While the recent whipsaw-employment adventures of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) guru Sam Altman certainly put OpenAI and Microsoft in the spotlight for several days, Altman’s mercurial romp through the employee rolls of two of the world’s leading AI companies had the broader effect of pushing the Cloud Wars Cloud Confidence Index to an all-time high of $7.19 trillion.
I created the Cloud Confidence Index about a year ago as a measure of customer demand for cloud technologies. Since market caps for tech companies are generally a clear reflection of the public’s belief in growth potential, the Cloud Confidence Index uses the combined market caps of the Cloud Wars Top 10 as a proxy for customer demand.
This chart shows three recent snapshots of the Cloud Confidence Index — represented by the “Total” line at the bottom — as well as the rolling market caps of the Cloud Wars Top 10 across a tumultuous 10-day period from approximately Nov. 17 through Nov. 27. That zany sequence that began with Altman in his role as OpenAI CEO (the “Before Altman” column), followed by his ouster from that spot and subsequent hire by Microsoft (the “After Altman” column), followed by his return to the top spot at Open AI (the “Post-Altman” column).
| Company | Before Altman | After Altman | Post-Altman |
| MSFT | $2.75 trillion | $2.8 trillion | $2.81 trillion |
| GOOG | $1.70 trillion | $1.705 trillion | $1.72 trillion |
| AMZN | $1.50 trillion | $1.505 trillion | $1.54 trillion |
| ORCL | $316.0 billion | $318 billion | $317.8 billion |
| SAP | $175.4 billion | $179 billion | $182.2 billion |
| NOW | $134.2 billion | $135.5 billion | $137.8 billion |
| WORK | $60.7 billion | $61.7 billion | $62.1 billion |
| SFDC | $215.2 billion | $218 billion | $219.2 billion |
| IBM | $139.6 billion | $140 billion | $142.3 billion |
| SNOW | $53.4 billion | $54.8 billion | $56.4 billion |
| TOTAL | $7.045 trillion | $7.12 trillion | $7.19 trillion |
As you can see, the Cloud Confidence Index took a big jump when Altman left OpenAI and was hired by Microsoft — and while the figures of “$7.045 trillion” and “$7.12 trillion” might not seem so different, that gap equates to a $75-billion gain pretty much overnight.
Then, since Altman’s return to OpenAI over the Thanksgiving holiday, the heightened awareness of the AI Wars and their incredible potential have pushed the index up another $70 billion to $7.19 trillion, again in a stunningly short period of just a few days.
In fact, I think we can use this “Where’s Altman?” adventure to calculate that Sam Altman is — was?? — could be?? — the $100-billion man.
Wait a second, you might say —nobody but nobody can drive $100 billion worth of change in the tech markets in just a few days! But let’s look at what happened:
- Just a few short weeks after news reports claimed OpenAI was on the verge of an $90-billion valuation, Open AI’s stunning dismissal of and his subsequent hiring by Microsoft immediately boosted Microsoft’s market cap by about $50 billion.
- Then, in the wake of what I believe will be judged as an utterly disastrous decision by OpenAI’s board, OpenAI investors saw their visions of $90-billion sugarplums evaporate as not only Altman but also cofounder Greg Brockman and perhaps dozens of key OpenAI employees enraged by the board’s abrupt ouster of Altman resigned and joined Microsoft. That mass exodus surely cut OpenAI’s valuation by half, translating to about $50 billion.
- So, the numbers say that in the space of a few days, Sam Altman triggered a $100-billion tidal wave in the world’s most-influential and sought-after market.
Final Thought
At the same time, look at the residual impact the Altman Saga has had across the Cloud Wars Top 10, with every single one of these world-shaping companies seeing their market caps jump significantly (or in Oracle’s case, hold steady near its all-time high).
And what’s behind that upswing? Confidence that businesses and other large and mid-sized organizations will continue to pour hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars into the cloud to prepare themselves for success in the oncoming world of AI-powered digital business.
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