OpenAI is hardly a monopolist, and the way it's shaping up so far LLM-based search is being provided by 3rd-parties like DuckDuckGo offering multiple models to choose from.
It is because OpenAI is a competitor for Google search, not because OAI is also a monopoly. YC has a conflict of interest because of their relation to OpenAI(YC research) and Sam Altman directly.
YC doesn’t after all often amicus briefs in court, the relationship was a definitely a factor in doing so. Stating that relationship clearly and disclosing financial upside they may get in the soon to be for profit conversion is relevant to this case.
The google decision could have implications for OpenAI’s business and therefore their enterprise value .
Apple Intelligence is another example integrating (intending to anyway) a variety of services you can choose between. Cursor as well. It actually feels like the ability to easily switch between rival models is a pretty standard feature of 3rd party services. And right now it feels like nobody is trying to stop this!
You can safely say now the pendulum is swinging back towards Google if YC is complaining, and there's probably moat in AI after all [1].
Google has Google Search, Gmail, Scholar, Patents, Books, Maps, Workspace, Drive, Gemini and Youtube just to name several killer applications that are being widely used by billions of people every single day [2].
I think NotebookLM is easily one of best products come up from Google since the initial search engine with PageRank. It's a combination of virtual personal and research assistant that's very helpful that keep you in the driving seat with much less hallucinations compared to your typical LLMs including Google own Gemini.
Never paid Google for all its services all my life but now I'd probably would pay for NotebookLM, and get 2 TB storage on top of that, that's telling something from the user of the early Google years, of more than 20 years.
[1] Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI” (1039 comments):
I've watched a video about NotebookLM podcast generation functionality, and I thought it was impressive. While I realize that it definitely doesn't replace actual podcasts, I immediately thought of many novel and interesting uses for it. Narration is a powerful tool and IME ingesting sources in a narrative form helps my brain to better internalize information.
Yep the podcast looks very intuitive, surreal and nifty at the same time. It's interactive thus you can interrupt the session to get the response dynamically and immediately from the virtual panel and host.
Google is a massive monopoly, I’m glad we are starting to fight this stuff again. Google, Amazon, and Apple all have insane monopolies that are not healthy
Google is certainly a monopoly in several sectors, search and YouTube come to mind. Amazon is a duopoly with Walmart and both need to be dismantled, but the damage to main street was done a long time ago. I'm not sure where Apple is a monopoly. People argue the App Store but only for the iPhone and iPad, but I feel that takes some mental gymnastics since it's somewhat niche and other stores for other phones exist.
I agree, but the way the law is applied in the United States, anything that increases prices is more likely to be seen as a monopoly from a legal perspective.
Thats a reason why Apple is so against the opening up of the App market, and wanted to die on the hill of stopping apps for letting people know about offline purchase options.
They had issues long ago with the iBooks Store, of all things. Particularly absurd given the nature of Amazon’s business.
The article doesn't appear to say that OpenAI is a monopolist - it's more a conflict of interest:
However, YC is also closely tied to OpenAI, which is now directly competing against Google on search. OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman used to run YC, while OpenAI was the first group affiliated with YC Research.
Which is a strange statement because OpenAI is not directly competing against Google on search. They don’t have a public search engine and rely on Bing for search results — they do something greater and more broad than search. Conflating product categories to make this point is not effective for whatever argument they are making here.
Reminds me of when Saudi Arabia was criticizing Canada for its human rights record at the UN, subsequently other groups highlighted the lack of accountability against indigenous populations and mass graves at the boarding schools.
I found pretty much nobody willing to accept that logic that Saudi Arabia having a poor human rights record doesn't make Canada exempt from being called out.
You would think starting thousands and thousands of companies with the goal of being disruptive to incumbents in often monopolistic industries would have earned them something but I guess not lol.
Kudos to Garry Tan for not only recognizing Google’s long-running manipulation of the search landscape, but for taking principled action in this pivotal case. It’s rare to see a tech leader willing to both speak truth to power and back it up with decisive legal support—thank you.
Readit News
US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43945820 - May 2025 (936 comments)
YC doesn’t after all often amicus briefs in court, the relationship was a definitely a factor in doing so. Stating that relationship clearly and disclosing financial upside they may get in the soon to be for profit conversion is relevant to this case.
The google decision could have implications for OpenAI’s business and therefore their enterprise value .
Google has Google Search, Gmail, Scholar, Patents, Books, Maps, Workspace, Drive, Gemini and Youtube just to name several killer applications that are being widely used by billions of people every single day [2].
I think NotebookLM is easily one of best products come up from Google since the initial search engine with PageRank. It's a combination of virtual personal and research assistant that's very helpful that keep you in the driving seat with much less hallucinations compared to your typical LLMs including Google own Gemini.
Never paid Google for all its services all my life but now I'd probably would pay for NotebookLM, and get 2 TB storage on top of that, that's telling something from the user of the early Google years, of more than 20 years.
[1] Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI” (1039 comments):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35813322
[2] List of Google products:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products
There’s a comment about OpenAI ties… kinda
Thats a reason why Apple is so against the opening up of the App market, and wanted to die on the hill of stopping apps for letting people know about offline purchase options.
They had issues long ago with the iBooks Store, of all things. Particularly absurd given the nature of Amazon’s business.
Bringing in some random hypocrisy is a great way to unmake your own point, TechCrunch.
I found pretty much nobody willing to accept that logic that Saudi Arabia having a poor human rights record doesn't make Canada exempt from being called out.
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YC is a monopolist?
If OpenAI is not safe from anticompetitive practices then no YC startup is.