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Can someone give the counter argument to my initial cynical read of this? That read being: OpenAI has more money than it can invest productively within it's own

Can someone give the counter argument to my initial cynical read of this? That read being: OpenAI has more money than it can invest productively within it's own company and is trying to cast a net to find new product ideas via an incubator? I can't imagine Softbank or Microsoft is happy about their money being funneled into something like this and it implies they have run out of ideas internally. But I think I'm probably being too reflexively cynical

tern 1y ago
It's possible that a single senior employee just wanted to do this and it doesn't cost that much and their manager was like "sure"
- albingroen 1y ago
  I really do want this to be the case
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ozgung 1y ago
I don't think it's about money, they don't invest anything. They gather data about "technical talent" working on AI related ideas. They will connect with 15 of these people to see if they can build it together.
- LordDragonfang 1y ago
  It seems almost like... an internship program for would-be AI founders? My guess is this is as much about talent acquisition as it is about talent retention. Give the bored, overpaid top talent outside problems to mentor for/collaborate on that will still have strong ties to OpenAI, so they don't have the urge to just quit and start such companies on their own.
ks2048 1y ago
> OpenAI has more money than it can invest productively I don't think there is any money given, except travel costs for first and last week.
AnEro 1y ago
I think that MIT study of 95% of internal AI projects failing has scared off a lot of corporations from risking time in it. I think they also see they are hitting a limit of profitable intelligence from their services. (with the growth in inelegance the past 6–8 months being more realistic, not the unbelievable like in the past few years) I think everyone is starting to see this as a middle man problem to solve, look at ERP systems for instance when they popped up it had some growing pains as an industry. (or even early windows/microsoft 'developers, developers, developers' target audience) I OpenAI see it will take a lot of third party devs to take what OpenAI has and run with it. So they want to build a good developer and start up network to make sure that there are a good, solid ecosystem of options corporations and people can use AI wise.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  The MIT study found 90% of workers were regularly using LLMs. The gap was that workers were using their own implementation instead of the company's implementation.
  - AnEro 1y ago
    Yea from what I understand 'Chats' and AI coding are something they already have market domination/are a leader on and are a good/okay product. It's the other use cases they haven't delievered on in terms of other companies using them as a platform to deliver AI apps, which I would imagine would have been a huge vertical in their pitches to investors and internal plans. These third-party apps get huge token usage with agenentic patterns. So losing out on them and being forced to make more internal products to tune to specific use cases is not something they want to biuld out or explore
    - dingnuts 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - AnEro 1y ago
        AI coding is mid(okay) yes, my main point is people use it and it's a good line of business right now for them. They expected bigger break throughs like gpt-2 to 3 to 4, and that's not happening so they have to lean on the other aspects of the business more. The fact it is mid is why they are really needing all the other lines of business to work. AKA selling tokens to AI apps the specialize in other mid products, and limit the snakeoil AI products that are littering the market ruining AI's image of being the new catch all solution.
rich_sasha 1y ago
Without putting my weight behind them, here's some counterarguments: - OpenAI needs talent, and it's generally hard to find. Money will buy you smart PhDs who want to be on the conveyer belt, but not people who want to be a centre of a project of their own. This at least puts them in the orbit of OpenAI - some will fly away, some will set up something to be aquihired, some will just give up and try to join OpenAI anyway - the amount of cash they will put into this is likely minuscule compared to their mammoth raises. It doesn't fundamentally change their funding needs - OpenAI's biggest danger is that someone out there finds a better way to do AI. Right now they have a moat made of cash - to replicate them, you generally need a lot of hardware and cash for the electricity bill. Remember the blind panic when DeepSeek came out? So, anything they can do to stop that sprouting elsewhere is worth the money. Sprouting within OpenAI would be a nice-to-have.
- Zagreus2142 1y ago
  Thanks! I think these are strong points, especially about the reaction to deepseek. I did have an assumption I didn't put in my original message, that they would probably be making investment offers to founders who walked into this with something like deepseek and that would balloon the costs well beyond office space and engineer time. But even having advanced knowledge of a next big idea from this would be worth the cost of entry yep.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
r0m4n0 1y ago
I think it’s more like Open AI has the name to throw around and a lot of credibility but not products that are profitable. They are burning cash and need to show a curve that they can reach profitability. Getting 15 people with 15 ideas they can throw their weight behind is worth a lot
- chrishare 1y ago
  Yeah, more or less. Being in the application space as well as the inference space hedges a variety of risks, that inference margins will squeeze, that competition will continue to increase, etc etc.
  - r0m4n0 1y ago
    Yea and if you look at all of the job openings they have right now, they are mostly in the “applied AI” space which is a very different thing from what they have been doing altogether. This is mostly generic enterprise development which is how they will try to become profitable
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
spott 1y ago
I mean, how much money are they throwing at this? I doubt it approaches anything close to a percent of the cash they have on hand.
xpe 1y ago
> I can't imagine Softbank or Microsoft is happy about their money being funneled into something like this Imagining one negative spin doesn’t an imagination make. Imagine harder.
drexlspivey 1y ago
OpenAI definitely doesn’t have more money than it can invest. They burn cash like crazy that’s why they keep raising money every 6 months.
haute_cuisine 1y ago
Softbank or Microsoft can’t be happy or sad. CEOs only care about the share price going up while they’re holding the wheel. If Sam wants to start the idea incubator, why would they want to shut it down?
- Zagreus2142 1y ago
  My thinking was that both of these large investors specifically want openAI to produce something like agi or failing that, something so popular and useful they make enough money not to care. And they want results this year/early next year. Softbank's latest investment round is partially tied up in openAI resolving their non-profit status by the end of this year. Training random founding engineers with no expectations of even using GPT-5 instead of traditional hiring feels either like a lack of focus or niave during this critical juncture. But having said that, I do see the wisdom in the comments that the costs in running a 5 week course/workshop are low and the value in having a view into what people are making outside of the openAI bubble is a decent return all its own.
ark296 1y ago
Sama liked YC some much that he wanted a mini-YC in OpenAI, maybe.

tern 1y ago

It's possible that a single senior employee just wanted to do this and it doesn't cost that much and their manager was like "sure"

albingroen 1y ago
I really do want this to be the case

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ozgung 1y ago

I don't think it's about money, they don't invest anything. They gather data about "technical talent" working on AI related ideas. They will connect with 15 of these people to see if they can build it together.

LordDragonfang 1y ago
It seems almost like... an internship program for would-be AI founders? My guess is this is as much about talent acquisition as it is about talent retention. Give the bored, overpaid top talent outside problems to mentor for/collaborate on that will still have strong ties to OpenAI, so they don't have the urge to just quit and start such companies on their own.

ks2048 1y ago

> OpenAI has more money than it can invest productively I don't think there is any money given, except travel costs for first and last week.

AnEro 1y ago

I think that MIT study of 95% of internal AI projects failing has scared off a lot of corporations from risking time in it. I think they also see they are hitting a limit of profitable intelligence from their services. (with the growth in inelegance the past 6–8 months being more realistic, not the unbelievable like in the past few years) I think everyone is starting to see this as a middle man problem to solve, look at ERP systems for instance when they popped up it had some growing pains as an industry. (or even early windows/microsoft 'developers, developers, developers' target audience) I OpenAI see it will take a lot of third party devs to take what OpenAI has and run with it. So they want to build a good developer and start up network to make sure that there are a good, solid ecosystem of options corporations and people can use AI wise.

Workaccount2 1y ago
The MIT study found 90% of workers were regularly using LLMs. The gap was that workers were using their own implementation instead of the company's implementation.
- AnEro 1y ago
  Yea from what I understand 'Chats' and AI coding are something they already have market domination/are a leader on and are a good/okay product. It's the other use cases they haven't delievered on in terms of other companies using them as a platform to deliver AI apps, which I would imagine would have been a huge vertical in their pitches to investors and internal plans. These third-party apps get huge token usage with agenentic patterns. So losing out on them and being forced to make more internal products to tune to specific use cases is not something they want to biuld out or explore
  - dingnuts 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - AnEro 1y ago
      AI coding is mid(okay) yes, my main point is people use it and it's a good line of business right now for them. They expected bigger break throughs like gpt-2 to 3 to 4, and that's not happening so they have to lean on the other aspects of the business more. The fact it is mid is why they are really needing all the other lines of business to work. AKA selling tokens to AI apps the specialize in other mid products, and limit the snakeoil AI products that are littering the market ruining AI's image of being the new catch all solution.

rich_sasha 1y ago

Without putting my weight behind them, here's some counterarguments: - OpenAI needs talent, and it's generally hard to find. Money will buy you smart PhDs who want to be on the conveyer belt, but not people who want to be a centre of a project of their own. This at least puts them in the orbit of OpenAI - some will fly away, some will set up something to be aquihired, some will just give up and try to join OpenAI anyway - the amount of cash they will put into this is likely minuscule compared to their mammoth raises. It doesn't fundamentally change their funding needs - OpenAI's biggest danger is that someone out there finds a better way to do AI. Right now they have a moat made of cash - to replicate them, you generally need a lot of hardware and cash for the electricity bill. Remember the blind panic when DeepSeek came out? So, anything they can do to stop that sprouting elsewhere is worth the money. Sprouting within OpenAI would be a nice-to-have.

Zagreus2142 1y ago
Thanks! I think these are strong points, especially about the reaction to deepseek. I did have an assumption I didn't put in my original message, that they would probably be making investment offers to founders who walked into this with something like deepseek and that would balloon the costs well beyond office space and engineer time. But even having advanced knowledge of a next big idea from this would be worth the cost of entry yep.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

r0m4n0 1y ago

I think it’s more like Open AI has the name to throw around and a lot of credibility but not products that are profitable. They are burning cash and need to show a curve that they can reach profitability. Getting 15 people with 15 ideas they can throw their weight behind is worth a lot

chrishare 1y ago
Yeah, more or less. Being in the application space as well as the inference space hedges a variety of risks, that inference margins will squeeze, that competition will continue to increase, etc etc.
- r0m4n0 1y ago
  Yea and if you look at all of the job openings they have right now, they are mostly in the “applied AI” space which is a very different thing from what they have been doing altogether. This is mostly generic enterprise development which is how they will try to become profitable

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

spott 1y ago

I mean, how much money are they throwing at this? I doubt it approaches anything close to a percent of the cash they have on hand.

xpe 1y ago

> I can't imagine Softbank or Microsoft is happy about their money being funneled into something like this Imagining one negative spin doesn’t an imagination make. Imagine harder.

drexlspivey 1y ago

OpenAI definitely doesn’t have more money than it can invest. They burn cash like crazy that’s why they keep raising money every 6 months.

haute_cuisine 1y ago

Softbank or Microsoft can’t be happy or sad. CEOs only care about the share price going up while they’re holding the wheel. If Sam wants to start the idea incubator, why would they want to shut it down?

Zagreus2142 1y ago
My thinking was that both of these large investors specifically want openAI to produce something like agi or failing that, something so popular and useful they make enough money not to care. And they want results this year/early next year. Softbank's latest investment round is partially tied up in openAI resolving their non-profit status by the end of this year. Training random founding engineers with no expectations of even using GPT-5 instead of traditional hiring feels either like a lack of focus or niave during this critical juncture. But having said that, I do see the wisdom in the comments that the costs in running a 5 week course/workshop are low and the value in having a view into what people are making outside of the openAI bubble is a decent return all its own.

ark296 1y ago

Sama liked YC some much that he wanted a mini-YC in OpenAI, maybe.