Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OpenAI completes deal that values company at $157B

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 443 posts

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

#31

Post by Someone1234 »

I hope better competition appear before the enshittification begins.

As far as I understand it they're actually underwater on their API and even $20/month pricing, so we'll either see prices aggressively increase and or additional revenue streams like ads or product placement in results.

We've witnessed that every time a company's valuation is impossibly high: They do anything they can to improve outlook in an attempt to meet it. We're currently in the equivalent of Netflix's golden era where the service was great, and they could do no wrong.

Personally I'll happily use it as long as I came, but I know it is a matter of "when" not "if" it all starts to go downhill.

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

#32

Post by baq »

cs702 wrote: post #4

Given the high risk, investors likely want a shot of earning at least a 10x return. $157 billion x 10 = $1.57 trillion, greater than META's current market capitalization. Greater returns would require even more aggressive assumptions. For example, a 30x return would require OpenAI to become the world's most valuable company by a large margin. All I can say to the investors, with the best of hopes, is: Good luck! You'…

If everyone is building datacenters, sell nuclear reactors.

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

#34

Post by baq »

jsheard wrote: post #29
cs702 wrote: post #4

Given the high risk, investors likely want a shot of earning at least a 10x return. $157 billion x 10 = $1.57 trillion, greater than META's current market capitalization. Greater returns would require even more aggressive assumptions. For example, a 30x return would require OpenAI to become the world's most valuable company by a large margin. All I can say to the investors, with the best of hopes, is: Good luck! You'…

It's fine, Sam's bulletproof plan is to build AGI (how hard could it be) and then ask the AGI how they can make a return on their investments. https://www.threads.net/@nixcraft/post/C5vj0naNlEq If they haven't built AGI yet that just means you should give them more billions so they can build the AGI. You wouldn't want your earlier investments to go to waste, right?

Honestly, it isn't a bad plan at all.

Assuming money even makes sense in a world with AGI, that is.

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

#35

Post by neom »

returnInfinity wrote: post #24
lupire wrote: post #3

Does OpenAI have a moat?

It still has the first mover advantage, based on the revenue and usage graphs. If somebody puts a cheaper and better version, then no moat.

Eh, in the b2c play, sure- if they nail the enterprise maybe not.

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

#37

Post by cs702 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #21
cs702 wrote: post #4

Given the high risk, investors likely want a shot of earning at least a 10x return. $157 billion x 10 = $1.57 trillion, greater than META's current market capitalization. Greater returns would require even more aggressive assumptions. For example, a 30x return would require OpenAI to become the world's most valuable company by a large margin. All I can say to the investors, with the best of hopes, is: Good luck! You'…

>You'll need it! If they can IPO, they will easily hit a $1.5T valuation. All Altman would have to do is follow what Elon did with Tesla. Lots of massive promises marinated in trending hype that tickles the hearts of dumb money. No need to deliver, just keep promising. He is already doing it.

Yeah, there's no upper limit to hype and exuberance.

As Isaac Newton once said, "I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people."[a]

---

[a] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/74548-i-can-calculate-the-m...

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

#39

Post by jsheard »

Someone1234 wrote: post #31

I hope better competition appear before the enshittification begins. As far as I understand it they're actually underwater on their API and even $20/month pricing, so we'll either see prices aggressively increase and or additional revenue streams like ads or product placement in results. We've witnessed that every time a company's valuation is impossibly high: They do anything they can to improve outlook in an attemp…

> additional revenue streams like ads or product placement in results.

It's largely flown under the radar but they appear to already be testing this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41658837

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

#40

Post by mcast »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #21
cs702 wrote: post #4

Given the high risk, investors likely want a shot of earning at least a 10x return. $157 billion x 10 = $1.57 trillion, greater than META's current market capitalization. Greater returns would require even more aggressive assumptions. For example, a 30x return would require OpenAI to become the world's most valuable company by a large margin. All I can say to the investors, with the best of hopes, is: Good luck! You'…

>You'll need it! If they can IPO, they will easily hit a $1.5T valuation. All Altman would have to do is follow what Elon did with Tesla. Lots of massive promises marinated in trending hype that tickles the hearts of dumb money. No need to deliver, just keep promising. He is already doing it.

The difference is Tesla had a moat with the electric car market, there were no affordable and practical EVs 10 years ago. OpenAI is surrounded by competition and Meta is constantly releasing Llama weights to break up any closed source monopolies.
Post reply on HN