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OpenAI raises $110B on $730B pre-money valuation

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Re: OpenAI raises $110B on $730B pre-money valuation

#391

Post by scuff3d »

namuol wrote: post #268

Hard not to hear the word “bailout” in my head when I see this many billions being tossed around.

That's why there's been such a massive effort to position LLMs as critical to national security. If they can make themselves big enough and critical enough (even in just perception) to the government they won't let them fail. They'll let individuals lose their livelihoods of course, since it's rugged individualism for all of us lowley normal people. But corporate socialism will keep the big players afloat.

Re: OpenAI raises $110B on $730B pre-money valuation

#392

Post by christoff12 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #325
7777777phil wrote: post #287

$730B pre-money for a company where each model is roughly 2x profitable on its own, but each next model costs 10x the last. The whole thing only works if scaling keeps delivering. Research (Sara Hooker et al.) is not encouraging on that front, compact models already outperform massive predecessors on downstream tasks while scaling laws only predict pre-training loss reliably. Wrote about both the per-model math and t…

> each model is roughly 2x profitable on its own, but each next model costs 10x the last. The whole thing only works if scaling keeps delivering. This is a decent argument, but it's not the death knell you think. Models are getting 99% more efficient every 3 years - to get the same amount of output, combined with hardware and (mostly) software upgrades - you can use 99% less power. The number of applications where AI…

> Models are getting 99% more efficient every 3 years - to get the same amount of output, combined with hardware and (mostly) software upgrades - you can use 99% less power.

Even if true, this still doesn't bend the curve when paying for the next model.

> If AI stopped progressing today, it would take probably a decade or longer for us to take full advantage of it. So there is tons of forward looking revenue that isn't counted yet.

If this is true, it's true for the technology overall, and not necessarily OpenAI since inference would get commoditized quickly at that point. OpenAI could continue to have a capital advantage as a public stock, but I don't think it would if the music stopped.

Re: OpenAI raises $110B on $730B pre-money valuation

#394

Post by shimman »

phist_mcgee wrote: post #362
alecco wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody saw coming the huge demand for coding agents. Not even OpenAI or Anthropic themselves. Those were side projects just a year ago and now dominate token demand. And they keep rising.

Does anyone see the demand for coding agents that aren't subsided 90% by the AI company?

Or demand that isn't a condition of keeping your job?

Re: OpenAI raises $110B on $730B pre-money valuation

#396

Post by Nevermark »

_fat_santa wrote: post #95

IMO this looks largely like another circular investment. Amazon's investment is tied to OpenAI using AWS for their Frontier product and I assume Nvidia's conditions are that OpenAI continue buying hardware from them. Then there's SoftBank though given that those are the same guys that invested heavily in WeWork, I assume this is just very brash bullishness on their part. From my perspective, I hope that OpenAI surviv…

Circular investing can be a smoke screen.

But it can also simply be the financial framing for direct bartering. Which is even more direct than regular financial transactions.

"I will provide these resources you need, in exchange for part ownership", and/or "a limited license to your tech", "right to provide access to our customers on these terms", Etc."

Amazon doesn't need any frothy fake revenue. But they do want to offer their customers the most in demand models, with the best financial terms for Amazon.

Nvidia wants customers, but not at the expense of throwing money away. Their market cap may be volatile, but their books are beyond solid.

I would be a lot more concerned if OpenAI was getting "funding" from a quantum computer startup, and vice versa.

Re: OpenAI raises $110B on $730B pre-money valuation

#397

Post by mixmastamyk »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #395
mixmastamyk wrote: post #344

Depressing to see trillions sloshing around, and yet no jobs to be found.

There seem to be plenty of jobs in SF. Although you’ll most likely end up working on some AI bullshit.

Contact me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46867010

Note: I need work, not interviews. ;-)

Re: OpenAI raises $110B on $730B pre-money valuation

#398

Post by torben-friis »

nelsonic wrote: post #253
bandrami wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "continue" buying as much as this is NVIDIA fronting the money for (most of) the hardware OpenAI has already ordered from them. It's like borrowing rent money from your drug dealer.

Great analogy. ;-) Doubt Jensen sees himself as a “dealer” but considering the vendor lock-in and margins, he pretty much is the Tony Montana of Ai Chips. It’s nuts that this type of financing is legal.

>It’s nuts that this type of financing is legal.

You need people to burn in house fires for regulation to require extinguishers.

We're going to be the next generation’s cautionary tale.

Re: OpenAI raises $110B on $730B pre-money valuation

#399

Post by solumunus »

moron4hire wrote: post #354
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> each model is roughly 2x profitable on its own, but each next model costs 10x the last. The whole thing only works if scaling keeps delivering. This is a decent argument, but it's not the death knell you think. Models are getting 99% more efficient every 3 years - to get the same amount of output, combined with hardware and (mostly) software upgrades - you can use 99% less power. The number of applications where AI…

We said all the same shit about VR, dude. Even had a global pandemic show up to boost everyone's interest in the key market of telepresence. Turns out the merry go round can stop abruptly.

Did we?! You and Mark Zuckerberg maybe.

Re: OpenAI raises $110B on $730B pre-money valuation

#400

Post by sigmoid10 »

blmarket wrote: post #343
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> each model is roughly 2x profitable on its own, but each next model costs 10x the last. The whole thing only works if scaling keeps delivering. This is a decent argument, but it's not the death knell you think. Models are getting 99% more efficient every 3 years - to get the same amount of output, combined with hardware and (mostly) software upgrades - you can use 99% less power. The number of applications where AI…

> 99% more efficient every 3 years It's 2x efficiency. Then I'd take 50% less power instead of ridiculous 99% less power.

GPT-4 came out 3 years ago and you can run comparable models for 1% of the cost nowadays. That is not 2x efficiency. That's two orders of magnitude in end-to-end compute efficiency.
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