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Amazon's acquisitions: The tech giant just bought a movie studio, what else have they bought?

Amazon's acquisitions: The tech giant just bought a movie studio, what else have they bought?

David Crowther

This week Amazon completed its acquisition of iconic studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) for $8.45bn. That deal is Amazon's second largest ever, just behind the $13.2bn that the e-commerce giant paid for upscale supermarket Whole Foods back in 2017.

MGM's most well known asset is undoubtedly its 50% share in the rights to the James Bond film franchise, which it shares with Eon Productions. Fans of Bond were concerned that the Amazon deal might have meant a "straight to streaming" model for 007, but assurances have been made that Bond producers will keep Bond in cinemas, as well as maintaining control over who plays the character and the creative direction of the franchise.

‍More stuff stuffed into Prime

‍For Amazon, the deal offers further proof of the company's desire to compete seriously in streaming. It will also bolster the quite eclectic range of services offered with its Amazon Prime membership.

As we wrote about last year, Prime's offer is quite a random collection of services which include free delivery, a streaming service, some music, an Amazon credit card, some discounts at Whole Foods and some other random stuff. Crucially though, only 11% of customers polled gave the streaming service as their primary reason for having Amazon Prime, the overwhelming majority (79%) were in it for that one-day delivery.

The strategy, presumably, is to offer such a wide range of services — TV, movies, e-commerce, delivery, music, groceries and more — such that consumers almost can't get away without having Prime. Already there are 175 million Amazon Prime members around the world who seemingly feel that way — and each spends significantly more on Amazon.com than non-Prime members.

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Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind’s CEO and founder, was also an early Anthropic investor

A chess prodigy and an actual a knight of the realm in the UK, it’s perhaps no surprise that Demis Hassabis has made some strategic moves about his exposure to AI upside. According to people familiar with the matter, the influential AI architect became an angel investor in Anthropic, currently behind many of the leading AI models, per Arena AI leaderboards.

The Nobel Prize winner’s position in the Claude creator was previously undisclosed and, per the Financial Times, highlights Hassabis’ “growing influence across the AI industry.”

Google, which bought DeepMind, the company that Hassabis cofounded and heads to this day, for a reported ~$400 million in 2014, is also a key Anthropic investor. The tech giant reportedly plans to invest up to $40 billion in the AI company as part of the mutually beneficial relationship the pair have forged, with reports that Anthropic has committed to spending $200 billion in the other direction on Google’s cloud services over the next five years.

I’m playing all sides, so I always come out on top

In addition to his financial support for Anthropic, Hassabis has also invested in a range of AI startups launched by colleagues, such as Inflection AI, a company set up by DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman (who is now CEO of Microsoft AI), as well as efforts from other collaborators, like David Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence.

Hassabis also emerged as a recurring figure on the fringes of the recent Elon Musk v. Sam Altman trial, cropping up repeatedly in testimonies and court documents and appearing to live, as The Verge put it, “rent-free” in Musk’s head.

Founded in 2021, Anthropic has recently raised funding at a reported $900 billion valuation, sending it soaring ahead of competitor OpenAI.

Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis emerges as early Anthropic investor

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The Nobel Prize winner’s position in the Claude creator was previously undisclosed and, per the Financial Times, highlights Hassabis’ “growing influence across the AI industry.”

Google, which bought DeepMind, the company that Hassabis cofounded and heads to this day, for a reported ~$400 million in 2014, is also a key Anthropic investor. The tech giant reportedly plans to invest up to $40 billion in the AI company as part of the mutually beneficial relationship the pair have forged, with reports that Anthropic has committed to spending $200 billion in the other direction on Google’s cloud services over the next five years.

I’m playing all sides, so I always come out on top

In addition to his financial support for Anthropic, Hassabis has also invested in a range of AI startups launched by colleagues, such as Inflection AI, a company set up by DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman (who is now CEO of Microsoft AI), as well as efforts from other collaborators, like David Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence.

Hassabis also emerged as a recurring figure on the fringes of the recent Elon Musk v. Sam Altman trial, cropping up repeatedly in testimonies and court documents and appearing to live, as The Verge put it, “rent-free” in Musk’s head.

Founded in 2021, Anthropic has recently raised funding at a reported $900 billion valuation, sending it soaring ahead of competitor OpenAI.

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