OpenAI's $852B valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenAI's $852B valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports

#11

Post by the__alchemist » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:22 AM UTC

fraywing wrote: post #2

What happens if OpenAI collapses at this point? Is it just too big to fail given defense contracts and Microsoft? The Sora sunsetting marked a big shift towards enterprise focus and meeting Anthropic on the enterprise battlefield, but almost all engineers I work with or know are using Claude at this point exclusively. Anyone seeing differently?

> Anyone seeing differently?

There have been a stream of HN posts (I'm noticed this mainly in the past few weeks) implying some people prefer ChatGPT/Codex to Claude.

Anecdotally, Claude on the $20/month plan can only run 1-3 queries per 4 hours before rate limiting, often stopping in the middle of a query. ChatGPT/Codex doesn't have this problem.

Re: OpenAI's $852B valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports

#12

Post by codetiger » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:22 AM UTC

fraywing wrote: post #2

What happens if OpenAI collapses at this point? Is it just too big to fail given defense contracts and Microsoft? The Sora sunsetting marked a big shift towards enterprise focus and meeting Anthropic on the enterprise battlefield, but almost all engineers I work with or know are using Claude at this point exclusively. Anyone seeing differently?

Seeing the same, Claude with every engineer. Even some non technical people moved to Claude from ChatGPT recently.

Re: OpenAI's $852B valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports

#13

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:24 AM UTC

vwvcxv wrote: post #7

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like Sam was angling for that with some of his China vs USA rhetoric

Why would they need a bail out? Their assets can be sold off, they can be taken over or be absorbed by another American entity. Absolutely no reason for a bail out. It may hurt the ego of Altman and Brockman - but that's their problem.

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI's $852B valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports

#14

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:24 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #4

Invictus0 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> too big to fail genuine question, what do you think these words mean?

I think it's code for "the government will have to bail them out".

At some point you reach a size when too many politicians and the people who own them have invested so much money that they're willing to take any size political hit in order to save themselves from personal losses when you fail.

Re: OpenAI's $852B valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports

#15

Post by vwvcxv » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:24 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #9

> "You have ChatGPT, a 1 billion-user business growing 50-100% a year, what are you doing talking about enterprise and code?" an early backer of OpenAI told FT. "It's a deeply unfocused company." This is exactly the dynamic I've been worried about. If you go to OpenAI's site to learn what they're all about, they're pretty clear about it: "ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity", "Join us…

OAI has zero focus. How many acquisitions (value destructive it seems) and projects have they killed?

Whats comical is Steve Jobs preached the notion of focus decades ago.

Why can't people follow simple advice from someone who already acquired the scar tissue? Its literally madness.

Sam shouldve been fired and stayed fired. He's great at raising money, but running the firm? Absolute basket case of a CEO in that regard.

Re: OpenAI's $852B valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports

#16

Post by fraywing » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:25 AM UTC

vwvcxv wrote: post #7

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like Sam was angling for that with some of his China vs USA rhetoric

Why would they need a bail out? Their assets can be sold off, they can be taken over or be absorbed by another American entity. Absolutely no reason for a bail out. It may hurt the ego of Altman and Brockman - but that's their problem.

If DoD systems are running on OpenAI infrastructure, you can't just pause them for 6 months during an acquisition. This gets far more complex than just "liquidation of assets".

Re: OpenAI's $852B valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports

#17

Post by echelon » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:25 AM UTC

gradus_ad wrote: post #8

Claude Code is extremely easy to set up and use. I suspect its saturation among software professionals is at the majority of the addressable market. What if there are no other killer apps for Enterprise? Only CC will produce the level of token churn that could drive huge profits for model providers. The Enterprise market is not as substantial as the rapid success of CC makes seem.

Missing the Claude Code market was the biggest swing and miss ever.

Too busy trying to make TikTok for preteens with $4/generation videos that lost their novelty the minute IP was off the table. Didn't even identify the professional market in video was the correct place to invest, like Kling and ByteDance did.

Chasing consumer killed their ascendency.

Sam is a ruthless leader and knows how to build an empire, but he's also a distracted leader who chases too many flights of fancy. Without a golden goose like Zuckerberg, every mistake is a knife wound.

Re: OpenAI's $852B valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports

#18

Post by semiquaver » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:25 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #9

> "You have ChatGPT, a 1 billion-user business growing 50-100% a year, what are you doing talking about enterprise and code?" an early backer of OpenAI told FT. "It's a deeply unfocused company." This is exactly the dynamic I've been worried about. If you go to OpenAI's site to learn what they're all about, they're pretty clear about it: "ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity", "Join us…

They’re investors. More or less by definition they only care about revenue growth.

Re: OpenAI's $852B valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports

#19

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:29 AM UTC

vwvcxv wrote: post #7

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like Sam was angling for that with some of his China vs USA rhetoric

Why would they need a bail out? Their assets can be sold off, they can be taken over or be absorbed by another American entity. Absolutely no reason for a bail out. It may hurt the ego of Altman and Brockman - but that's their problem.

Because their assets would have been vastly overvalued. The bailout is when the government buys those assets at as close to that fictional valuation as they can, and likely then sells them back at their actual worth.

> Absolutely no reason for a bail out.

There's never been any reason for a bailout. It's just handing tax money to wealthy people who have made bad decisions.

Re: OpenAI's $852B valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports

#20

Post by cal_dent » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:29 AM UTC

just maths. if they're as a capable as each other then x product cannot be worth multiples above y unless there's a clear USP. Arguably OpenAi's is brand recognition but given Antrhopic's recent growth that's less certain than a quarter ago