[antisthenes]

The existing tech giants will just hoover up all the niche LLM shops once the valuations deflate somewhat.

There's almost a negligible chance any one of these shops stays truly independent, unless propped up by a state-level actor (China/EU)

You might have some consulting/service companies that will promise to tailor big models to your specific needs, but they will be valued accordingly (nowhere near billions).

[marcus_holmes]

Yeah, that's probably true, the same happened after the dot-com bubble burst. From about 2005-15 if you had a vaguely promising idea and a few engineers you could get acqui-hired by a tech giant easily. The few profitable ones that refused are now middle-sized businesses doing OK (nowhere near billions).

I don't know if the survivors are going to be in consulting - there is some kind of LLM-base product capability, you could conceivably see a set of LLM-based products building companies emerge. But it'll probably be a bit different, like the mobile app boom was a bit different from the web boom.