Thrive Capital partner says every Big Tech company has a 'bazooka pointed at' OpenAI (www.businessinsider.com)

Vince Hankes, a partner at Thrive Capital (an investor in OpenAI), warned that every Big Tech incumbent is effectively aiming to take OpenAI down, arguing that established firms don’t want a new rival joining their ranks. His comments come as OpenAI has accelerated moves that make it look and feel more like a full-fledged Big Tech platform: ChatGPT now hosts “apps” with an SDK for third‑party developers, claims about 800 million weekly users, and a DevDay push that positions the product as an app‑store‑like ecosystem. Thrive’s backing underscores investor belief in OpenAI’s upside, even as the firm notes the risks and the need for a competitive, fair market. The technical and commercial developments that fuel incumbents’ concern are concrete: multi‑year hardware deals including an AMD pact to deploy chips consuming up to six gigawatts and access to roughly 10 gigawatts of Nvidia GPUs alongside a reported $100B commitment, plus plans to produce an OpenAI‑branded AI chip with Broadcom next year. For the AI/ML community this signals intensified platform competition, more centralized control over model deployment and tooling, massive hardware and energy demands that shape who can train and run large models, and new opportunities (and frictions) for developers building on ChatGPT’s app ecosystem.