Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

#31

Post by _spduchamp » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 4:41 AM UTC

chillfox wrote: post #3

ArsTechnica has a nice graph showing it https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/leaked-financial-docs-sho... And I believe this is the actual source https://www.wheresyoured.at/exclusive-openai-financials/

From the Ars Technica article... OpenAI’s headline “net loss” number of just over $5 billion in 2024 ballooned to nearly $39 billion in 2025. But the 2025 number includes a significant accounting charge related to investor valuations that shifted amid the company’s 2025 conversion to a for-profit structure. The Financial Times cites “a person familiar with the matter” in reporting that this non-recurring charge was approximately $30 billion and that OpenAI’s 2025 net loss amounted to a more reasonable-looking $8 billion without it.

Huh? Where did $30 billion go?

Re: Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

#32

Post by trick-or-treat » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 4:42 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #15

throw310822 wrote: post #4

> OpenAI's spending mix shows why. The reported 2025 figures include $7.5 billion in cost of revenue, $19.18 billion in research and development, $5.73 billion in sales and marketing, and $1.57 billion in general and administrative expense How the hell did they spend 5.7 billion in "sales and marketing"?

Baksheesh to keep Trump off their backs?

You say that like it's a bad thing but it's a show of respect. Why shouldn't Trump receive a tribute like any other local warlord?

Re: Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

#33

Post by XorNot » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 4:43 AM UTC

himata4113 wrote: post #13

so they could stop development and research right now and be profitable, considering that gpt 5.5 is often regarded as one of the best models for writing code this is looking pretty good. Let's take another example: If OpenAI grows to 10 times their current size and continue spending the same amount on research and development they would be profitable today without any other changes to their organizational structure.…

If they stop R&D right now they'd have to fire most of their staff to realize the savings and sell off their datacenter capacity.

They would show a profit for 1 year and then become completely irrelevant.

Re: Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

#34

Post by Ritewut » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 4:43 AM UTC

BosunoB wrote: post #11

13 billion in revenue, 7.5 in cost of revenue. Can we finally put to bed the idea that inference is subsidized?

It is subsidized by gov contracts. Everyone who has common sense immediately said the real money is Altman getting into the governments pants which is why he and Brockman lobby so hard. You take away those contracts and OpenAI is dead in the water.

Re: Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

#35

Post by Eufrat » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 4:44 AM UTC

BosunoB wrote: post #11

13 billion in revenue, 7.5 in cost of revenue. Can we finally put to bed the idea that inference is subsidized?

We have no idea what these terms mean and Ed Zitron specifically points out there is no explanation for what they mean in the reviewed documents.

Given that, no, this question is still open.

Re: Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

#36

Post by simonw » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 4:45 AM UTC

Ritewut wrote: post #34

BosunoB wrote: post #11

13 billion in revenue, 7.5 in cost of revenue. Can we finally put to bed the idea that inference is subsidized?

It is subsidized by gov contracts. Everyone who has common sense immediately said the real money is Altman getting into the governments pants which is why he and Brockman lobby so hard. You take away those contracts and OpenAI is dead in the water.

Anthropic are apparently making more revenue than OpenAI, and their government contracts have famously been curtailed.

Re: Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

#37

Post by maxnevermind » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 4:45 AM UTC

BosunoB wrote: post #11

13 billion in revenue, 7.5 in cost of revenue. Can we finally put to bed the idea that inference is subsidized?

I guess that is good, competition should lower the margins with the time as it doesn't seem like any of AI labs have a particularly strong moat.

Re: Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

#38

Post by gamblor956 » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 4:46 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #9

nl wrote: post #8

Revenue is higher than cost of revenue and revenue is growing faster than cost of revenue. We know OpenAI is forecasting $25-30B revenue for 2026. They will be very close to breaking even at those number. Given Anthropic has forecast more revenue than OpenAI and we know has spent less on R&D (cite their desperate scramble for compute capacity!) the rumours of them being profitable this year seem very credible.

Sales and marketing have to be added to the COR, which makes COR slightly > Revenue.

That's only true once they become public. As a private entity they can calculate COR any reasonable way that their investors are okay with.

(For tax purposes for most businesses it doesn't matter whether an expense is CORS or not.)

Re: Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

#39

Post by altmanaltman » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 4:46 AM UTC

appplication wrote: post #28

altmanaltman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An IPO doesn't mean public is forced to buy the stock. There is a choice for funds or individuals and if they chose to buy it, they should be allowed to in an open market. The other side of this are companies like Uber where (if we go by your logic), the public markets made a killing betting on a company that had massive losses. Should Uber also be blocked from an IPO even though objectively it turned out great? Inve…

Except certain indices are indeed forced to buy if the stock otherwise meets inclusion criteria, this was a somewhat controversial topic with the recent spacex IPO.

Yes if a company's market value exceeds a certain size, it will be considered to be included in indices, most of which track these things automatically.

They have to apply the rules consistently otherwise it wont make any sense to have these indicies right? Spacex got rejected in one of the big indicies because it was not profitable while it got accepted in another. You can buy from both as an investor or a fund manager. If you think one of them is wrong, it is in your interest to switch. If you don't switch then you indirectly don't see anything wrong with it.

Going back to the point, if we want a free market, it has to be free for all. Spacex can go to 0 tomorrow and cause markets to implode, it can also surge 10x over the next 5 years causing everyone in the market to get richer or it can just drag for 10s of years in the same level.

But you and I do not know the future. We cannot block a company from IPOing just because we think it will fail in the future. If it meets all the existing regs, it should be allowed to IPO. If you want to change the regs, thats a different discussion but one i fundamentally disagree with personally. I think the market should be able to take risks and explore potential otherwise we will stagnate.

Re: Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

#40

Post by simonw » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 4:47 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #15

throw310822 wrote: post #4

> OpenAI's spending mix shows why. The reported 2025 figures include $7.5 billion in cost of revenue, $19.18 billion in research and development, $5.73 billion in sales and marketing, and $1.57 billion in general and administrative expense How the hell did they spend 5.7 billion in "sales and marketing"?

Baksheesh to keep Trump off their backs?

Greg Brockman spent $25m on that out of his own money, it won't show up in the OpenAI figures. https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/867947/o...