Welcome back to 4IR. Here's today's lineup:
Anthropic bags $13B at $183B valuationâthe AI wars just went nuclear - Fastest value tripling in startup history
OpenAI drops $1.1B on Statsig acquisition - From research lab to product machine
Microsoft hands US government free AI for a year - $6B in taxpayer savings over three years
Salesforce admits AI replaced 4,000 support staff - 44% workforce reduction in eight months
đ„ TOP STORY: Anthropic's $13B haul rewrites the venture capital playbook
The story: Anthropic just pulled off the unthinkableâa $13 billion Series F at a $183 billion valuation on September 2nd. That's a near-tripling from their $61.5B valuation just six months ago. ICONIQ Capital led the round with Qatar Investment Authority, Fidelity, Lightspeed, GIC, and General Atlantic piling in. The company is now the fourth most valuable startup globally, surpassing the market caps of Boeing, FedEx, and Target.
What we know:
$13B raised at $183B post-money valuation
Tripled valuation in six months (from $61.5B in March)
ICONIQ Capital leading the round
Qatar Investment Authority joining as new investor
Fourth most valuable startup globally
GIC and General Atlantic participating
Why it matters: This isn't just fundingâit's a coronation. Anthropic is now closing in on OpenAI's dominance. The participation of sovereign wealth funds like Qatar signals AI has become a geopolitical asset class. This is the largest AI funding round of 2025.
The timing is everything. Anthropic announces this the same morning OpenAI reveals their Statsig acquisitionâthat's not coincidence, that's warfare. The $13B gives them more cash than most companies raise in their entire history. Watch for Anthropic to go on an acquisition spree. They're not just competing with OpenAI anymore; they're building an empire. And here's what everyone's missing: Qatar's involvement means Middle Eastern sovereign wealth is picking winners in AI. The geopolitics of artificial intelligence just got real.
đ° M&A MONDAY: OpenAI pays $1.1B to become a "product machine"
The story: OpenAI dropped $1.1 billion in all-stock to acquire Statsig on September 2nd, bringing CEO Vijaye Raji in as CTO of Applications. This isn't acqui-hire theaterâStatsig's A/B testing platform powers experimentation at scale. The Seattle team stays intact and independent while OpenAI gets the infrastructure to ship features at Silicon Valley speed.
What we know:
$1.1B all-stock acquisition announced
Vijaye Raji becomes CTO of Applications
Reports to Fidji Simo in Applications business
Statsig continues operating independently from Seattle
Platform handles enterprise-scale A/B testing
Deal values Statsig at exactly its last private valuation
Why it matters: OpenAI just admitted what we all knewâgreat models aren't enough. They need to iterate faster than Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini. Statsig gives them the nervous system to run thousands of experiments simultaneously. This is OpenAI transitioning from research org to product company.
Sam Altman's playing 4D chess here. While Anthropic raises capital, OpenAI is buying capabilities. Statsig's real value isn't the techâit's the ability to know exactly which features drive retention before competitors even ship. Raji built experimentation systems at Facebook and Bing. He knows how to scale. In six months, every AI company will need experimentation infrastructure. OpenAI just cornered the market.
đïž GOVERNMENT: Feds get Copilot freeâMicrosoft's $6B gift to taxpayers
The story: Microsoft and the GSA unveiled a blockbuster OneGov agreement on September 2nd that hands millions of federal workers free Microsoft 365 Copilot for a year. The deal projects $3.1B in first-year savings and over $6B across three years. Every federal agency gets G5-tier Copilot (the premium version), plus massive Azure discounts and waived data egress fees. This is the largest federal AI deployment in history.
What we know:
Free Copilot access for all federal employees for one year
$3.1B in first-year taxpayer savings
Over $6B in three-year projected savings
Includes Dynamics 365, Sentinel, and Entra ID
FedRAMP High security authorization included
$20M in implementation support credits
Why it matters: The U.S. government just became the world's largest AI-powered workforce overnight. This isn't a pilot programâit's wholesale transformation. When the IRS and DMV start using AI agents, every government on Earth will follow.
Microsoft just played the long game perfectly. Give away billions in year one to lock in a decade of federal contracts. But here's the genius move: they're not just selling software, they're creating dependency. Once federal workers get used to Copilot doing half their work, there's no going back. This is Microsoft's trojan horse into every federal network in America. Watch AWS scramble to respond with their own free tier. The cloud wars just became an AI arms race, and Microsoft fired the first shot.
đ€ AUTOMATION: Salesforce openly admits: AI eliminated 44% of support jobs
The story: Marc Benioff dropped a truth bomb on September 2nd that everyone's been dancing around: AI agents now handle 50% of Salesforce's customer service interactions, allowing them to cut support staff from 9,000 to 5,000. That's 4,000 jobs automated in eight months. Even more stunningâtheir Agentforce platform reconnected with over 100 million dormant customer leads that humans never had time to touch.
What we know:
Support staff reduced from 9,000 to 5,000 (44% cut)
AI handles approximately 50% of all customer interactions
Over 100M neglected leads re-engaged via AI agents
Transformation completed in under 8 months
Company remains SF's largest private employer
Benioff calls it "most exciting" period of his career
Why it matters: This is the first Fortune 500 CEO to put real numbers on AI displacement. Not "augmentation" or "enhancement"âstraight replacement. If Salesforce can cut support staff by 44% while maintaining quality, every enterprise will follow this playbook.
Benioff just said the quiet part loud. While everyone talks about AI "helping" workers, Salesforce proved it replaces them. But here's what's really happening: those 4,000 people didn't disappearâthey got redeployed or moved on. This is the blueprint for enterprise AI adoption: automate the repetitive, transform the workforce. The companies that don't follow this model won't exist in three years. And notice the timingâannounced the same day as Microsoft's federal deal and Anthropic's mega-round. September 2nd was the day AI went from future to present.
⥠QUICK HITS
OpenAI and Meta rush teen safety features after lawsuit - Parental alerts for distress signals, self-harm blocks rolling out
China enforces world's first AI content labels - Platforms adding mandatory watermarks as new law takes effect
Anthropic's valuation jump fastest in startup history - From $61.5B to $183B in just six months