OpenAI In Talks To Raise New Funding At $100 Billion Valuation

According to Bloomberg (paywalled), OpenAI is in early talks to raise a fresh round of funding at a valuation at or above $100 billion. Reuters reports: The terms, valuation and timing of the funding round have not yet been finalized and could still change, the report added. OpenAI has also held discussions to raise funding for a new chip venture with Abu Dhabi-based G42, according to the report. If the valuation holds, the report notes that it would make OpenAI the second-most valuable U.S. startup behind Elon Musk's SpaceX.

How long do you call something a "startup"?

[ffkom]

Calling companies that are 8 and 21 years old "startups" sounds ridiculous, IMHO.

$100B ?

[ls671]

$100B ? I guess we need something else to separate fools from their money since the crypto fad is almost over now...

Re:

[gweihir]

Yep. And since the crypto-morons are willing to believe almost anything, why not just give them a bunch of lies of an entire different variant?

The thing (and the only thing) that impresses me about the AI field is how they can sell what is essentially failure as a great stunning success every time. For a while.

Re:

[NomDeAlias]

I take it you bought the top on bitcoin?

Re:

[gweihir]

I take it you are an idiot? Because there is zero indication I ever bought any crapto or shitcoin and, in fact, I did not.

I am endlessly fascinated how easily most people can be scammed. I never participate in that because I strongly believe the scammers are demeaning themselves in the process and are wasting their lives. I may be old-fashioned, but I think personal integrity really means everything.

Re:

[NomDeAlias]

So much anger. You must have bought the top after the party was over XD

Re:

[gweihir]

No anger at all. You are not important enough for that. But you clearly are an idiot. Simple statement of fact. You are also an asshole, by the way you are trying to elevate yourself here. Again, just a statement of fact. Since I am pretty clear on where I stand in relation to you and actually know what I did and did not buy (unlike you), I do not even feel the need to explain that to you.

Re:

[NomDeAlias]

"I'm not angry" he says with gritted teeth and a furled brow while hurling vitriol. XD

Re:

[gweihir]

Yep, keep flattering yourself. Kind of funny how hard you are trying and failing.

Re:

[NomDeAlias]

Calm down, you'll give yourself a heart attack.

Re:

[gweihir]

Well, I think I get it now: You have some mental disability and truly do not get how far off you are. My apologies.

Re:

[NomDeAlias]

Whatever you need to tell yourself to soothe that cognitive dissonance.

Re:$100B ?

[WankerWeasel]

Yeah, that's a MASSIVE overvaluation. They aren't producing a massively profitable product at this time.

What happened to their original mission statement of, "Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return." Clearly they've thrown out the non-profit intentions for the betterment of humanity and instead looked to the betterment of their investors and their own net worth.

Re:

[kackle]

I'm in the middle of reading a "Time" magazine* article that says it's a hybrid: Only X amount of profit can be had by the investors and above that goes into the "non-profit side" of the company.

*For the kids, it's a collection of static web pages printed on paper that doesn't require a viewing device.

Re:$100B ?

[Tony Isaac]

There is one major difference between crypto and AI. Crypto was a solution looking for a problem, and it never really found a problem to solve. AI on the other hand, is a tool that solves a thousand everyday problems. Many of us save ourselves hours every day using AI.

Is $100B overpriced? Probably. But it's definitely NOT in the same category as crypto.

Re:

[jythie]

I only kinda agree here AI has uses, but I think what we are seeing is Ai evangelists trying to find new problems that their tool can 'solve'. Machine Learning is great for some things like search and recommendation systems, both of which can be very profitably be used to sells ads, but those uses have gotten oversaturated and now they need to find new markets. So just like crypto, you have bag holders are throwing money around in the hopes that someone will find that next killer use that will make the

Re:

[Tony Isaac]

It sounds like you haven't really started trying to see what AI can do yet. Here are a few examples of what I've done with it, that have saved me a ton of time:
- Write a job description for a DBA I was hiring. I asked ChatGPT to write one, all I had to do was tweak a couple of points.
- Write code to address specific problems where I'm less familiar with the language or the technology.
- Provide instructions for an unusual operation on a stage lighting console.
- Provide suggestions on how to remove a large mi

Re: $100B ?

[Alascom]

Crypto is âoeoverâ in the same way technology was over after the dot com bust.

Bitcoin remains solid and viable, while the alt-coins and nfts have been revealed to be the equivalent of webvan and pets.com.

Re: $100B ?

[BadgerStork]

Do they have a price - earnings ratio of 20? Do they have profits of $5 billion? I don't think they have anything worth $100 billion. Their own product is polluting their training data...they are figuratively shifting where they are eating

Re:

[jythie]

Pretty much yeah. Investors have come to expect mind numbing returns, so there is a lot of money to be made in convincing them that your project is going to be the next Amazon or Google. We will probably see more and more of this as wealth continues to concentrate and expectations keep going up.

Wait... isn't this the same company...

[DaveM753]

...that was all over the news a month ago? You know, the company with the board that fired its famous CEO, followed by a revolt involving Microsoft offering to hire said CEO, followed by a breakup of the board and re-hiring of said CEO and replacement of several other board members...
 
Wow. All that news coverage and just a month later comes talk of a huge IPO. What an amazing coincidence!

Re:

[Aristos Mazer]

No one has mentioned any plans for an IPO any time soon that I've heard of. This is a new round of funding to continue without doing an IPO.

Re:

[EnsilZah]

If anything, all the news has shown is that there's no point investing in OpenAI.
All they have is brand recognition, a bit of first mover advantage, and some temporary human capital.
The CEO was fired and immediately got a job offer from Microsoft, a large portion of the workers were ready to follow him, and OpenAI would have immediately become irrelevant.
They don't own the training data, they receive their compute from Microsoft, and it appears all their competitors have been able to catch up to them so I g

Thank goodness they're nonprofit controlled

[oumuamua]

Or that kind of money would be looking for a profit and skewing priorities. Of course I'm joking! the meme: https://www.genolve.com/design... [genolve.com]

Funding? What for?

[AlanObject]

I thought ChatGPT got to a hundred million users in record time and the subscription was $20/month. If even 10% of their users are paying, that's income of $200M/month.

Even with outrageous ops budget there is a lot of R&D you can do with that kind of income. And you don't have to give up any equity.

Re:

[jythie]

So the current owners can cash out?

Well

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

Does that mean we're finally at peak AI, or do we have to see a trillion valuation before that?