Clouded Judgement: The AI Platform Wars

The article argues that AI competition is shifting from model quality benchmarks to platform strategy, with Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta pursuing different approaches to build moats through distribution, integration, and ecosystem control. It includes detailed SaaS valuation multiples, operating metrics, and benchmarks for public cloud software companies, showing median valuations of 4.5x NTM revenue with significant variation by growth rate.