about "who has the most H100s/TPUs and a decent enough compiler."

Open AI the hare had an exciting sprint and is now a bit winded. Google the tortoise is going to keep plugging along.

LLMs give me flashbacks to the self-driving car race 9 years ago. Uber, Tesla and other flashy companies were drawing a great deal of attention to themselves and burning a lot of investor capital making it appear as though real progress was being made.

Google (rebranded Waymo) ducked the hype, stayed the course, and kept their nose to the grindstone, and now they're the only western company that matters.