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This is a sign of OpenAI's weakness. Altman is desperately trying to use OpenAI's inflated valuation to buy some kind of advantage. Which is why he's buying ad

This is a sign of OpenAI's weakness. Altman is desperately trying to use OpenAI's inflated valuation to buy some kind of advantage. Which is why he's buying ads, paying $6.5 billion in stock to Jony Ive, and $3 billion for a VSCode fork created in a few months. Almost anything makes sense when you see your valuation going to zero unless you can figure something out.

adamrezich 1y ago
AGI any day now, though! Any day now.
yeahwhatever10 1y ago
Agreed. This doesn't look like 4D chess, this stinks of desperation.
moralestapia 1y ago
Of note, and to support your argument, all of these deals are stock only.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
poormathskills 1y ago
OpenAI does literally anything “This is a sign of OpenAI’s weakness” I think this is the third time I’ve seen this exact comment at the top of a HN post about an OpenAI announcement.There is a weird amount of emotional investment in not wanting OpenAI to win. Personally, I am just excited to see what the device looks like. The prototype must be good to justify this valuation.
- slipnslider 1y ago
  I think a lot of people on here have heard enough stories about how Sam Altman behaves when the cameras aren't looking and dislike him and thus his company. Also its normal backlash - when something gets so popular so fast, you are going to naturally have some haters. Lastly actions speak louder than words. OpenAI used to talk about AGI and Super AI and nuclear launch codes and national security. Now they are buying VS Code forks and ad companies. The AI race is more than heating up and Sama knows it and he's throwing some hail mary's in hopes to keep OpenAI near or at the top.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
msukkarieh 1y ago
Facebook is a great example of doing this and it succeeding very well. Zuck recognized that Facebook was going to zero and bought WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus. My guess is that sama sees the writing on the wall and knows that he must expand OpenAI in a similar way. What happens to OpenAI competitors that can't make similar moves is another question.
- pixelpoet 1y ago
  Let's ignore the 46 billion dollars wasted on the metaverse: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/meta-platforms-has-spent-$46-billion-on-the-metaverse-since-2021-but-its-spending-twice-as https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/meta-platforms-has-spent-$46...
  - bigzyg33k 1y ago
    Meta haven't abandoned the metaverse, and made it very clear from the beginning that "the metaverse" was something that does not exist, and will not exist in any form until the end of the decade. They continuously reiterate this during earnings calls, while increasing their capital expenditures on it. You cannot determine it's a waste if the effort isn't completed, and if you have no insight into their progress.
    - asadotzler 1y ago
      Certainly the part of those investements wasted on cramming a whole PC into goggles that smash into your face with straps around your head and pretty much all of the Meta and Meta subsidized content to go along with that can be evaluated now, and not in 5 more years. The fact that Quest stalled out 2 years ago with only about 7M actives after tens of billions spent trying to make it go is pretty much all anyone needs to know about Zuck's metaverse investments. Now they're pivoting to glasses with a heads up display and pretending that was the plan all along because Zuck won't admit the cash bonfire that Quest and Horizon Worlds has been, about $100B sunk for only about $15B return with only a few million users.
      - 1y ago
mountainriver 1y ago
Windsurf and Cursor are money factories, that’s not a dumb play, their base will only grow significantly. OpenAI doesn’t have many money factories like google yet. Paying for Jony doesn’t seem like desperation. Jony has no product that makes money, this is a long term aggressive hardware play. Seemingly to face off with apple. It feels more like people just want to craft a negative narrative about OpenAI and use the data to fit that
bigzyg33k 1y ago
I completely disagree. This is really just more of the great execution that I've come to expect from Sam Altman. Core to OpenAI's strategy is that they control not just the models, but also the entrypoints to how these models are used. Don't take it from me, this is explicitly their strategy according to internal documents (https://x.com/TechEmails/status/1923799934492606921 https://x.com/TechEmails/status/1923799934492606921). Some important entrypoints are: - Entrypoints for layman consumers: They already control this entrypoint due to ChatGPT, the app. They have a limited moat here because they are at the whims of the platform owners, primarily Apple and Google. This is why they are purchasing Ive's startup. - Entrypoints for developers: They acquired Windsurf, and are actively working on cloud development interfaces such as the new codex product. - Entrypoints for enterprise: They have the codex products as described above, but also Operator, and are actively working on more cloud based agents. A rebuttal that I anticipate to the above goes something along the lines of this: "If they have so much capital and dev experience, why are they acquiring these businesses instead of building internal competitors? This is a demonstration of their failure to execute" The current AI boom is one of the most competitive tech races that has ever occurred. It is because of this, and particularly because they are so well capitalised that it makes sense to acquire instead of build. They simply cannot afford to waste time building these products internally if they can purchase products much further along in their development, and then attach them to their capital and R&D engine
mlinhares 1y ago
While I agree the AGI thing is mostly bullshit the whole market is aware that models aren't the end-all-be-all and people will not be making huge profits out of them, all the other big players have other side businesses they can use to upsell the models, OpenAI doesn't and they need to figure something out.
scyzoryk_xyz 1y ago
Weakness that is rooted in blind ambition that is not backed up by any kind of vision. Which, when you think about it, is really kind of sad. They would have been so much better off as a non-profit.
cube00 1y ago
Reddit ads too, you know it must be really bad.

adamrezich 1y ago

AGI any day now, though! Any day now.

yeahwhatever10 1y ago

Agreed. This doesn't look like 4D chess, this stinks of desperation.

moralestapia 1y ago

Of note, and to support your argument, all of these deals are stock only.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

poormathskills 1y ago

OpenAI does literally anything “This is a sign of OpenAI’s weakness” I think this is the third time I’ve seen this exact comment at the top of a HN post about an OpenAI announcement.There is a weird amount of emotional investment in not wanting OpenAI to win. Personally, I am just excited to see what the device looks like. The prototype must be good to justify this valuation.

slipnslider 1y ago
I think a lot of people on here have heard enough stories about how Sam Altman behaves when the cameras aren't looking and dislike him and thus his company. Also its normal backlash - when something gets so popular so fast, you are going to naturally have some haters. Lastly actions speak louder than words. OpenAI used to talk about AGI and Super AI and nuclear launch codes and national security. Now they are buying VS Code forks and ad companies. The AI race is more than heating up and Sama knows it and he's throwing some hail mary's in hopes to keep OpenAI near or at the top.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

msukkarieh 1y ago

Facebook is a great example of doing this and it succeeding very well. Zuck recognized that Facebook was going to zero and bought WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus. My guess is that sama sees the writing on the wall and knows that he must expand OpenAI in a similar way. What happens to OpenAI competitors that can't make similar moves is another question.

pixelpoet 1y ago
Let's ignore the 46 billion dollars wasted on the metaverse: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/meta-platforms-has-spent-$46-billion-on-the-metaverse-since-2021-but-its-spending-twice-as https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/meta-platforms-has-spent-$46...
- bigzyg33k 1y ago
  Meta haven't abandoned the metaverse, and made it very clear from the beginning that "the metaverse" was something that does not exist, and will not exist in any form until the end of the decade. They continuously reiterate this during earnings calls, while increasing their capital expenditures on it. You cannot determine it's a waste if the effort isn't completed, and if you have no insight into their progress.
  - asadotzler 1y ago
    Certainly the part of those investements wasted on cramming a whole PC into goggles that smash into your face with straps around your head and pretty much all of the Meta and Meta subsidized content to go along with that can be evaluated now, and not in 5 more years. The fact that Quest stalled out 2 years ago with only about 7M actives after tens of billions spent trying to make it go is pretty much all anyone needs to know about Zuck's metaverse investments. Now they're pivoting to glasses with a heads up display and pretending that was the plan all along because Zuck won't admit the cash bonfire that Quest and Horizon Worlds has been, about $100B sunk for only about $15B return with only a few million users.
    - 1y ago

mountainriver 1y ago

Windsurf and Cursor are money factories, that’s not a dumb play, their base will only grow significantly. OpenAI doesn’t have many money factories like google yet. Paying for Jony doesn’t seem like desperation. Jony has no product that makes money, this is a long term aggressive hardware play. Seemingly to face off with apple. It feels more like people just want to craft a negative narrative about OpenAI and use the data to fit that

bigzyg33k 1y ago

I completely disagree. This is really just more of the great execution that I've come to expect from Sam Altman. Core to OpenAI's strategy is that they control not just the models, but also the entrypoints to how these models are used. Don't take it from me, this is explicitly their strategy according to internal documents (https://x.com/TechEmails/status/1923799934492606921 https://x.com/TechEmails/status/1923799934492606921). Some important entrypoints are: - Entrypoints for layman consumers: They already control this entrypoint due to ChatGPT, the app. They have a limited moat here because they are at the whims of the platform owners, primarily Apple and Google. This is why they are purchasing Ive's startup. - Entrypoints for developers: They acquired Windsurf, and are actively working on cloud development interfaces such as the new codex product. - Entrypoints for enterprise: They have the codex products as described above, but also Operator, and are actively working on more cloud based agents. A rebuttal that I anticipate to the above goes something along the lines of this: "If they have so much capital and dev experience, why are they acquiring these businesses instead of building internal competitors? This is a demonstration of their failure to execute" The current AI boom is one of the most competitive tech races that has ever occurred. It is because of this, and particularly because they are so well capitalised that it makes sense to acquire instead of build. They simply cannot afford to waste time building these products internally if they can purchase products much further along in their development, and then attach them to their capital and R&D engine

mlinhares 1y ago

While I agree the AGI thing is mostly bullshit the whole market is aware that models aren't the end-all-be-all and people will not be making huge profits out of them, all the other big players have other side businesses they can use to upsell the models, OpenAI doesn't and they need to figure something out.

scyzoryk_xyz 1y ago

Weakness that is rooted in blind ambition that is not backed up by any kind of vision. Which, when you think about it, is really kind of sad. They would have been so much better off as a non-profit.

cube00 1y ago

Reddit ads too, you know it must be really bad.