With a ~40 billion usd hole (netloss) Openai keeps it´s word by staying a nonprofit company 🤣

  • Jayjader@jlai.lu
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    5 hours ago

    I find it interesting that according to these numbers, if they entirely stopped R&D and marketing, they would just about break even.

      • Jayjader@jlai.lu
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        3 hours ago

        Oh definitely. I think it’s anthropic who have stated in multiple interviews that they break even on most of their models, it’s just that they keep spending exponentially more to train the next model. They and openai seem to be stuck in an arms race where switching to purely serving existing models to their existing clients just won’t work. I do wonder how accurate that assessment is on their part.

  • majster@lemmy.zip
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    5 hours ago

    They’ll be profitable when the training stops/slows down. But how much revenue they can generate is another question. This might be the reason behind the news of US gov thinking about banning Deepsek and other Chinese models. Open weights models kill the API billing bussiness model. Margins in that scenario probably wouldn’t cover the massive investment.

    • potustheplant@feddit.nl
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      5 hours ago

      That’s the problem, you can’t stop training your model. New and useful information is created every day. This is simply not an economically viable product.

      • majster@lemmy.zip
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        2 hours ago

        Competitors have the same problem. We’ll see what happens once subsidies run out.

  • Chahk@beehaw.org
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    22 hours ago

    OpenAI is the definition of the difference between “Not-For-Profit” and “For not-profit”.

  • ramble81@lemmy.zip
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    21 hours ago

    Which column is infrastructure under? Things like power, DC rent, etc. Also what about depreciation assuming you try to shove all that shit (well the hardware anyway) into CapEx?

    • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 hours ago

      Which column is infrastructure under?

      I don’t think they have any of that. They rent computation capacity, which should partially be under cost of revenue and partially under R&D.

  • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    This misapprehends the business models of techno feudalism: you operate at a loss, running on VC money which is fairly endless. You offer a freeish service to grow your brand. Then when you list on the stock exchange you live off debts loaned to you by the bank on the basis that your company is worth millions or billions.

    I have no doubt ChatGPT is, and that Sam Altman lives with no taxable income to speak of. He’s just accumulating bank loans and paying them back with other bank loans secured by OpenAIs growing stock price and company valuation.

    Money isn’t real to the elite classes. Actually I believe Stalin and Churchill once stopped at a Cafe sometime after WW2, they realised no one travelling with them had money to pay for the money and service of the Cafe… Because they didn’t need money. It’s accepted when you’re at that level.

  • sylver_dragon@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    As real as any valuation. Which is to say, what investors are willing to pay for a piece of a company may not always have the most firm association with the reality of a company’s current state. And, the market can stay irrational much longer than you expect.

    • eudaemon@lemmy.ml
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      12 hours ago

      Accounting equivalent of “Cost of Goods Sold” but for software and tech companies its usually a service so “cost of revenue” is the term used