Interest rates.

They are not borrowing from a bank.

Microsoft can fund them interest free as long as they want if there's a slim chance of OpenAI being useful to MS for one upping Google a few more times.

I wish I could figure out how to be a beneficiary of a trillionaire pissing match.

Bet on the winner and buy stocks?

Because interest rates were in a completely different league by then.

Completely different industry and business model.

I tend to think that the real debacle is that people think it is a debacle whenever a business takes a long time to reach profitability.

I bet a lot of great innovation has been held back by the focus on short term returns.

the scaling effects and deflationary nature of technology are much better-established than those of humans driving large, expensive cars.

You didn't play monopoly much growing I guess. Winning in capitalism is all about securing position. From there, leveraging profits isnt hard.