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Garg: Big Tech AI team lift-outs bypass 18-month antitrust delays

Ashu Garg · GPT-5 is NOT Your Competitor It's GPT-7 |Ashu Garg, Foundation Capital | Databricks,Turing, Cohesity · Sep 19, 2025 · at 37:54

Ashu Garg explains the strategic rationale behind Big Tech AI team licensing deals and pseudo-acquisitions.

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“So, because of the antitrust issues, companies are choosing to, you know, lift out teams, including the IP. But the bet they're making is the IP is changing so rapidly, you take a licensed copy of the IP, you leave the, you leave a copy behind, And that team, when you acquire the team along with the license copy, in 18 months, the existing copy will not be any, of any value. And so, it's just a new structure for what is effectively an acquisition.”

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