Marc Benioff says Salesforce's investment in Anthropic was a plan B that could pay off in ‘tens of billions’
Marc Benioff said Salesforce backed Anthropic after it could not invest in OpenAI, a bet he thinks could be worth tens of billions.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff revealed that his company's decision to back Anthropic over OpenAI was a contingency plan that could prove to be incredibly lucrative. Benioff explained that OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft, which gives the tech giant control over OpenAI and its technology, prevented Salesforce from investing in the company.
As a result, the Salesforce CEO sought to explore alternative AI startups and found Anthropic to be a "good fit." The Salesforce CEO now believes the investment could lead to "tens of billions" of dollars in revenue. Salesforce's new interfaces, like Slackbot, now utilize Anthropic's AI model Claude. Although the company has not disclosed the exact stake it holds in Anthropic, an upcoming IPO for the startup could provide a public valuation for Salesforce's investment and potentially allow for shares to be sold.
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