OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#111

Post by nine_k » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

randomNumber7 wrote: post #59

nine_k wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is reality-distortion field rivaling that of Jobs', and a crisis of faith. Nobody apparently believes that capital is worth investing into anything but AI.

> Nobody apparently believes that capital is worth investing into anything but AI. This is the main reason we see this insane investment into AI imo. If you imagine having lots of money, where should you invest that currently? Housing market: Seems very overvalued (at least in germany). Also with the current uncertainty and inflation its hard to make an investment that pays back over 20-30 years. So building is also…

Looking around, and especially forward, it would be military tech, e.g. [1], and its supply chain, e.g. [2] :-\ Valuations are not as crazy, but I bet there'll going to be a lot of demand in the coming decade, unfortunately.

Chip production, too, of course, but it's overflowing with money already, apparently. It's growing though, because there are real actual shortages of stuff like RAM and SSDs, there's money to be made immediately if you can. Chinese RAM manufacturers are building out like crazy.

[1]: https://www.ultimamarkets.com/academy/anduril-stock-price-ho...

[2]: https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/RHEINMETALL-AG-43...

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#112

Post by jmalicki » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #83

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #57

No, they didn't raise $122B as the HN title implies. A big chunk of that $122B is a "maybe" that depends on various things that need to happen in the future. Oh, man... I can't wait to see where this is going. Might not be pretty after all.

Having large funding rounds contingent on meeting milestones is common. Always has been.

It just makes comparing funding rounds hard to understand, since money in the bank is money in the bank, and a lot of the "committed capital if you reach a milestone" is capital that would be easy to get if you reached that milestone, if it is sufficiently advanced, and has enough outs, etc., that you may as well have just raised another round in the future.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#113

Post by keybored » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

maxverse wrote: post #44

joaohaas wrote: post #37

> This is not just product simplification. It is a distribution and deployment strategy. iykyk

Are you suggesting this was written by AI?

It’s not just a suggestion. It’s a demonstration.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#114

Post by wmf » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:39 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #83

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #57

No, they didn't raise $122B as the HN title implies. A big chunk of that $122B is a "maybe" that depends on various things that need to happen in the future. Oh, man... I can't wait to see where this is going. Might not be pretty after all.

Having large funding rounds contingent on meeting milestones is common. Always has been.

Why not announce the funding after the milestones have been met?

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#115

Post by phillipcarter » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

caycep wrote: post #99

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #57

No, they didn't raise $122B as the HN title implies. A big chunk of that $122B is a "maybe" that depends on various things that need to happen in the future. Oh, man... I can't wait to see where this is going. Might not be pretty after all.

that being said, how can Softbank keep throwing around all these astronomical numbers after so many bad investments? Leftover iPhone money?

Most people know Softbank as the company who lost billions on WeWork and not the company who made several more billions on the ARM IPO.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#116

Post by FpUser » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

mlsu wrote: post #71

sidrag22 wrote: post #49

feels like an insult to readers to try to pretend that their revenue per month is comparable to google or apples growth when the funding is absurdly different, not to mention inflation itself. I am very much onboard with AI within my workflow. I just don't really see a future where openai/anthropic are the absolute front runners for devs though. Maybe OpenAI does just have the better vision by targeting the general p…

You can host a website on any rackmount server for pennies compared to AWS. But people still use AWS. The market for local models is always gonna be a small niche, primarily for the paranoid.

>"But people still use AWS"

I do not, I self host. My current client is also got rid from AWS packing up nice savings as a result

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#117

Post by torben-friis » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

thomasahle wrote: post #63

oulipo2 wrote: post #26

They are trying very hard to convince themselves that it's going to work, when we see all the models plateauing... it's clearly hitting the ceiling

I don't know anyway using these models everyday who think they are hitting a ceiling. If anything there's a plateau between each model release.

I'm seeing diminishing returns, though in fairness we have no idea yet how to integrate properly with existing good practices and principles. I suspect improvement is going to come mainly from improved took usage rather than more impressive models.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#118

Post by BitsAndObjects » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:41 PM UTC

rpdillon wrote: post #66

BitsAndObjects wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of modern medicine, by which I mean each discovery and invention in their own right, stand alongside electricity. Particularly vaccines. AI isn’t there yet. You could turn off AI tomorrow and there’d be a shock but people would quickly switch back. You could not do the same for electricity, medicine, combustion engines (or steam engines/turbines), computers, the internet, modern building materials, etc. You try…

That's primarily a function of the time for adoption, though, not the utility of the technology. In 20 years, people would not be able to so easily say that they could turn off AI with no impact.

That..what..no. The question was whether there are any comparable to electricity, of which I have put forth a number of examples. And also offered my opinion that it is too early to judge whether AI will be as significant or not.

There are loads of technologies that, despite being decades old, do not qualify. So, no, it’s not “primarily a function of time”. It absolutely is about the utility. We can only be in a position to judge utility when sufficient time has passed, and AI ain’t had enough time yet to prove its utility. Given enough time, it might prove as useful as electricity, or it might just sit alongside computer operating systems - never quite making it onto anyone’s “this changed the world” list, even if it has as much utility as an OS.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#119

Post by merlindru » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:41 PM UTC

troupo wrote: post #107

aurareturn wrote: post #58

$2b/month which is $24b/year. Not as much as I expected considering they were at $20b by end of 2025.[0] They only added $4b since? Anthropic had $19b by end of February 2026 and they added $6b in February alone.[1] This means if they added another $6b in March, they're higher than OpenAI already. However, I heard that OpenAI and Anthropic report revenue in a different way. OpenAI takes 20% of revenue from Azure sale…

And that is revenue only. In the past 15 or so years most US companies (and especially startups) always talk about revenue only. Wheras only profit should matter. E.g. what good is 20 billion per year when "OpenAI is targeting roughly $600 billion in total compute spending through 2030". That is $150 billion per year?

why should only profits matter? if i had a killer product today that i just need to sell tomorrow, wouldn't you still invest today knowing i'll probably only start to make money tomorrow (or perhaps next week)?

the expectation is that they'll eventually make money. they can't raise forever. only startups are not profitable for a few years. but most companies that have existed for a long while have been profitable

and since they're expected to make a LOT of money, everyone wants a piece of that future pie, pushing up the valuation and amount raised to admittedly somewhat delusional levels like here

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#120

Post by ds2df » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 9:42 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #83

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #57

No, they didn't raise $122B as the HN title implies. A big chunk of that $122B is a "maybe" that depends on various things that need to happen in the future. Oh, man... I can't wait to see where this is going. Might not be pretty after all.

Having large funding rounds contingent on meeting milestones is common. Always has been.

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