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I don't think OpenAI will be one of those companies. I can't imagine a world where OpenAI sells for less than 4b.

ohdeardear 1y ago
Their web-application is worth $200,000. The software of the training infrastructure is worth perhaps $2M; the inference infrastructure is worth perhaps $500,000. Their hardware is worth nothing in 3 years. Their B2B relations are worth perhaps $5M. The "data" they have is worth nothing in 5 years, because a sufficiently smart model will be able to learn without human feedback. They have no moat. So, how do you get to $4B? I think the models are wrong way too often for relatively simple queries, so unless they give a secret prompt like "be wrong a lot in the free version" to users, it's basically worthless.
- School-Cotton 1y ago
  > The "data" they have is worth nothing in 5 years, because a sufficiently smart model will be able to learn without human feedback. This is a huge assumption.
  - array_key_first 1y ago
    To be fair, OpenAI not going under is built on even larger assumptions.
- JamesBarney 1y ago
  Where are you getting these numbers? And how would you appraise the value of the windsurf IP which sold for 2.4b?
  - handfuloflight 1y ago
    He's probably estimating the cost to produce these, after the fact.
- bobxmax 1y ago
  [dead]
- handfuloflight 1y ago
  Too bad that's not how much they spent on that all of that, though.
nickff 1y ago
Well, the question isn't what OpenAI's intellectual property is worth right now, or what you expect it to be worth, but what it is likely to be worth after OpenAI has become insolvent (and few/none of the current employees are working on it). The most likely causes for it becoming insolvent are probably that another company out-innovates them, or that the revenues never come in (despite OpenAI being a market leader). In either case, OpenAI's IP is unlikely to be sufficiently superior to the competition's to warrant a large premium. I am not sure how differentiated OpenAI's IP is, so I don't have a strong opinion, but it seems to me that OpenAI is worth a lot more as a package than it would be as a collection of pieces.
array_key_first 1y ago
If even a singular open source model surpasses OpenAI's models between now and then then OpenAI will be worth 0 dollars, IP included. Well maybe the employees will be worth something.

Their web-application is worth $200,000. The software of the training infrastructure is worth perhaps $2M; the inference infrastructure is worth perhaps $500,000. Their hardware is worth nothing in 3 years. Their B2B relations are worth perhaps $5M. The "data" they have is worth nothing in 5 years, because a sufficiently smart model will be able to learn without human feedback. They have no moat. So, how do you get to $4B? I think the models are wrong way too often for relatively simple queries, so unless they give a secret prompt like "be wrong a lot in the free version" to users, it's basically worthless.

School-Cotton 1y ago
> The "data" they have is worth nothing in 5 years, because a sufficiently smart model will be able to learn without human feedback. This is a huge assumption.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  To be fair, OpenAI not going under is built on even larger assumptions.
JamesBarney 1y ago
Where are you getting these numbers? And how would you appraise the value of the windsurf IP which sold for 2.4b?
- handfuloflight 1y ago
  He's probably estimating the cost to produce these, after the fact.
bobxmax 1y ago
[dead]
handfuloflight 1y ago
Too bad that's not how much they spent on that all of that, though.

nickff 1y ago

Well, the question isn't what OpenAI's intellectual property is worth right now, or what you expect it to be worth, but what it is likely to be worth after OpenAI has become insolvent (and few/none of the current employees are working on it). The most likely causes for it becoming insolvent are probably that another company out-innovates them, or that the revenues never come in (despite OpenAI being a market leader). In either case, OpenAI's IP is unlikely to be sufficiently superior to the competition's to warrant a large premium. I am not sure how differentiated OpenAI's IP is, so I don't have a strong opinion, but it seems to me that OpenAI is worth a lot more as a package than it would be as a collection of pieces.

array_key_first 1y ago

If even a singular open source model surpasses OpenAI's models between now and then then OpenAI will be worth 0 dollars, IP included. Well maybe the employees will be worth something.