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OpenAI leans toward waiting until next year for IPO

nytimes.com

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Re: OpenAI leans toward waiting until next year for IPO

#151

Post by michelb »

sharadov wrote: post #29

I was really hoping that they Ipoed this year, so we can see their stock shoot up and down in flames, and we're really done with them and Sam Altman, once and for all.

Why would Sam go? He has the political power of this administration on his side. Far more than Elon, who is working hard to get it back through SpaceX military contracts. Anthropic has very little political sway, which is why they are in trouble now. OpenAI might wait to see if this government will destroy Anthropic’s chances in the USA. Then Sam could become the only player.

Re: OpenAI leans toward waiting until next year for IPO

#152

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

pastamania wrote: post #149
aurareturn wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even open source models need hardware and energy to inference. Therefore, anyone offering a free ChatGPT competitor will be using the same unit economics. My bet is that OpenAI will make free ChatGPT work through ads.

It's a very open question whether the economics for ads work though. Ads aren't just an infinite money pit you can just reach into, they have a price ceiling you have to stay under before they stop making sense for the advertiser. And if some of the rumours about OpenAI's ad CPMs are true, the inventory is going to be massively expensive. It makes sense for it to be expensive, mind. The unit cost of serving an LLM re…

OpenAI's Codex could vibecode ads directly into production code.

In 2026 this is satire. By 2030 it might not be.

Re: OpenAI leans toward waiting until next year for IPO

#153

Post by Havoc »

therobots927 wrote: post #150
Havoc wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said they’re profitable on operating profit. Think it’s pretty safe to assume theirs are less of a dumpster fire

Well that’s great to hear that they are saying a non-GAAP profit metric is greater than zero. I agree it’s less of a dumpster fire than OAI but that’s not a very hard bar to clear.

Trillion dollar dumpster fires are currently in fashion GAAP or not

Re: OpenAI leans toward waiting until next year for IPO

#154

Post by scottyah »

tough wrote: post #143
scottyah wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's actually the first volatile high-profile IPO so you can see why some people need to be reminded of the possibility.

I didn't partake but from elon's shenanigans with bitcoin and doge (the coin, not the govt thing) it seemed clear he'd do similar with the stock is tesla stock not volatile too? elon stock's are more like today's crypto than a 20th's century company stock w dividends

People have trouble pricing it because they do actual new engineering and don't spend time and money making the stock price wherever they want it. All the other F500s are owned by the same few companies and all the board members are the same.

Wall Street has never understood engineering. Eventually Tesla will pull a Boeing, GE, Ford, etc- lose the founder of founder's influence, get taken over by suits, and slowly die but hang on by playing the financial games.

Re: OpenAI leans toward waiting until next year for IPO

#156

Post by therobots927 »

Havoc wrote: post #153
therobots927 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that’s great to hear that they are saying a non-GAAP profit metric is greater than zero. I agree it’s less of a dumpster fire than OAI but that’s not a very hard bar to clear.

Trillion dollar dumpster fires are currently in fashion GAAP or not

Currently in fashion isn’t exactly a confidence booster heading into multiple rate hikes and a pressure on hyperscalers to cut capex.

Re: OpenAI leans toward waiting until next year for IPO

#157

Post by cromka »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #136
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI exits in America probably have a political cliff approaching fast as populist backlash will hit them The populist backlash is coming for datacenters. I'm unconvinced that's truly problematic to these companies given data travels close to the speed of light and plenty of countries have energy, data interconnects and governments unresponsive to locals' concerns.

This morning I heard a convincing argument that the data center backlash is only really significant in the USA because jobs here equal health care access. Europeans can afford to be less threatened existentially.

If heck the weather maps for the past free days in Europe, you'll see why they won't get any popular here, either.

Re: OpenAI leans toward waiting until next year for IPO

#158

Post by cma »

scottyah wrote: post #154
tough wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't partake but from elon's shenanigans with bitcoin and doge (the coin, not the govt thing) it seemed clear he'd do similar with the stock is tesla stock not volatile too? elon stock's are more like today's crypto than a 20th's century company stock w dividends

People have trouble pricing it because they do actual new engineering and don't spend time and money making the stock price wherever they want it. All the other F500s are owned by the same few companies and all the board members are the same. Wall Street has never understood engineering. Eventually Tesla will pull a Boeing, GE, Ford, etc- lose the founder of founder's influence, get taken over by suits, and slowly di…

> and slowly die but hang on by playing the financial games.

There have been plenty of those, like SpaceX buying Solar City bonds then when they were going to go bad he used Tesla to bail them out.

Re: OpenAI leans toward waiting until next year for IPO

#159

Post by scottyah »

cma wrote: post #158
scottyah wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have trouble pricing it because they do actual new engineering and don't spend time and money making the stock price wherever they want it. All the other F500s are owned by the same few companies and all the board members are the same. Wall Street has never understood engineering. Eventually Tesla will pull a Boeing, GE, Ford, etc- lose the founder of founder's influence, get taken over by suits, and slowly di…

> and slowly die but hang on by playing the financial games. There have been plenty of those, like SpaceX buying Solar City bonds then when they were going to go bad he used Tesla to bail them out.

There's definitely been a lot of "creativity" in Musk's companies. I'm honestly a bit surprised that any could go public. I thought there'd be too many skeletons in the closet, but glad things worked out/weren't that bad.
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