But here is the thing: OpenAI’s revenue growth is slowing down dramatically. In 2023, they increased their revenue by 169% over 2022, and in 2024, they increased their revenue by 250% over 2023. In 2025, they are set to increase revenue by only 56% over 2024.
They are set to increase revenue by 3-4x in 2025.[0] So already, this article is based on false data.
Further more, losing $8b in the first half to buy GPUs isn't a big deal when you're growing 3-4x and there are investors lining up to give you money.
The rest of the article is mostly exaggerated AI doomer opinions that are often dispelled here on HN news comment section. For example, the author cites the MIT AI report snippet that says 95% of companies are failing at agentic AI. But the actual report is far more positive on AI's impact in the workforce.[1]
These doomer articles always fail to grasp two things:
1. Major Silicon Valley companies have always lost a huge amount of money before becoming profitable. OpenAI is just the next and at a bigger scale (because tech is far bigger in 2025 than before). Despite countless examples of tech companies losing a lot of money early on to becoming hugely profitable later, people still get hung up on the fact that OpenAI isn't profitable in 2025.
2. They always think that AI is as good as it gets now with little to no improvements coming. But we're still on an exponential curve.[2]
I don’t think Sam Altman thinks (2) is true, in fact it seems all the AI insiders are starting to signal that neither 1 or 2 will happen, why is it only outsiders saying this now?
Also the article, as all doomer articles I read do, address your points directly.
Howso? I think they make more sense in spite of that. What else is he going to do, admit defeat? Also, even if it never gets better, he still wants to sell what they do have.
I mean if he just wanted to cash out he could cut the spend to a few billion and try to float / cash out. I mean why try to spend unprecedented amounts if he thinks it'll all crash?
I just watched an interview and he seems to be leaning the other way that self improving AI is about to kick off https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfE1Wun9xkk&t=810s That would be a step beyond the normal Moore's law type exponential.
The problem I see is that the entire US stock market has been rising only because of a small handful of tech companies, Nvidia being among them. If this bubble pops, and maybe "if" isn't the right word--when this bubble pops, it's going to hurt.
Comments
Further more, losing $8b in the first half to buy GPUs isn't a big deal when you're growing 3-4x and there are investors lining up to give you money.
The rest of the article is mostly exaggerated AI doomer opinions that are often dispelled here on HN news comment section. For example, the author cites the MIT AI report snippet that says 95% of companies are failing at agentic AI. But the actual report is far more positive on AI's impact in the workforce.[1]
These doomer articles always fail to grasp two things:
1. Major Silicon Valley companies have always lost a huge amount of money before becoming profitable. OpenAI is just the next and at a bigger scale (because tech is far bigger in 2025 than before). Despite countless examples of tech companies losing a lot of money early on to becoming hugely profitable later, people still get hung up on the fact that OpenAI isn't profitable in 2025.
2. They always think that AI is as good as it gets now with little to no improvements coming. But we're still on an exponential curve.[2]
[0]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-cfo-we-will-more-than-...
[1]https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of_AI_in_Bus...
[2]https://metr.org/blog/2025-03-19-measuring-ai-ability-to-com...
I don’t think Sam Altman thinks (2) is true, in fact it seems all the AI insiders are starting to signal that neither 1 or 2 will happen, why is it only outsiders saying this now?
Also the article, as all doomer articles I read do, address your points directly.
The amounts Altman is investing make little sense if he doesn't believe in (2).
Howso? I think they make more sense in spite of that. What else is he going to do, admit defeat? Also, even if it never gets better, he still wants to sell what they do have.
I mean if he just wanted to cash out he could cut the spend to a few billion and try to float / cash out. I mean why try to spend unprecedented amounts if he thinks it'll all crash?
I just watched an interview and he seems to be leaning the other way that self improving AI is about to kick off https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfE1Wun9xkk&t=810s That would be a step beyond the normal Moore's law type exponential.
Because it's not a business to him, it's a religion.
The problem I see is that the entire US stock market has been rising only because of a small handful of tech companies, Nvidia being among them. If this bubble pops, and maybe "if" isn't the right word--when this bubble pops, it's going to hurt.
If it pops, buy more because AI will be far more ubiquitous than now.
That wouldn’t have necessarily been the best advice immediately after dot.com