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OpenAI’s promise to stay in California helped clear the path for its IPO

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Re: OpenAI’s promise to stay in California helped clear the path for its IPO

#281

Post by Libidinalecon »

jacquesm wrote: post #38

Prediction for the future: OpenAI IPO's lots of money changes hands, it chugs along for a while, hits a hard spot and then is taken private for pennies on the dollar by Microsoft.

I have always thought it would eventually be owned my Microsoft. The only uncertainty is the path it takes to get there.

Given the froth in the market right now, I think there is a good chance the IPO gets scrapped if we are talking mid 2026. An IPO at a trillion would work right now but mid 2026 is a long ways away.

Like how the Deepseek moment feels like ancient history but it wasn't even a year ago.

Re: OpenAI’s promise to stay in California helped clear the path for its IPO

#282

Post by AdamN »

hamdingers wrote: post #159
alfalfasprout wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're concentrated there because they've been asked to concentrate there. That can change on a dime. It's not like data centers are mainly in SF.

You've got it backwards. Well paid engineers congregate in California because it's a nice place to live if you can afford it. Therefore if you want to hire the best engineers, and want an in-office work culture, you need to go to California.

Depends on the type of engineer - NYC for fintech is also a top spot, Boston for robotics, etc...

Re: OpenAI’s promise to stay in California helped clear the path for its IPO

#283

Post by 7492728292283 »

vessenes wrote: post #118
khazhoux wrote: post #107

I don’t understand the animus towards OAI going public. ChatGPT undoubtedly changed the world. The non->for profit status of the company is not impacting anyone. It’s not like their success was made possible by being a non-profit. Suddenly everyone here is very very concerned with the classification of this corporate entity, and I detect people feel personally slighted. Why is that?

They are chronically online and reading uninformed headlines by fellow youth. Combined with a feeling that they don't like this wave of GenAI, you get a lot of uninformed hate that's deeply felt, and probably reasonably felt. But also totally uninformed.

If only everyone was as enlightened as you are.

Re: OpenAI’s promise to stay in California helped clear the path for its IPO

#284

Post by AdamN »

FinnKuhn wrote: post #271
derekdahmer wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have 800M weekly active users that have yet to be monetized but enormous capital costs. It makes sense they'd be looking to raise large amounts of money in an IPO.

How many of these users will be able to be monitized is an unanswered question as of yet however. API usage on the other hand has a clear path to monetization and as of right now Anthropic is looking a lot better than OpenAI there.

monetization is straightforward - the only question is who gets the money and which business models succeed.

Re: OpenAI’s promise to stay in California helped clear the path for its IPO

#285

Post by Jackpillar »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #274
csomar wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you’re wrong. But that’s irrelevant. It's on you to prove the parent wrong and you provided nothing to explain why the Bay Area is special beyond history/staying power.

> It's on you to prove the parent wrong and you provided nothing to explain why the Bay Area is special beyond history/staying power I’m literally saying it’s irrelevant due to incumbency effects. If someone is doing something AI outside the Bay Area, a decent business is to copy and outraise them.

Exactly. No one is arguing the historical & material reasons as to why Bay Area is the birthing place of many technological revolutions. The Bay Area is special because of said history/staying power - which has systemic downstream advantages that cannot be replicated. 60% of total VC funding is in the Bay Area alone. Being surrounded by Stanford, Berkeley, etc gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers. Theres just no other region like it and won't be for a very long time.

Re: OpenAI’s promise to stay in California helped clear the path for its IPO

#286

Post by AdamN »

jcmontx wrote: post #104

If this happened any non-western country headlines would say "corruption".

If the deal is in California's and OpenAI's interests roughly than there is no corruption. Sure they're using their big weapons but there's not a major principal-agent divergence on either side from what I can see. Altman wants to build the business (and make money) and California wants the tax revenue and maximize chances of the core business remaining largely in the state.

Re: OpenAI’s promise to stay in California helped clear the path for its IPO

#287

Post by Jackpillar »

wubrr wrote: post #149
vessenes wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the opposite of true. It's actively wrong. Location is almost everything; people move to financial and tech centers for a reason -- it matters where you are and who you know.

nah also, where you are and who you know are very different things

This is so funny to imply that you (living in East Jesus, Texas) have a better or similar opportunity to me (living in SF) in making more relationships and connections to AI related companies, engineers, investors, customers, acquirers, scientists, etc.

Re: OpenAI’s promise to stay in California helped clear the path for its IPO

#288

Post by IsTom »

deepdarkforest wrote: post #272
FinnKuhn wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of these users will be able to be monitized is an unanswered question as of yet however. API usage on the other hand has a clear path to monetization and as of right now Anthropic is looking a lot better than OpenAI there.

Everyone. People are becoming dependent on chatgpt. They literally cannot function professionally or even socially without it. They will pay their last 20-30 dollars if needed. It's literally like a drug especially when it's asking you if you want to followup/continue.

At least one of us is inside a bubble. Nobody I interact with regularly uses chatgpt for anything more than novelty. Even people who used it as glorified google for looking up things reduced their use.

Re: OpenAI’s promise to stay in California helped clear the path for its IPO

#289

Post by akimbostrawman »

tim333 wrote: post #275
andy99 wrote: post #172

IPO is to leave someone holding the bag, right? The narrative has really changed from AGI, the most consequential technology, blabla. If I had that I would keep it private. If I wanted to cash out, I’d do an IPO. Is there a narrative that doesn’t make it seem like pump and dump?

I was watching the OpenAI livestream yesterday. Sam was saying they have a $1.4 tn financial obligation to build 30 GW worth of data centers https://youtu.be/ngDCxlZcecw?t=1179 That's a lot of money to raise given they have no earnings. He also says they are talking about being able to build 1 GW a week at a cost of $20bn/GW I find it all a bit worrying. Weren't we supposed to be careful with energy use to reduce CO2…

>Weren't we supposed to be careful with energy use to reduce CO2 emissions?

The Programming has changed get with the times. AI earnings have outweigh ESG scores.

Re: OpenAI’s promise to stay in California helped clear the path for its IPO

#290

Post by arnaudsm »

derekdahmer wrote: post #231
andy99 wrote: post #172

IPO is to leave someone holding the bag, right? The narrative has really changed from AGI, the most consequential technology, blabla. If I had that I would keep it private. If I wanted to cash out, I’d do an IPO. Is there a narrative that doesn’t make it seem like pump and dump?

They have 800M weekly active users that have yet to be monetized but enormous capital costs. It makes sense they'd be looking to raise large amounts of money in an IPO.

OpenAI burns <5B$/year in inference. They're raising that money to hyperscale larger models.
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