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

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

#201

Post by aurareturn » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 10:31 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #121

troupo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Wheras only profit should matter Profit is money you couldn’t figure out how to spend. During growth, you want positive operating margins with nominal profits. When the company/market matures, you want pure profits because shareholders like money. If you can find a way to invest those profits in new areas of growth, that’s better.

Not sure why you’re downvoted.

Everyone wants to treat OpenAI like a car wash business where they need to make a profit almost immediately. I don’t know why people can’t understand that the industry is in a rapid growth stage and investing the money is more important than making a profit now. The profits will come later.

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

#202

Post by SilverElfin » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 10:31 PM UTC

manquer wrote: post #132

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…

They aren't reporting anything yet. What we hearing is just from news media who get their leaks/info from investors who get some form of IR reports/ presentation. Both will do public reporting only when they IPO[4] and have regulatory requirement to do so every quarter. For private companies[1] reporting to investors there are no fixed rules really[3] Even for public companies, there is fair amount of leeway on how G…

Does the GAAP accounting matter if everyone passively buys shares due to the new fast entry rules, which corruptly will force us all to buy into these companies? The fundamentals and true value seem less relevant than ever:

https://www.benzinga.com/markets/tech/26/03/51248353/michael...

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

#203

Post by dd8601fn » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

caycep wrote: post #162

phillipcarter wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

with these swings, I'm not sure how Son-san keeps himself from getting an ulcer

At some point it must just be Monopoly money.

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

#204

Post by jonah » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

winrid wrote: post #168

a1studmuffin wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's a dangerous game because the cheaper compute gets, the more likely consumers are to self-host rather than pay a subscription.

Not really. Most people won't self host.

The general public will self-host it's built in to your next phone or laptop straight out of the box or maybe from the App Store.

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

#205

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 10:34 PM UTC

rvz wrote: post #29

nemo1618 wrote: post #7

I'm old enough to remember when companies worth $1 billion were called "unicorns." Now we have a company raising 122 times that? Valued at nearly 1000 times that...? At least they're throwing consumers a bone via the ARK deal. It's crazy how little AI exposure is available to anyone who isn't already wealthy and/or connected.

> At least they're throwing consumers a bone via the ARK deal. It's crazy how little AI exposure is available to anyone who isn't already wealthy and/or connected. It is deliberate. Period. It's always been known that you make money in the private markets and pre-IPO companies and retail is the final exit for insiders and early investors. Retail is not allowed to be early into these companies (Because that would ruin…

Who are "these" companies? Did retail get into Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, etc before the top?

Also, aren't AI businesses losing a lot of money each year? Pretty sure there is some risk involved that is not good for retail.

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

#206

Post by roxolotl » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

lefty2 wrote: post #169

jelling wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They borrowed $40B from JP Morgan. They literally did not have the money otherwise.

also they need to pay back that in one year, so if OpenAI don't IPO this year they are screwed

Was curious about the source here. Seems widely reported and I just missed it. This a unpaywalled source I found

https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/27/why-softbanks-new-40b-loan...

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

#207

Post by mbgerring » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

Each passing day the lie that markets efficiently allocate capital is further exposed

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

#208

Post by munk-a » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 10:37 PM UTC

chilipepperhott wrote: post #143

nemo1618 wrote: post #7

I'm old enough to remember when companies worth $1 billion were called "unicorns." Now we have a company raising 122 times that? Valued at nearly 1000 times that...? At least they're throwing consumers a bone via the ARK deal. It's crazy how little AI exposure is available to anyone who isn't already wealthy and/or connected.

I would not call an effective 2.9% expense ratio "throwing a bone".

Also, the valuation for such a debt laden company should be viewed with great skepticism. I'm afraid a lot of mutual funds will end up holding the bags.

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

#209

Post by try-working » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 10:37 PM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #109

podgietaru wrote: post #21

I can't help but think building an "everything" app is so.. both unbelievably ambitious, and a folly. I am not personally convinced that people want all the things that this super app purports to do. I am from a generation that still sits behind a desktop computer when making "big purchases." I can't even buy a flight on my phone. I am so much less likely to want to have an AI agent do that for me. Then the idea that…

I've worked for 3 different startups where the CEO at one point gave us the talk of "we're building a super app". Admittedly openAI is in a better position to do it, but not by much. Everyone wants to be WeChat in china. No user wants that from them.

WeChat is not a super app. It's a browser. Tencent WeChat is the equivalent of Google Chrome.

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

#210

Post by maerF0x0 » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 10:37 PM UTC

jsnell wrote: post #151

maerF0x0 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30x revenues at 17% revenue growth is... aggressive.

Except it's not 100x revenues, and it's not 17% growth. I don't know where you got those numbers from? The numbers OpenAI gave in the post would mean a 30x multiple pre-money. And the $20B -> $24B run-rate growth since the start of the year could plausibly mean anything from 110% to 200% annualized growth rate, depending on whether that happened over two or three months. The $24B is a lower bound as well, since they…

You're right, I was thinking about 100x revenues and forgot to confirm the math. Updated to reflect your point. ChatGPT itself provided the 17% number (it's most recently available growth rate)...