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Enterprises cannot trust frontier model labs (Anthropic, OpenAI) because these labs use their dominant position at the model layer to observe where value is being created on top of their models, then vertically integrate and compete directly with their own customers.

David Sacks argues that Anthropic is following a Microsoft-like playbook: dominate the model layer, observe where customers create value, then vertically integrate into those verticals. He cites Figma's blindsiding by Claude Design, Claude Code's emergence after Cursor's success, and Anthropic's expansion into science, security, legal, and financial verticals as evidence. ✦ AI generated

David Sacks · All-In Podcast · 2026-07-03 · original ↗

plays this moment only · 5:00 — 9:00

So this was a new vertical app that Anthropic launched to compete in the design category. And Figma's founder said that Anthropic had not been completely honest with them. Anthropic's chief product officer had actually even served on Figma's board and didn't resign until three days before the launch of Claude Design. So obviously, Figma again felt blindsided by this. And you can see the resulting impact on their stock price. Figma's stock has fallen something like 50% this year, while Anthropic's valuation has surged. This is not an isolated example. Anthropic has also launched Claude Science, Claude Security, Claude Legal, Claude Financial, and of course, Claude Code. And every single one of these vertical apps expanded into categories that was previously served by companies building on top of Anthropic's own models. And really, if you want to go back to when Anthropic's revenue explosion began, it was with the launch of Claude Code. And how did they know to launch that product? Because they saw that Cursor was doing extremely well. Cursor was one of their biggest customers. They created the coding assistant first. They created that category. And Anthropic said, oh, like why don't we vertically integrate? So in other words, they're watching where the value is being created on top of their models, then they're moving in directly. And this is a formula that I think is very Microsoft-like. You could say it's very Google-like. They want to dominate the model layer. You could call that the operating system and then use that position, that monopolistic position to capture the most lucrative verticals.

verbatim transcript · starts at 5:00

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