Unpacking Anthropic's $900 Billion Initiative  🔗 **Source:** [Unpacking Anthropic's $900 Billion Initiative](https://share.snipd.com/episode/dc9dd7e7-0d15-4fab-b99f-46f74a420991) ## Highlights - **Gemini Upgrade Rolls Out To Millions Of Cars** - Google Gemini will replace Google Assistant in about 4 million GM cars and 16 Volvo models going back to 2020. - Jaeden Schafer notes this is an OTA upgrade for Android Auto systems across Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Volvo, adding Gmail, Docs and Maps integrations for in-car productivity. Transcript: Jaeden Schafer The Pentagon just named seven AI companies that it will let into its classified network. And Anthropic, surprise, surprise, is the one company that it shut out. And this is all happening at the exact same moment that Anthropic has given its investors 48 hours to confirm if they want in on its $900 billion valuation round of funding. Before that, Elon Musk admitted in his most recent trial hearings that XAI used OpenAI to train Grok. Anthropic dropped Claude security in the public beta with CrowdStrike and Palo Alto on the board. And Google's Gemini is taking over the dashboard inside of 4 million GM cars, a ton of different brands getting this. We're going to get into all of that on the podcast. The first story I wanted to cover was this Gemini rollout into 4 million GM cars. And also we've just gotten news that Volvo is included in this. So they announced yesterday that Gemini is replacing the Google Assistant in about 4 million cars. This isn't like a new deal. This is Android Auto that's in there. So anything that is from after 2022 will have the Google built inside of it. So everything with Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Volvo's in there. So you don't have to go and, you know, swap out your hardware. ([Time 0:00:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7c8305fe-e604-4edb-ac3d-e714a2f071d5)) - **Anthropic Ships Cloud Security Beta For Dev Scans** - Anthropic launched Cloud Security public beta that scans codebases and traces data flows to produce vulnerability impact reports with recommended fixes. - The tool integrates with GitHub, exports CSV/markdown, schedules scans, and hands off patches to Claude Code for execution. Transcript: Jaeden Schafer They just launched Cloud Security in public beta yesterday. It's available right now to Cloud Enterprise customers with the Cloud.ai sidebar. Teams, Max plans are all going to start getting it next. And essentially, the thing that I think is interesting about this, Ryan Noreen, who's over at Security Week, and also Silicon Angle, was talking about this. And essentially, what it does is it scans your code base the same way that a security researcher would. And then it traces all of the data flows, the resources, it looks at how components interact across files, and it hands back vulnerabilities, kind of like an impact report. And then it's going to give you production steps, and it's going to recommend fixes. Now, this is kind of coming on the backs of Anthropics saying, look, we have this new Mythos model, it's really good at security vulnerabilities, finding them, exploiting them. And so it's giving it to the kind of the top firms. And so this seems almost like a dumbed down version that they're giving to everybody and maybe dumbed down as a bad, you know, version for because my those essentially you can chat with And get it to do what you want. This feels more like it is like, look, we're just scanning, we're just going to give you a list of security vulnerabilities. My understanding on this is you're not going to just go to a software and it's going to, you know, be able to go and just hack into it from viewing it. It's going to have to get access to the code. So you'd add, you know, you'd connect your GitHub repo and be able to go scan that. You then go drop its report straight into Cloud Code and it's actually going to be able to go and patch it. This is kind of the same integration that we see with Cloud Design where it's going to, it designs something amazing for your website or your app or whatever, and then it has this little Like handoff document that it makes that you can just give to Claude Code to go and actually implement. So I really love this. I think this is a really smart move by Anthropic. They don't need an API. They don't need to like have any sort of like literal integration. It just creates a document, an MD file, right? That just explains what needs to happen. And you just give that file to CloudCode that can go and execute on that. The beta is adding a bunch of scheduled scans, right? So beyond just getting to do it once, you can actually have it run a scheduled scan and find any sort of vulnerabilities. And then you also get to dismiss anything that's not that important. ([Time 0:02:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/86df8156-a627-41ac-8744-84cc0c235a91)) - **Big Security Partners Back Anthropic's Cloud Offering** - Anthropic is partnering with major security vendors and consultancies, including CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, SentinelOne, Wiz, Accenture, BCG and Deloitte. - Jaeden highlights this as a strategic push into cybersecurity where Anthropic isn't blocked from federal work, despite Pentagon disputes. Transcript: Jaeden Schafer And the partner list that they have with this right now, they have CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, SentinelOne, TrendMacro, Wiz, all of them are integrating Cloud Opus 4.7 directly Into their platforms. Accenture, BCG, Deloitte, Infosys, PwC, they're all spinning up deployment practices around this. And I think that's basically every name we have in enterprise security right now, all the big consulting firms. So I think, you know, the under discussed angle on this is just the timing. Cybersecurity is one category where Anthropic isn't blocked from the federal market. Even with the Pentagon right now, you know, they have this big fight. They're blocked out of some other big deals coming out of the Pentagon, but security is something that they're still allowed to do for the government, and so it feels like this is an area They're pushing on very heavily. ([Time 0:04:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ef7ebf24-e893-43e2-a51c-4ad6d1163e33)) - **Grok Training Included Distilled OpenAI Outputs** - Elon Musk testified XAI partly used distillation from OpenAI outputs to train Grok, a common but TOS-violating industry practice. - Jaeden explains distillation speeds training by feeding model Q&A pairs back as training signals, producing faster but sometimes less refined behavior. Transcript: Jaeden Schafer I mean, this is going to be rolling around for the next couple of weeks, and we're just going to have, I feel like, daily tidbits coming out of this. But Elon yesterday was in federal court in California in the lawsuit. And he was asked whether XAI used distillation on OpenAI models to train Grok, right? So basically asking OpenAI model a question, getting an answer, and then feeding the answer, the question and the response back to Grok to help train it. And he said that they partly did. He tried to kind of wave it off saying it's kind of general industry practice which to be fair yeah it is deep seek that's how deep seek did it like actually every am model company does it And it's against the terms of service of open ai but it's not illegal right like open ai doesn't want you to do it and and anthropic actually tried to i think lobby recently to to get the Government to like force companies to stop doing it because it's a, it's kind of like a cheap way to train a good model. Um, because you can just get a lot of these outputs really fast and it kind of speeds up the whole training process because you're telling it, look, when someone asks this type of question, This is the kind of response that we would like you to give. ([Time 0:05:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aca515c4-5756-44cf-92ee-e412ea4bc64e)) - **Use A Multi-Model Platform To Access Diverse AI Tools** - Try aggregating multiple models via a single platform to access diverse capabilities and media tools. - Jaeden promotes AIbox.ai as an example that bundles 80+ models and audio/video/image tools for $8.99/mo with an automation Vibe Builder. Transcript: Jaeden Schafer And speaking of getting the best results out of these AI models, if you're already paying for ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini or Grok, I would love for you to check out my software platform, Which is called AIbox.ai. You get access to over 80 of the top AI models, all of the latest stuff, including all of the amazing audio tools like 11 labs, music generation tools, video generation tools, image generation Tools. All of that is over on AIbox.ai. And it's currently $8.99 a month. If you get that price, you'll get locked in to that. We won't raise it on you. And you're able to get access to over 80 different models all in one place. We also have an annual plan, which makes that 20% off as well. ([Time 0:06:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8279cae6-3b03-48c6-aede-6cd32e2f5663)) - **Pentagon Lets Seven AI Firms Into Classified Networks But Not Anthropic** - The Pentagon approved seven AI vendors (OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, SpaceX, Reflection, Microsoft, AWS) for classified networks but excluded Anthropic amid a supply-chain risk dispute. - Jaeden notes a federal judge blocked that designation in March and Claude remains widely used internally at the DOD, prompting White House talks to mend ties with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Transcript: Jaeden Schafer Next up on the news, we have the Pentagon, which has just released a statement naming seven different AI companies that they're going to be letting into their classified network. So they have OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, SpaceX, Reflection, Microsoft, AWS. All of these are getting access into kind of their classified networks. Routers and US News both kind of broke the formal announcement. And the companies right now are integrated into impact levels six and seven, which is basically the highest classification tier. You get, you know, secret and top secret data and anything that touches an actual active operation. So these companies are, you know, basically getting the top of the line information and helping with some of the biggest projects that US government is working on some of the most critical Things. Now, in that list is probably like what's not included in that list is the bigger story, in my opinion, which is Anthropics. Now, this is all, of course, coming from the dispute that the DOD had with Anthropic over and, you know, they eventually labeled them as a supply chain risk, which is like a terrible designation For a company that's like a foreign adversary, usually, because they wouldn't give the, you know, the DOD unrestricted access to Anthropic to do whatever they want with it. And there was kind of this whole legal spat. Emily Michelle went on X and she's the Pentagon undersecretary and she called Dario Amadeo a liar with a God complex. Anyways, there's lots of drama in that. What's interesting, though, is with all of that, a federal judge in California already blocked the supply chain risk designation back in March. What's interesting is if you look at all of the data, Claude is actually one of the most used internal tools at the Department of War. And of course, this is something that is, you know, very powerful. And so it's no shocker that it would be, you know, highly sought after, especially for developers, who this is kind of the tool of choice right now in the industry. Axios Mike Allen actually reported earlier this week that the White House Chief of Staff, Ceci Willis, and the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessette, already met with Amadeo to try to Find an exit, right? So they're trying to find, like, how could they bring him back in? The quote is, how to save face and bring him back in. ([Time 0:07:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cb1279ff-90ec-4598-8ecf-0141eeb19abf)) - **Anthropic Racing Toward A $900B Valuation Round** - Anthropic is pursuing a $900 billion valuation private round, asking investors to confirm allocations within 48 hours for about $50 billion of funding. - Jaeden frames this as likely Anthropic's last private round before IPO and a high-pressure, fast timeline offer to investors. Transcript: Jaeden Schafer So they're trying to find, like, how could they bring him back in? The quote is, how to save face and bring him back in. This hasn't shipped yet, so we're going to see what happens there but this is also really incredible considering the timing for anthropic right now they have a 900 billion dollar valuation Round of funding that people are looking at that they're allegedly looking at doing with about a 50 billion dollars in funding that they're going to raise and apparently according To techCrunch, they just gave investors 48 hours to submit allocations and agree to the amount that they're going to be putting in. So this seems like something that might be wrapped up here very quickly. And they're, you know, I mean, that's pretty aggressive to just tell your investors, hey, look, you have 48 hours, are you in or are you out? But the reason why I think that that is important is because a lot of people have been saying that Anthropic hadn't been out actively seeking funding, they just raised some they'd been Allegedly fine. But they had a bunch of people just like coming to them and basically begging them to take their money. So whether that's true, or part of the narrative for all of this is left to be said, but Anthropic is probably the last private, this is probably the last private round for Anthropic before They have their IPO. So if anyone wants to get in now before the valuation probably goes up, now would be the moment, or at least that's the pitch that Anthropic is giving. ([Time 0:09:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b39f9417-94c6-406a-a19a-070c0be592ea)) - **Pentagon Backs Reflection As A Frontier Alternative** - Reflection AI, a lesser-known DeepMind spinout, is on the Pentagon list and may be positioned as an Anthropic alternative. - Jaeden points out Reflection's founders are ex-DeepMind researchers and raised $2B at an $8B valuation, showing the DOD is funding frontier options. Transcript: Jaeden Schafer Reflection's two founders are Misha Laskin and Lonis Antuoglo. Both of them are from DeepMind. Formerly, Laskin ran their reward modeling on Gemini. Antalogo was a core architect at AlphaGo. So, you know, these are obviously very legendary researchers. They raised $2 billion at an $8 billion valuation last October, but these aren't the biggest companies in the world. And I would also say, you know, most people probably haven't even heard of Reflection. I think the Pentagon basically putting them on the same list with like OpenAI and Microsoft and leaving Anthropic off of that is kind of their own way of saying, look, like we have some Frontier lab options that you've never heard of. We're going to fund these alternatives to Anthropic ourselves if we have to. And so I think that's kind of an interesting strategic move. They put a lot of these big companies on there. Then they put some brand new ones on that feels like they're kind of funding and they'll probably get some custom stuff done that they need that others might not be willing or able to do. And I think the Anthropic exclusion is kind of a symbol, right? Reflection is basically getting waved in as a substitute, perhaps. ([Time 0:10:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0a9dae0b-27d8-4904-abf4-fb3b11ff29c7))