There's no need for speculation. Jared has already said in this thread that's exactly what he was hired for.
From: "Mark Tinka" <mark.tinka@seacom.mu>
To: nanog@nanog.org
Sent: Monday, December 9, 2019 3:57:55 AM
Subject: Re: Elephant in the room - Akamai
On 8/Dec/19 19:17, Rod Beck wrote:
Last time I spoke with an Akamai engineer many years ago the
network was purely transit. Is that evolving?
I believe Akamai are building, to a reasonable degree, an on-net
backbone.
Mark.