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Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

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

#41

Post by Retric »

simonw wrote: post #19

"OpenAI generated $13.07 billion in revenue in 2025" Considering just four years ago they were a research lab with hardly any revenue at all, and no corporate muscles for earning revenue, I think that is a very impressive number. (Sure, they're losing a whole lot of money too. Same goes for almost every other hyper-growth company in the history of tech.)

That argument supports any levels of losses, however I also think it’s rather misleading.

Growth means some inefficiencies, but their expenses are largely around commodities like electricity and data centers not a sudden army of salespeople. They also got 150M 11 years ago and 1 billion 7 year ago, they where quite large in 2022.

Basically you don’t get better at writing checks to your local utility which limits how much they can control costs.

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

#43

Post by bgirard »

simoncion wrote: post #26
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?

> 13 billion in revenue, 7.5 in cost of revenue. and 7.81 billion in R&D from last year. I don't know how long it took to build the weights for the current model, or exactly how much that costs, but it's certainly more than zero days and zero dollars. I also doubt that OpenAI could set that R&D expense to zero and survive without an agreement from Anthropic that they'll do the same... so that R&D expense can't be ign…

You're missing the point. There was a lot of debate around if inference was subsidized or not. And that's a huge point to confirm in the public discourse.

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

#44

Post by hagbarth »

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.…

Yes, but I don’t see either of those scenarios giving them the growth needed to justify a trillion dollar valuation. Especially with the current competition (a competitor releases a much better model, and they have to respond or see their revenue drop).

So I don’t see a company in immediate danger of collapsing, but I also don’t see a great investment at that valuation.

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

#45

Post by truncate »

simonw wrote: post #19

"OpenAI generated $13.07 billion in revenue in 2025" Considering just four years ago they were a research lab with hardly any revenue at all, and no corporate muscles for earning revenue, I think that is a very impressive number. (Sure, they're losing a whole lot of money too. Same goes for almost every other hyper-growth company in the history of tech.)

> Sure, they're losing a whole lot of money too. Same goes for almost every other hyper-growth company in the history of tech

That doesn't mean anything. There are examples to make both ways. E.g. WeWork

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

#46

Post by bgirard »

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.

SpaceX was said to be subsidized by gov contracts. Look at where that got it...

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

#47

Post by grebc »

_spduchamp wrote: post #31
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 a…

Written off.

They might not have spent $30b but they likely valued their asset base at >>> $30b+ and had to adjust that at the time of converting to for profit, is how I read it.

“One time non-recurring” is also just accounting double speak that lets executives cover up dumb stuff while sounding plausibly OK.

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

#48

Post by nl »

gamblor956 wrote: post #38
vkou wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

To expand on this slightly - startups often argue that marketing expenses should not be reported as part of cost of revenue because they are temporary and will change as they grow and the market becomes more aware of them.

There are arguments for and against this - awareness is an issue for startups, but most large companies continue to market. It is true that it is fairly easy to change the amount a company spends on marketing.

Either way, as the parent says - provided the investors understand it there is nothing weird about doing it this way.

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

#49

Post by HDBaseT »

altmanaltman wrote: post #20
ungreased0675 wrote: post #2

Companies losing that much money a year shouldn’t be allowed to IPO. It leaves the public markets holding the bag.

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…

You will be left holding the bag with regards to your 401k, Superannuation and other non-directly managed investments.

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

#50

Post by JSR_FDED »

Why would revenue continue to grow at this rate?

Enterprises are becoming increasingly aware that the best models can be used for planning and then cheaper models for execution - all the way to local models for some tasks.

Add in increasing competition from Chinese models… I’m not convinced this revenue growth is guaranteed.

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