Why OpenAI's $157B valuation misreads AI's future (Oct 2024) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why OpenAI's $157B valuation misreads AI's future (Oct 2024)

#41

Post by SlightlyLeftPad » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:02 AM UTC

deadbabe wrote: post #26

raincole wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyday people were talking about iPhone. That was what made iPhone a fad and prevented Apple from being the company with the highest MarketCap.

iPhone was a fad. Everyone and their grandmother had an idea for some kind of app. It was all people talked about, apps apps apps. Then the market blew up and a few big winners ate up all the profit and everyone else died on the long tail. Today, iPhone exists, but people don’t even think about them much. They just use it. Pestering someone now about your iPhone app idea is like pestering someone about your website i…

What you’re talking about really isn’t that iPhone is or was a fad. What’s really happened is innovation has essentially halted and it has become a commodity like all smartphones.

Re: Why OpenAI's $157B valuation misreads AI's future (Oct 2024)

#42

Post by elijahbenizzy » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:03 AM UTC

We’ve just learned that it’s possible to do AI on less compute (deepseek). if OpenAI doesn’t scale and that’s the problem then I’d argue that in the long run, if you believe in their ability to do research, then the news this week is a very bullish sign.

IMO the equivalent of moores law for AI (both on software and hardware development) is baked into the price, which doesn’t make the valuation all too crazy.

Re: Why OpenAI's $157B valuation misreads AI's future (Oct 2024)

#43

Post by dralley » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:05 AM UTC

deegles wrote: post #32

dralley wrote: post #4

A year ago Sam Altman was going around trying to convince people we all needed to drop 7 trillion dollars to build hundreds of fabs and nuclear power plants to fuel his AI ambitions. Only a week ago he was triumphantly announcing 500 billion dollar deals with our new President. The (regrettably temporary) ousting of Sam Altman looks like the right call, in hindsight. Of course some amount of showmanship is expected,…

Or Elizabeth Holmes....

At least OpenAI has a useful product

Re: Why OpenAI's $157B valuation misreads AI's future (Oct 2024)

#44

Post by SlightlyLeftPad » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:05 AM UTC

handfuloflight wrote: post #22

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ll know when it can park a car in an everyday parking spot without messing up your Grandma’s Camry I suppose.

Oh yeah, let's all wait till then to get the value out of models today.

I’m not saying it doesn’t have value, but it’s not worth my time to spend 20 minutes to prompt engineer a tool to write me a plagiarized document I could write myself in 20 minutes? Why would I invest my time into using a tool that undermines my own value? What’s the value prop for me?

Re: Why OpenAI's $157B valuation misreads AI's future (Oct 2024)

#45

Post by agent281 » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:06 AM UTC

manquer wrote: post #13

Stokley wrote: post #3

Whether you love or hate OpenAI, the CapEx involved with this company will be viewed as historic in the future, and will change (has already changed) the paradigm of how tech startups/projects are funded

I think it will have an adverse affect to funding ecosystem. The inevitable haircut all the funds are going to take in OpenAI and other AI startups when revenue fails to materialize[1] will herald a bust cycle and lot more circumspection in large investments like it happened few years back when a large number of Soft Bank investments did not pan out, notably most of them relied on big funding rounds to muscle out oth…

If it happens, I call dibs on the name "AI Nuclear Winter".

Re: Why OpenAI's $157B valuation misreads AI's future (Oct 2024)

#46

Post by handfuloflight » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:06 AM UTC

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #44

handfuloflight wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah, let's all wait till then to get the value out of models today.

I’m not saying it doesn’t have value, but it’s not worth my time to spend 20 minutes to prompt engineer a tool to write me a plagiarized document I could write myself in 20 minutes? Why would I invest my time into using a tool that undermines my own value? What’s the value prop for me?

Your inability to find value propositions and use cases is your issue.

Re: Why OpenAI's $157B valuation misreads AI's future (Oct 2024)

#47

Post by SlightlyLeftPad » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:10 AM UTC

elijahbenizzy wrote: post #42

We’ve just learned that it’s possible to do AI on less compute (deepseek). if OpenAI doesn’t scale and that’s the problem then I’d argue that in the long run, if you believe in their ability to do research, then the news this week is a very bullish sign. IMO the equivalent of moores law for AI (both on software and hardware development) is baked into the price, which doesn’t make the valuation all too crazy.

Honestly, I’m not sure I’m completely sold on the value of LLMs long term but this is the most realistic and reasonable take I’ve read on this post so far.

If anything, it’s an downward adjustment in the cost implications but could actually unlock exponential improvements on a shorter time horizon than expected because of that. Investors getting scared probably is a good opportunity to buy in.

Re: Why OpenAI's $157B valuation misreads AI's future (Oct 2024)

#48

Post by swyx » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:11 AM UTC

nextworddev wrote: post #16

Just playing devil's advocate: VCs (esp those who missed out on OAI) are heavily incentivized to root for OAI to fail, and commoditize the biggest COGs item (AI models). This guy is just talking his book.

wise man once said: "the devil doesnt need advocates, hell is full of them".

you can both talk your book and also sincerely believe what you say. ad hominem (or whatever the latin equivalent is of ad bookinem) is not as substantive a criticism as you make it out to be. he can be both biased and correct.

Re: Why OpenAI's $157B valuation misreads AI's future (Oct 2024)

#49

Post by Nullabillity » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:12 AM UTC

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #33

coldpepper wrote: post #7

AI is still a fad.

How so? There are so many tangible applications already: reduced customers service costs, legal research, analysis of medical records or imaging, self-driving Waymos, and so on. Just the things I listed will have profound impacts on cost savings, productivity, and quality of life.

Little Boy certainly had "profound impacts on cost savings, productivity, and quality of life" in Hiroshima.

Impact isn't inherently positive.

Re: Why OpenAI's $157B valuation misreads AI's future (Oct 2024)

#50

Post by AnonymousPlanet » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:13 AM UTC

deadbabe wrote: post #26

raincole wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyday people were talking about iPhone. That was what made iPhone a fad and prevented Apple from being the company with the highest MarketCap.

iPhone was a fad. Everyone and their grandmother had an idea for some kind of app. It was all people talked about, apps apps apps. Then the market blew up and a few big winners ate up all the profit and everyone else died on the long tail. Today, iPhone exists, but people don’t even think about them much. They just use it. Pestering someone now about your iPhone app idea is like pestering someone about your website i…

Everyone and their dog keep trying to force me to use their apps, like there's a mantra inside their marketing divisions that apps are the shit. Doesn't look like apps are over. The market is just saturated of "app for X". The hype of getting rich from zero through one app is over, but apps aren't.

VR movies was a fad. You can date a TV by it's "VR mode" feature on the remote to a few years. No one is trying to sell me VR TVs anymore. That's what a fad looks like.