Jeff Bezos might finally get his hands on a sports team

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1:39Jeff Bezos might finally get his hands on a sports team. I'm Imran Shaikh and your daily crunch for Wednesday featuring three big tech headlines starts right now. Well, opening eye has bought back$7 billion worth of shares from employees at the privately held Frontier AI Lab as part of an effort to provide liquidity to its workforce. You see, the deal, reported by Bloomberg, valued OpenAI at$852 billion, the same as its most recent fundraising round in March, which added$122 billion to the company's war chest. Now, the company also filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June to prepare for a potential IPO later this year.

2:18However, a tender offer suggests that an IPO may not be forthcoming soon. You see, with many tech companies remaining private longer than previous generations of startups, private tenders have proven a useful way for firms to allow employees to realize the value of their stock compensation without the difficulties that come with a public offering. OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment by publication time, by the way. Now, while OpenAI's incredible growth in products are likely to generate massive interest in public markets, the potential debut of rival Anthropic, which was reportedly profitable earlier this year, gives the company a reason to ensure it puts its best face forward.

2:57The tender could be another signal that the much-anticipated offering will wait for OpenAI's new strategy of paring down its bets and focusing on its enterprise business to gain traction. Well, Anthropic's going to watermark techs generated by its models, including Claude, to comply with European regulations the company is now saying. The AI model maker confirmed the watermarking in an updated support page. You see, EU AIX transparency code, which took effect on August 2nd, requires AI companies to mark AI-generated or edited content in a way other systems can identify them. Well, Anthropic said that all models released after August 2nd will automatically have tech to watermark both computer-generated text and files.

3:39Now for files, the company is using the C2PA open standard. The company said it'll extend support for older models as well, adding that the watermark will travel when users copy and paste the text. It's not clear how much editing users need to do to remove the watermark. We've asked Anthropic to clarify and we'll update the story if we hear back. The company noted that watermarking will apply to different products like Claude Platform API, Claude, Claude Code, Claude Cowork, and Claude Tag. Platforms are now rushing to watermark AI-generated content after backlash from users and, well, to avoid regulatory scrutiny.

4:15Apart from Anthropic, other companies like Black Forest Labs, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Synthesia have committed to adhering to the EU's code. Well, well, well. Jeff Bezos is reportedly attempting to join the club of very, very rich Americans buying stakes in UK soccer teams. You see, Bezos, alongside others, including Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, is looking to buy at least a 30 % stake in the English soccer team Liverpool at a$1.35 billion valuation. That's around$1.8 billion, the Guardian reports. Now, if the deal closes, it'll be the first sports investment for the billionaire, although he reportedly previously looked at buying a stake in a U.S.

4:58football team. Liverpool is one of the most notable sports teams in Europe and is worth about$6 billion, reports Forbes. Arguably, this team has the kind of brand recognition in the UK as, well, the Dallas Cowboys has in the US. It seems no billionaire portfolio is complete these days without a mega yacht and a sports team, so Bezos' interest is, well, not surprising. There's also something very romantic these days about owning an English soccer team after the success of TV shows like Ted Lasso and Ryan Reynolds' FX show Welcome to Wrexham, which is about his experience owning that English team.

5:32And, I mean, owning a stake in a UK sports team has also become kind of a celebrity cultural phenom. Besides Reynolds, Tom Brady purchased a minority stake in Birmingham City. Will Ferrell has a minority stake in Leeds United alongside Russell Westbrook and Michael Phelps. Sky Sports had a story earlier this year mapping out why so many Americans seem to be taking over UK football. It found that 13 out of 20 Premier League clubs, the top football league in England, had American shareholders. So what gives? Well, soccer has become increasingly popular in the U.S. And, well, many of the top sports franchises like the NFL and MLB are either too expensive or just straight up closed off to new buyers.

6:13It's much more possible to buy into a Premier League team. And, you know, with a net worth currently sitting at around$280 billion, maybe it's actually more than time that Bezos got himself a sports team. And folks, that's your Daily Crunch. Today's stories were reported by Ivan Mehta, Dominic Midori-Davis, Tim Fernholtz, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists. We'll see you here tomorrow, same Tech Time, same Crunch channel. And until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.

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