Live data from Hacker News

OpenAI raises $8.3B at $300B valuation

nytimes.com

291–294 of 294 posts

Re: OpenAI raises $8.3B at $300B valuation

#291
post #290
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how you clearly used AI to create this comparison. Probably used ChatGPT for it

> I like how you clearly used AI to create this comparison. Probably used ChatGPT for it Great catch! You should consider a career as a detective! I hope this sentence from the beginning of my post didn't make it too easy on your impressive deduction skills: "If not, maybe we can ask ChatGPT about it (below is ChatGPT's "opinion" on the similarities between Enron and OpenAI):"

Lol ngl I somehow missed that.

Still, it's pretty clear Enron and OpenAI are massively different companies. It's kinda strange that one would compare them at all. OpenAI is not even a public company. Their products have nothing alike. Their business models are nothing alike. One had literal fraud (maybe OpenAI does too but that would be speculation). Even if OpenAI dies, it's still the reason for $100s of billions in capex across the industry. It's still the reason why everyone in tech is talking and working on AI. And the product is real. You can use it. It's not a fancy demo with a mechanical turk behind the scenes.

Re: OpenAI raises $8.3B at $300B valuation

#292
post #291
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like how you clearly used AI to create this comparison. Probably used ChatGPT for it Great catch! You should consider a career as a detective! I hope this sentence from the beginning of my post didn't make it too easy on your impressive deduction skills: "If not, maybe we can ask ChatGPT about it (below is ChatGPT's "opinion" on the similarities between Enron and OpenAI):"

Lol ngl I somehow missed that. Still, it's pretty clear Enron and OpenAI are massively different companies. It's kinda strange that one would compare them at all. OpenAI is not even a public company. Their products have nothing alike. Their business models are nothing alike. One had literal fraud (maybe OpenAI does too but that would be speculation). Even if OpenAI dies, it's still the reason for $100s of billions in…

> Still, it's pretty clear Enron and OpenAI are massively different companies.

They are. But there are enough parallels to me to be wary of them and their competitors. To me the amount of investments and hype doesn't match what's essentially a fancy autocomplete.

Re: OpenAI raises $8.3B at $300B valuation

#293
post #292
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol ngl I somehow missed that. Still, it's pretty clear Enron and OpenAI are massively different companies. It's kinda strange that one would compare them at all. OpenAI is not even a public company. Their products have nothing alike. Their business models are nothing alike. One had literal fraud (maybe OpenAI does too but that would be speculation). Even if OpenAI dies, it's still the reason for $100s of billions in…

> Still, it's pretty clear Enron and OpenAI are massively different companies. They are. But there are enough parallels to me to be wary of them and their competitors. To me the amount of investments and hype doesn't match what's essentially a fancy autocomplete.

Well the biggest difference is most of the big foundation labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI) are private companies, so it's not like you have to go out of your way to not hold any equity. This wasn't the case with Enron which was part of the SP500 and thus included in many passive funds.

You could say there's spillover with Nvidia and the clouds and such, but that still makes this a different case than Enron. It could be like the dotcom bubble, but bubbles != fraud.

Re: OpenAI raises $8.3B at $300B valuation

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the better analogy for LLM businesses isn’t SaaS but more like power generation. If AI really becomes that ubiquitous then OpenAI capturing that value is no less ridiculous than ComEd capturing the value of every application of electric power.

> If AI really becomes that ubiquitous then OpenAI capturing that value is no less ridiculous than ComEd capturing the value of every application of electric power. They do? The electric provider, last I checked, does not capture the value of every application of electric power. Some business uses (amongst other things) $1 of electricity to make a widget that they then sell $100 - the value there is captured by the b…

You may have misunderstood my comment because I'm arguing that openai's valuation implies a level of value capture that doesn't look realistic.
Post reply on HN