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OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

economist.com

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Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#541

Post by sod22 »

jotras wrote: post #396
avalys wrote: post #139

AI is going to be a highly-competitive, extremely capital-intensive commodity market that ends up in a race to the bottom competing on cost and efficiency of delivering models that have all reached the same asymptotic performance in the sense of intelligence, reasoning, etc. The simple evidence for this is that everyone who has invested the same resources in AI has produced roughly the same result. OpenAI, Anthropic,…

Something nobody's talking about: OpenAI's losses might actually be attractive to certain investors from a tax perspective. Microsoft and other corporate investors can potentially use their share of OpenAI's operating losses to offset their own taxable income through partnership tax treatment. It's basically a tax-advantaged way to fund R&D - you get the loss deductions now while retaining upside optionality later. T…

Lmao this is ridiculous. If MSFT really wanted the tax benefits they should’ve just wholly acquired OAI long ago to acquire the financial synergy you speak of.

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#543

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

nineteen999 wrote: post #484
Bombthecat wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I wouldn't be so sure, chips with brain matter and or light are on its way and or quantum chips, one of those or even a combination will give AI a gigantic boost in performance. Finally replacing a lot more humans and whoever implements it first will rule the world.

You seem to have forgotten that the ruling class requires tax payers to fund their incomes. If we're all out of work, there's nobody to buy their products and keep them rich.

Not sure this equation works out. If demand for labor goes towards zero it really means there is no demand. In other words, when AI and robots fulfil every desire of their owners there really is no need for “tax payers”

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#544

Post by tim333 »

madeofpalk wrote: post #282
doctaj wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Google AI products do people not want to use? Gemini is catching up to chatpt from a MAU perspective, ai overviews in search are super popular and staggeringly more used than any other ai-based product out there, a Google ai mode has decent usage, and Google Lens has surprisingly high usage. These products together dwarf everyone else out there by like 10x.

Is Gemini, as a chatbot, a product that sustains current valuations and investment?

It's hard to say with Google because they make most of their money from ads and you can't really tell if people who clicked were there for normal search or Gemini. They seem to be doing ok though, profits up 66% from a couple of years ago.

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#545

Post by mrwrong »

tptacek wrote: post #400
esafak wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your recollection is hazy. Bezos chose not to be profitable in order to grow the company, and reap greater rewards in the future. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wjLs22dNOCE

I don't know either way but every company does this, it's not saying anything meaningful to say that a new company is taking an "investment year" or two or ten. I do know that in the late aughts, people were writing stories about how Amazon was a charity run on behalf of the American consumer by the finance industry.

and those stories were in the short run correct, since Amazon and Uber succeeded by massively undercutting existing businesses. reel customers in with charity, then turn the screws. what business is ChatGPT undercutting?

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#546

Post by tim333 »

famouswaffles wrote: post #354
websiteapi wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't seem accurate since gemini has many entry points

Entry points ? The visits are accurate for the website and app. If you're talking about AI overviews, then that's meaningless for reasons I've already explained.

I use Google's AI much more often that OpenAI's but the URL I use is usually google.co.uk and so wouldn't appear if your numbers.

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#547

Post by visarga »

jotras wrote: post #396
avalys wrote: post #139

AI is going to be a highly-competitive, extremely capital-intensive commodity market that ends up in a race to the bottom competing on cost and efficiency of delivering models that have all reached the same asymptotic performance in the sense of intelligence, reasoning, etc. The simple evidence for this is that everyone who has invested the same resources in AI has produced roughly the same result. OpenAI, Anthropic,…

Something nobody's talking about: OpenAI's losses might actually be attractive to certain investors from a tax perspective. Microsoft and other corporate investors can potentially use their share of OpenAI's operating losses to offset their own taxable income through partnership tax treatment. It's basically a tax-advantaged way to fund R&D - you get the loss deductions now while retaining upside optionality later. T…

> The real question isn't "can OpenAI justify its valuation" but rather "what's the blended tax rate of its investor base?"

Was that an organic "it's not A, it's B" or synthetic?

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#548

Post by victorbjorklund »

nosianu wrote: post #508
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern welfare state is the compromise reached by capitalist democracies to stave off communist revolutions. If you’re going to kill of the welfare part, be ready for the uprising part.

That's where the surveillance and the militarized police force(s) come in. Especially the former now has reached extraordinary levels, given that almost all communication now is easily trackable. Compare that to when we still had revolutions, where it was very hard for government to know what is going on, and to find individuals without a huge effort. I think revolutions have become next to impossible, unless it is l…

We still have revolutions because if enough people go out on the street it doesn’t matter how good your surveillance state is. You can’t kill/arrest 25% of your population. That is why Russia/China/etc are so scared to let any protests begin even with 5 people because if they grow there comes a point it can’t be stopped with violence.

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#549

Post by Gud »

Personally I use ChatGPT a lot, it is a wonderful service.

I use it in conjunction with Claude. I’ve gotten pretty good results using both of them in tandem.

However on a principal basis I prefer to self host, I wonder if an advantage of OpenAI imploding wouldn’t generate basement level prices of useful chips? Ideally I want to run my LLM and train it on my data.

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#550

Post by egeozcan »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #478
aurareturn wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is clearly a very strong moat. OpenAI is close to 1 billion active users on ChatGPT while Claude barely have any non-business users. Even though Anthropic had better models at different times this year, I never stopped using ChatGPT and paying for Plus. We just don't know who will win in which area yet. It doesn't mean there is no moat.

I don’t think it’s a question of moat. The usage limits on the chat interface with the more advanced Claud models are brutal. I feel like I can barely start a conversation before I get shutdown. However, I switched over to Gemini almost completely and barely ever checkin with ChatGPT these days.

I can't prove it (because they show no stats) but I feel like you get more Gemini Pro with a normal subscription than Opus with a Max plan.

Maybe the new more efficient models made it better for Claude users but that was my experience a couple months ago.

For professional usage though, Calude Code is so much ahead of Antigravity that it didn't even make sense to make a formal comparison. That, even when using the same model (Opus).

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