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OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

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Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#411

Post by SiempreViernes »

epolanski wrote: post #223
munk-a wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both numbers are entirely ludicrous - highly skilled people are certainly quite valuable. But it's insane that these companies aren't just training up more internally. The 50x developer is a pervasive myth in our industry and it's one that needs to be put to rest.

50x devs are not a myth. In any case the talent is very scarce in AI/ML, the one able to push through good ideas so prices are going to be high for years.

That devs might show a 10x spread in time to completion on some task (the mythical man month study) is quite a lesser thing than claiming the spread comes from something inherent to the devs that got tested.

As for your various anecdotes later, I offer the counter observation that nobody is going around talking about 50x lottery winners, despite the lifetime earnings on lotteries also showing very wide spread:. Clearly observing a big spread in outcome is insufficient evidence for concluding the spread is due to factors inherent to the participants.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#412

Post by lemonlearnings »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #409
nojs wrote: post #231

I think people are massively underestimating the money they will come from ads in the future. They generated $4.3B in revenue without any advertising program to monetise their 700 million weekly active users, most of whom use the free product. Google earns essentially all of its revenue from ads, $264B in 2024. ChatGPT has more consumer trust than Google at this point, and numerous ways of inserting sponsored results…

> ads in the future. It boggles my mind that people still think advertising can be a major part of the economy. If AI is propping up the economy right now [0] how is it possible that the rest of the economy can possibly fund AI through profit sharing? That's fundamentally what advertising is: I give you a share of my revenue (hopefully from profits) in order to help increase my market share. The limit of what adverti…

US GDP is 30T so that revenue is less than 1% of it. But 1% of GDP us still eye popping amount. But remember in the non Google world that is split up into Yellow Pages and TV ads and etc. and possibly many ventures that were not possible because of lack of targeted ads didnt come to fruition.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#413

Post by lemonlearnings »

da_chicken wrote: post #334
iambateman wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is directionally right but to nitpick…Google has way more trust than OpenAI right now and it’s not close. Acceleration is felt, not velocity.

Yeah, I agree with you. Between Android, Chrome, YouTube, Gmail (including mx.google.com), Docs/Drive, Meet/Chat, and Google Search, claiming that Google "isn't more trusted" is just ludicrous. People may not be happy they have to trust Alphabet. But they certainly do. And even when they insist they're Stallman, their friends do, their family does, their coworkers do, the businesses they interact with do, the schools…

With search you dont fully trust Google. You trust Google to find good results most of the time them trust those results based on other factors.

But with AI you now have all trust in one place. For Google and OpenAI their AI bullshits. It will only be trusted by fools. Luckily for the corporations there is no end of fools to fool.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#414

Post by VirgilShelton »

Mistletoe wrote: post #403
VirgilShelton wrote: post #340

I'm old and have been on the Internet since the Prodigy days in 90. Open Ai has the best start of any company I can remember. Even better than Google back in 98 when they were developing their algo and giving free non-monetized search results to Yahoo. These guys have had my $20 bucks a month since Plus was live, they will indeed be more than fine.

Do you really find it is worth it vs. the free Google Gemini? What do you use it for? I can't imagine needing more than Google Gemini 2.5 Flash or Pro, but I don't use it for programming or anything.

The best part is memory. If you use it daily like I do for everything from programming tasks to SEO and digital marketing, to budget stuff for investing and bill reminders. It will really start to understand what you want and get your voice right when it writes a blog for you or you work on an idea with it.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#415

Post by StopHammoTime »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #409
nojs wrote: post #231

I think people are massively underestimating the money they will come from ads in the future. They generated $4.3B in revenue without any advertising program to monetise their 700 million weekly active users, most of whom use the free product. Google earns essentially all of its revenue from ads, $264B in 2024. ChatGPT has more consumer trust than Google at this point, and numerous ways of inserting sponsored results…

> ads in the future. It boggles my mind that people still think advertising can be a major part of the economy. If AI is propping up the economy right now [0] how is it possible that the rest of the economy can possibly fund AI through profit sharing? That's fundamentally what advertising is: I give you a share of my revenue (hopefully from profits) in order to help increase my market share. The limit of what adverti…

You've run a false equivalency in your argument. Growth is not representative of the entire economy. The economy is, in aggregate, much more than tech - they have the biggest public companies which skews how people think. No exclusive sector makes up "most" of the economy, in fact the highest sector, which is finance only makes up 21% of the US economy.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-...

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#416

Post by lemonlearnings »

simonw wrote: post #58

I think the most interesting numbers in this piece (ignoring the stock compensation part) are: $4.3 billion in revenue - presumably from ChatGPT customers and API fees $6.7 billion spent on R&D $2 billion on sales and marketing - anyone got any idea what this is? I don't remember seeing many ads for ChatGPT but clearly I've not been paying attention in the right places. Open question for me: where does the cost of ru…

I have seen a tonnes of Chat GPT ads on Reddit. Usually with image generation of a dog in Japanese cartoon style.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#417

Post by oblio »

tim333 wrote: post #190
Analemma_ wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly: when was the last time you used ChatGPT-3.5? Its value deprecated to zero after, what, two-and-a-half years? (And the Nvidia chips used to train it have barely retained any value either) The financials here are so ugly: you have to light truckloads of money on fire forever just to jog in place.

OpenAI is now valued at $500bn though. I doubt the investors are too wrecked yet. It may be like looking at the early Google and saying they are spending loads on compute and haven't even figured how to monetize search, the investors are doomed.

Google was founded in 1998 and IPOed in 2004. If OpenAI was feeling confident they'd find ways to set up a company and IPO, 9 years after founding. It's all mostly fictional money at this point.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#419

Post by VirgilShelton »

btbuildem wrote: post #382
VirgilShelton wrote: post #340

I'm old and have been on the Internet since the Prodigy days in 90. Open Ai has the best start of any company I can remember. Even better than Google back in 98 when they were developing their algo and giving free non-monetized search results to Yahoo. These guys have had my $20 bucks a month since Plus was live, they will indeed be more than fine.

Exactly. Early on their adoption curve was like nothing I've ever seen before. I am such a miser, I skimp, steal what I can, use the free alternatives majority of the time. If they got me to pay, they've got everyone else's money already.

Yup! I'm also super cheap and use open source everything but I do have a Mac Book Pro and will never buy a PC again. So when it's worth it, the wallet is coming out and OpenAI has not only my little $20 bucks a month but will have my investment dollars once they go public.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#420

Post by lemonlearnings »

Hamuko wrote: post #65
tomasphan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s how it should be, spread the wealth.

It doesn't seem that spread out.

3000x One person with 830k is comfortable living. Probably gets spent into general economy.

1x Person with billions probably gets spent in a way that fucks everyone over.

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