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OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

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Re: OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

#411

Post by techblueberry »

School-Cotton wrote: post #368
stack_framer wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can generate $20 billion in ARR this year too! I just need you to give me $100 billion and allow me to sell each of your dollars for 0.2 dollars.

This analogy only really works for companies whose gross margin is negative, which as far as I know isn’t the case for OpenAI (though I could be wrong). It’s an especially good analogy if there is no plausible path to positive gross margin (e.g. the old MoviePass) which I think is even less likely to be true for OpenAI.

Why is it that I feel like your confidence in OpenAI's path to profitability exceeds Sam Altman's?

Re: OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

#412

Post by freediver »

echelon wrote: post #319
freediver wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - If it works and prints money like it should, then OpenAI is on a path to become the next Mag 7 company. All the money they raised makes sense. Makes sense for whom? Certainly not the users. The entire purpose of ads is to change your behavior in ways that benefit someone else. In ad-based search, ads are at least visually separable (and blockable) but in a conversational AI they are indistinguishable and corrupt…

I like your attitude, but there is potentially a major business in there if they can get users to tolerate it. (Major business meaning greater than the GDP of most countries.) Over 75% of Google's revenue is ads. A bulk of that from Google Search ads. I just don't think the ads will be natural. And I think OpenAI has been testing this in quiet and is now "changing course" because the results didn't look great. Hypoth…

> there is potentially a major business in there if they can get users to tolerate it. (Major business meaning greater than the GDP of most countries.)

I am actually contesting this idea, on the grounds that no business will survive long term if it is foundation is built on users 'tolerating' something bad for them.

This is based on my belief that humanity always chooses the right path eventually and not the one that leads to dystopia.

Re: OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

#413

Post by chem83 »

twothreeone wrote: post #174

The way I've experienced "Code Red" is mostly as a euphemism for "on-going company-wide lack of focus" and a band-aid for mid-level management having absolutely no clue how to meaningfully make progress, upper management panicking, and ultimately putting engineers and ICs on the spot to bear the brunt of that organizational mess. Interestingly enough, apart from Google, I've never seen an organization take the actual…

> fire mid-management and PMs to prevent the same thing from happening again

Firing PMs and mid-management would not prevent any of code reds you may have read about from Google or OAI lately. This is a very naive perspective of how decision making is done at the scale of those two companies. I'm sorry you had bad experiences working with people in those positions and I wish you have the opportunity to collab with great ones in the future.

Re: OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

#414

Post by hiddencost »

dist-epoch wrote: post #214
cmiles8 wrote: post #136

The real code red here is less that Google just one-upped OpenAI but that they demonstrated there’s no moat to be had here. Absent a major breakthrough all the major providers are just going to keep leapfrogging each other in the most expensive race to the bottom of all time. Good for tech, but a horrible business and financial picture for these companies.

So why did Google stock increase massively since about when Gemini 2.5 Pro was released, their first competitive model?

Because Google already has many healthy revenue streams that will benefit from LLMs and all it has to do in the AI space is remain competitive.

Re: OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

#415

Post by dymk »

azemetre wrote: post #376
avrionov wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Code Red" if implemented correctly should provide a single priority for the company. Engineers will be moved to the most important project(s).

There should already be a single priority for a company... Why is the bar so low for the billionaire magnate fuck ups? Might as well implement workplace democracy and be done with it, it can't be any worse for the company and at least the workers understand what needs to be done.

You think a company the size of OAI should have a single priority? That makes no sense, that’s putting all their eggs on one basket.

Re: OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

#416

Post by Jensson »

BeetleB wrote: post #287
q3k wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get: > It is absolutely not too late to bonsai your Cryptomeria japonica. In fact, a 1-meter tall, ground-grown tree is often considered ideal starting material by bonsai enthusiasts. [...] And when followed up with 'I have been told cutting back to brown wood will prevent back budding' I get: > That is a very common piece of advice in bonsai, but for Cryptomeria (Japanese Cedar), it is a half-truth that requires c…

I tried it with Gemini 2.5 Pro. I got: "Excellent question!" and "That is an excellent and very important question." I primarily use Gemini 2.5 Pro for AI coding, and it does this to me with virtually every prompt. "That's an insightful point!" "Excellent question!" And on and on. I'm not exaggerating when I say it does this almost every time. Easily over 90% of the responses.

Gemini 3 doesn't though, which was the point. If you compare gemini 2.5 then its not Googles best model.

Re: OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

#417

Post by eli_gottlieb »

stack_framer wrote: post #247
edouard-harris wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with no means of significant revenue generation. OpenAI will top $20 billion in ARR this year, which certainly seems like significant revenue generation. [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/06/sam-altman-says-openai-will-...

I can generate $20 billion in ARR this year too! I just need you to give me $100 billion and allow me to sell each of your dollars for 0.2 dollars.

We should perhaps say profit when we are talking about revenue - cost and revenue when we only mean the first term in the subtraction.

Re: OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

#418

Post by techblueberry »

lateforwork wrote: post #228

OpenAI has already lined up enormous long-term commitments — over $500 billion through initiatives like Stargate for U.S. data centers, $250 billion in spending on Microsoft Azure cloud services, and tens of billions on AMD’s plan to deliver 6 GW of Instinct GPUs. Meanwhile, Oracle has financed its role in Stargate with at least $18 billion in corporate bonds plus another $9.6 billion in bank loans, and analysts expe…

"Even though Altman insists he won’t seek a bailout"

No matter what Sam Altman's future plans are, the success of those future plans is entirely dependent on him communicating now that there is a 0% chance those future plans will include a bailout.

Re: OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

#419

Post by amluto »

jdoliner wrote: post #274

I've seen a rumor going around that OpenAI hasn't had a successful pre-training run since mid 2024. This seemed insane to me but if you give ChatGPT 5.1 a query about current events and instruct it not to use the internet it will tell you its knowledge cutoff is June 2024. Not sure if maybe that's just the smaller model or what. But I don't think it's a good sign to get that from any frontier model today, that's 18 m…

I asked ChatGPT 5.1 to help me solve a silly installation issue with the codex command line tool (I’m not an npm user and the recommended installation method is some kludge using npm), and ChatGPT told me, with a straight face, that codex was discontinued and that I must have meant the “openai” command.

Re: OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

#420

Post by wahnfrieden »

tartoran wrote: post #364
p1necone wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every so often I try out a GPT model for coding again, and manage to get tricked by the very sparse conversation style into thinking it's great for a couple of days (when it says nothing and then finishes producing code with a 'I did x, y and z' with no stupid 'you're absolutely' right sucking up and it works, it feels very good). But I always realize it's just smoke and mirrors - the actual quality of the code and t…

I'm starting with Claude at work but did have an okay experience with OpenAi so far. For clearly delimited tasks it does produce working code more often than not. I've seen some improvement on their side compared to say, last year. For something more complex and not clearly defined in advance, yes, it does produce plausible garbage and it goes off the rails a lot. I was migrating a project and asked ChatGPT to analyz…

Use Codex for coding work
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