OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#81

Post by wood_spirit » Thu, Oct 02, 2025, 7:33 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #58

I think the most interesting numbers in this piece (ignoring the stock compensation part) are: $4.3 billion in revenue - presumably from ChatGPT customers and API fees $6.7 billion spent on R&D $2 billion on sales and marketing - anyone got any idea what this is? I don't remember seeing many ads for ChatGPT but clearly I've not been paying attention in the right places. Open question for me: where does the cost of ru…

Speculating but they pay to be integrated as the default ai integration in various places the same way google has paid to be the default search engine on things like the iPhone?

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#82

Post by hadlock » Thu, Oct 02, 2025, 7:34 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #27

darth_avocado wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have to compete with Zuckerberg throwing $100M comps to poach people. I think $830k per person is nothing in comparison.

Both numbers are entirely ludicrous - highly skilled people are certainly quite valuable. But it's insane that these companies aren't just training up more internally. The 50x developer is a pervasive myth in our industry and it's one that needs to be put to rest.

You have to out-pay to keep your talent from walking out the door. California does not have non-competes. With the number of AI startups in SF you don't need to relocate or even change your bus route in most cases.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#83

Post by varenc » Thu, Oct 02, 2025, 7:34 PM UTC

hmate9 wrote: post #5

$2.5B in stock comp for about 3,000 employees. that’s roughly $830k per person in just six months. Almost 60% of their revenue went straight back to staff.

It's a bit misleading to frame stock comp as "60% of revenue" since their expenses are way larger than their revenue. R&D was $6.7B which would be 156% of revenue by the same math.

A better way to look at it is they had about $12.1B in expenses. Stock was $2.5B, or roughly 21% of total costs.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#84

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 02, 2025, 7:34 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #58

I think the most interesting numbers in this piece (ignoring the stock compensation part) are: $4.3 billion in revenue - presumably from ChatGPT customers and API fees $6.7 billion spent on R&D $2 billion on sales and marketing - anyone got any idea what this is? I don't remember seeing many ads for ChatGPT but clearly I've not been paying attention in the right places. Open question for me: where does the cost of ru…

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#85

Post by munk-a » Thu, Oct 02, 2025, 7:35 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #51

munk-a wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both numbers are entirely ludicrous - highly skilled people are certainly quite valuable. But it's insane that these companies aren't just training up more internally. The 50x developer is a pervasive myth in our industry and it's one that needs to be put to rest.

> training up more internally Why would employees stay after getting trained if they have a better offer?

They won't always. You'll always have turn-over - but if it's a major problem for your company it's clearly something you need to work out internally. People, generally, hate switching jobs, especially in an uncertain political climate, especially when expenses are going up - there is a lot of momentum to just stay where you are.

You may lose a few employees to poaching, sure - but the math on the relative cost to hire someone for 100m vs. training a bunch employees and losing a portion of those is pretty strongly in your favor.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#86

Post by flyinglizard » Thu, Oct 02, 2025, 7:35 PM UTC

JCM9 wrote: post #41

adventured wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an exceptionally obvious solution for OpenAI & ChatGPT: ads. In fact it's an unavoidable solution. There is no future for OpenAI that doesn't involve a gigantic, highly lucrative ad network attached to ChatGPT. One of the dumbest things in tech at present is OpenAI not having already deployed this. It's an attitude they can't actually afford to maintain much longer. Ads are a hyper margin product that are ve…

For using GenAI as search I’d agree with you but I don’t think it’s as easy/obvious for most other use cases.

I'm sure lots of ChatGPT interactions are for making buying decisions, and just how easy would it be to prioritize certain products to the top? This is where the real money is. With SEO, you were making the purchase decision and companies paid to get their wares in front of you; now with AI, it's making the buy decision mostly on its own.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#87

Post by Jallal » Thu, Oct 02, 2025, 7:35 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #58

I think the most interesting numbers in this piece (ignoring the stock compensation part) are: $4.3 billion in revenue - presumably from ChatGPT customers and API fees $6.7 billion spent on R&D $2 billion on sales and marketing - anyone got any idea what this is? I don't remember seeing many ads for ChatGPT but clearly I've not been paying attention in the right places. Open question for me: where does the cost of ru…

I'm pretty sure I saw some ChatGPT ads on Duolingo. Also, never forget that the regular dude do not use ad blockers. The tech community often doesn't realize how polluted the Internet/Mobile apps are.

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#88

Post by yieldcrv » Thu, Oct 02, 2025, 7:35 PM UTC

stephc_int13 wrote: post #75

Everyone is trying to compare AI companies with something that happened in the past, but I don't think we can predict much from that. GPUs are not railroads or fiber optics. The cost structure of ChatGPT and other LLM based services is entirely different than web, they are very expensive to build but also cost a lot to serve. Companies like Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Google would all survive if their massive investment…

Just because they have ongoing costs after purchasing them doesn't mean it's different than something else we've seen? What are you trying to articulate exactly, this is a simple business and can get costs under control eventually, or not

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#89

Post by wood_spirit » Thu, Oct 02, 2025, 7:36 PM UTC

stephc_int13 wrote: post #75

Everyone is trying to compare AI companies with something that happened in the past, but I don't think we can predict much from that. GPUs are not railroads or fiber optics. The cost structure of ChatGPT and other LLM based services is entirely different than web, they are very expensive to build but also cost a lot to serve. Companies like Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Google would all survive if their massive investment…

Unlike railroads and fibre, all the best compute in 2025 will be lacklustre in 2027. It won’t retain much value in the same way as the infrastructure of previous bubbles did?

Re: OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3B in income, $13.5B in loss

#90

Post by xur17 » Thu, Oct 02, 2025, 7:36 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #27

darth_avocado wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have to compete with Zuckerberg throwing $100M comps to poach people. I think $830k per person is nothing in comparison.

Both numbers are entirely ludicrous - highly skilled people are certainly quite valuable. But it's insane that these companies aren't just training up more internally. The 50x developer is a pervasive myth in our industry and it's one that needs to be put to rest.

If it's an all out race between the different AI providers, then it's logical for OpenAI to hire employees that are pre-trained rather than training up more internally.