Making Sense of the Billion-Dollar AI Mega Deals

By Roger Cheng

When Google is willing to spend $2.4 billion for a handful of engineers and the non-exclusive rights to use a bit of artificial intelligence software, you know things have gotten out of hand. 

Google’s deal to poach the CEO and select staff of AI startup Windsurf, swooping in after OpenAI’s $3 billion takeover attempt folded, isn’t unique. On Wednesday, Thinking Machines Lab, another AI startup started by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati, raised $2 billion in a funding round that valued the company at $12 billion — and it doesn’t have any products yet. Anthropic, the startup behind the Claude chatbot, is eying a funding round with a $100 billion valuation. This all came after AI-chip supplier Nvidia briefly hit the $4 trillion threshold in market capitalization.