OpenAI is planning to spend an exorbitant amount of money building out AI infrastructure, as it continues trying to achieve artificial general intelligence through sheer computational scale.
That’s despite its revenue lagging far behind its enormous spending spree, with recently released Microsoft earnings suggesting that the Sam Altman-led company lost a whopping $11.5 billion last quarter.
Even its blockbuster AI chatbot ChatGPT, which accounts for the majority of the company’s revenue, appears to be stalling out on new subscribers. OpenAI is struggling to convince more than a measly five percent of its 800 million active ChatGPT users to pay for a subscription.
During a recent interview with podcaster and OpenAI investor Brad Gerstner, Altman lost his cool when he was asked outright how it all adds up.
“How can a company with $13 billion in revenues make $1.4 trillion of spend commitments?” Gerstner asked him. “You’ve heard the criticism, Sam.”
“If you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer,” a taken-aback Altman replied curtly. “Enough.”
Surprised by the confrontation, Gerstner let out a laugh in response.
“I think there’s a lot of people who talk with a lot of breathless concern about our compute stuff or whatever that would be thrilled to buy shares,” Altman said, digging in his heels. “We could sell your shares or anybody else’s to some of the people who are making the most noise on Twitter about this very quickly.”
Apparently, if you ask @sama how his $13 billion money-losing for profit not-for-profit can support $1.4 TRILLION of spend commitments, he gets very defensive and starts to attack non-existent short sellers.
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