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OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

nytimes.com

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Re: OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

#131

Post by asukumar »

throwup238 wrote: post #14

> The new fund-raising round, led by the investment firm Thrive Capital, values OpenAI at $157 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. Microsoft, the chipmaker Nvidia, the tech conglomerate SoftBank, the United Arab Emirates investment firm MGX and others are also putting money into OpenAI. Yeah, that bodes well. Led by Jared Kushner's brother's VC firm with the UAE's sovereign wealth fund and So…

Thrive is one of the 10 most respected firms in venture capital. They work super hard and have a track record to prove it. Nobody who knows what they’re talking about would consider them dumb money.

https://www.newcomer.co/p/sequoia-founders-fund-usv-elad-gil

Re: OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

#132

Post by JamesBarney »

lxgr wrote: post #98
giarc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old is that though? They seem to be making revenue pretty well now, so I suspect this might be quite old?

Revenue isn't profit. They're burning money at an impressive rate: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/27/technology/openai-chatgpt... I wouldn't even be surprised if they were losing money on paying ChatGPT users on inference compute alone, and that isn't even factoring in the development of new models. There was an interesting article here (can't find the link unfortunately) that was arguing that model training costs s…

> I wouldn't even be surprised if they were losing money on paying ChatGPT users on inference compute alone

I'd be surprised it that was the case. How many tokens is the average user going through? I'd be surprised if the avg user even hit a 1m tokens much less 20m.

Re: OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

#133

Post by changing1999 »

cubefox wrote: post #10
lupire wrote: post #3

Does OpenAI have a moat?

It's the company that's most likely to be the first to develop superintelligence.

We heard for years that Uber was the company that's most likely to be the first to develop self-driving cars. Until they weren't. You can't just trust what the CEOs are hyping.

Re: OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

#134

Post by threwaway4392 »

They haven't even started their own versions of AdWords.

Google's money printing is based on people telling Google what they want in the search bar, and google placing ads about what they want right when they ask for it. Today people type what they want in the ChatGPT search bar.

Re: OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

#135

Post by philipkglass »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #60
baq wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it isn't a bad plan at all. Assuming money even makes sense in a world with AGI, that is.

In the Star Trek/Culture/Commonwealth equally distributed, benevolent AI, sure. In the I’ve-got-mine reality, I assume only the select few can speak with the AI and use it to control the serfs.

There's no future where OpenAI makes everyone else a "serf" though. In 1948 certain Americans imagined that the US could rule the Earth because it got the atomic bomb first, and they naively imagined that other countries would take a generation to catch up. In reality the USSR had its own atomic bomb by 1949.

That's what the competition with OpenAI looks like to me. There are at least three other American companies with near-peer models plus strong open-weights models coming from multiple countries. No single institution or country is going to end up with a ruling-the-Earth lead in AI.

Re: OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

#136

Post by lukev »

semanticist wrote: post #120
itsoktocry wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see things ending well for OpenAI. I mean, what exactly do you see happening? The have a product people love and practically incalculable upside potential. They may or may not end up the winners, but I see no scenario in which it "doesn't end well". It's already "well", even if the company went defunct tomorrow. > that clause with that timeline seems a bit risky. I'm 99% certain that OpenAI drove the terms…

I don't think it really matters how much people love their product if every person using it costs them money. I'm sure people would love a company that sold US$10 bills for 25c, but it's not exactly a sustainable venture. Will people love ChatGPT et al just as much if OpenAI have to charge what it costs them to buy and run all the GPUs? Maybe, but it's absolutely not certain. If they "went defunct" tomorrow then the…

Model training is what costs so much. I would expect OpenAI makes a profit on inference services.

Re: OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

#137

Post by bpodgursky »

seanhunter wrote: post #130
bpodgursky wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually represents the scenario where they invent a revolutionary superintelligence that doesn't kill the VCs investing in the firm, and allows them enough control to take profit. In the top range ASI capacity outcomes, the sand god does not return trillions to the VCs. This actually represents only the narrow "aligned" range of AI outcomes, so it makes sense it's a small one.

Judging by the ones I have met, the VCs probably believe that any kind of superintelligence would by definition be something that would like them and be like them. If it wasn’t on their side they would take it as incontrovertible proof that it wasn’t a superintelligence.

I am not sure who you have met, but I have mostly talked to VCs with the same range of optimism and concerns regarding AI as normal technologists.

Re: OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

#138

Post by romanhn »

kredd wrote: post #67
teqsun wrote: post #38

After Theranos and WeWork, I'm always skeptical of any Pre-IPO "valuations".

For every Theranos and WeWork, there’s Uber, Coinbase, AirBnb. I know they didn’t raise as much as OpenAI, but it wasn’t insignificant amount of money burning before they became profitable with large market caps. It’s very strange times we’re living in.

Airbnb is down 10% since going public. Coinbase is down over 50%. I think some skepticism around pre-IPO valuation is warranted.

Re: OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

#139

Post by NickNaraghi »

deisteve wrote: post #44

$157B marketcap means they need to 20x their current revenue of roughly 400 million dollars by next year... But the revenue has flatlined and you can't raise your existing users cost by 20x... It truly is a mystery as to how anybody throwing other peoples money hopes to get it back from OpenAI

> But the revenue has flatlined and you can't raise your existing users cost by 20x...

Why not? They’re already shopping a 2k/mo subscription option

Re: OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

#140

Post by stoperaticless »

jiggawatts wrote: post #92
throwup238 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems with central planning that capitalism ostensibly solves don't exist because of a lack of intelligence, but due to the impedance mismatch between the planner and the people. Making the central planner an AGI would just make it worse, because there's no guarantee that just because it's (super)intelligent it can empathize with its wards and optimize for their needs and desires.

The problem with all such criticisms is that there is an implicit assumption that humans can be trusted.

I know human limitations. I don’t know AGI limtations.

Most humans can not lie all the time. Their true intentions do come out from time to time.

AGI might not have that problem - AGI might hide its true intentions for hundreds of years.

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