“Microsoft and Amazon have done what are essentially reverse acquihires, where the hiring of people and a corresponding licensing deal is designed to disguise what is actually an acquisition.”
Adept raised about $400 million to compete with OpenAI. Amazon hired close to 66 percent of its staff and licensed its technology, the same move Microsoft pulled on Inflection. Reid Hoffman sits on Microsoft’s board, co-founded Inflection, and his firm Greylock was an early Adept investor. He predicted the pattern on stage. It’s easy to predict a deal you’re on both sides of.