3 ms·

OpenAI and Anthropic are making north of 4B/year revenue so some companies have figured out the money making part. ChatGPT has some 800M users according to some

OpenAI and Anthropic are making north of 4B/year revenue so some companies have figured out the money making part. ChatGPT has some 800M users according to some calculations. Whether it's enough money today, enough money tomorrow, is of course a question but there is a lot of money. Users would not use them in a scale if they do not solve their problems.

panja 1y ago
OpenAI lost 12bn last quarter
Hendrikto 1y ago
It’s easy to make 1 billion by spending 10 billion. That’s not “making money” though, it is lighting it on fire.
- aryonoco 1y ago
  People used to say this about Amazon all the time. Remember how Amazon basically didn’t turn any real profits for 2 decades? The joke was that Amazon was a charitable organisation being funded by Wall Street for the benefit of human kind. That didn’t last. People in the know knew that once you have a billion users and insane revenue and market power and have basically bought or driven out of business most of your competitors (Diapers.com, Jet.com, etc) you can eventually slow down your physical expansion, tighten the screws on your suppliers, increase efficiencies, and start printing money. The VCs who are funding these companies are hoping that they have found the next Amazon. Many will probably go out of business, but some might join the ranks of trillion dollar companies.
  - ambicapter 1y ago
    So every company that doesn't turn any profits is actually Amazon in disguise?
    - aryonoco 1y ago
      If you’ve got nearly a billion users, and are multiplying your revenue on an annual basis, then yes. You’re effectively showing that you’re in hyper growth trajectory. Hyper growth is expensive because it’s usually capital intensive. The trick is, once that growth phase is over, can you then start milking your customers while keeping a lid on costs? Not everyone can, but Amazon did, and most investors think OpenAI and Anthropic can as well.
  - hitarpetar 1y ago
    this gets brought up a lot, and the reality is that the scale of Amazon's losses is completely dwarfed by what's going on now
  - foobiekr 1y ago
    Amazon had paper losses and great cashflow. OpenAI has actual, real losses and terrible cashflow.

panja 1y ago

OpenAI lost 12bn last quarter

Hendrikto 1y ago

It’s easy to make 1 billion by spending 10 billion. That’s not “making money” though, it is lighting it on fire.

aryonoco 1y ago
People used to say this about Amazon all the time. Remember how Amazon basically didn’t turn any real profits for 2 decades? The joke was that Amazon was a charitable organisation being funded by Wall Street for the benefit of human kind. That didn’t last. People in the know knew that once you have a billion users and insane revenue and market power and have basically bought or driven out of business most of your competitors (Diapers.com, Jet.com, etc) you can eventually slow down your physical expansion, tighten the screws on your suppliers, increase efficiencies, and start printing money. The VCs who are funding these companies are hoping that they have found the next Amazon. Many will probably go out of business, but some might join the ranks of trillion dollar companies.
- ambicapter 1y ago
  So every company that doesn't turn any profits is actually Amazon in disguise?
  - aryonoco 1y ago
    If you’ve got nearly a billion users, and are multiplying your revenue on an annual basis, then yes. You’re effectively showing that you’re in hyper growth trajectory. Hyper growth is expensive because it’s usually capital intensive. The trick is, once that growth phase is over, can you then start milking your customers while keeping a lid on costs? Not everyone can, but Amazon did, and most investors think OpenAI and Anthropic can as well.
- hitarpetar 1y ago
  this gets brought up a lot, and the reality is that the scale of Amazon's losses is completely dwarfed by what's going on now
- foobiekr 1y ago
  Amazon had paper losses and great cashflow. OpenAI has actual, real losses and terrible cashflow.