Does OpenAI have anything resembling "special sauce", or are they just a critical mass of ML engineers with good funding, loose constraints and the word "open"

Does OpenAI have anything resembling "special sauce", or are they just a critical mass of ML engineers with good funding, loose constraints and the word "open" in their name? If the former, a buyout seems like the obvious next step, antitrust notwithstanding. If the latter, a buyout would kill two of the company strengths - "open"-ness (as weak as it is with the Microsoft tie-ins, it is still notionally a selling point), and loose constraints on target use-cases. Might not seem like such a good deal if it just turns out to be an acqui-hire.