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This is an awful article. I don't know how it reached #1 on HN. Bottom line is that H100 prices are near 3 year highs, A100s are still profitable to run, B200

This is an awful article. I don't know how it reached #1 on HN. Bottom line is that H100 prices are near 3 year highs, A100s are still profitable to run, B200 prices are increasing, no one has enough compute. Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, AWS, Azure are all compute constrained. Every single one of them said so publicly. Neo clouds are telling customers they're all sold out now and you even have to book compute in advance if you're an AI company. OpenAI is struggling to monetize. They turned to showing ads in ChatGPT, something Sam Altman once called a “last resort”, while Anthropic is crushing them with the more profitable corporate customers and software engineers. AI bubble is bursting because OpenAI is trying to monetize free users on ChatGPT with ads but Anthropic is kicking butt in AI. What kind of logic is that? So it seems like AI can be monetized as Anthropic shows. Is AI going to burst because OpenAI can't monetize but Anthropic can? I wouldn’t be surprised at all if in the next couple of quarters we see OpenAI looking for an exit. It will be interesting because the sizes are now so big that we will probably know all the details. The most likely buyer is Microsoft, they already own a lot of it, and because of that, they are the most interested in showing a win. I'll take the opposite stance. I think OpenAI is going to be bigger than Microsoft in market cap within the next 3 years. I think Anthropic and OpenAI are going to run laps around current big tech except maybe Google. For example, in a few years, I think AI agents could completely replace Microsoft Office, Microsoft's cash cow. Independent reports state that Claude metered models are priced 5x more expensive than their subscribers pay Already dispelled. It isn't 5x more expensive than their subscribers pay. Inference has a gross margin of 50%+. It's been repeated over and over again by Anthropic CEO, OpenAI CEO, and just about anyone who's done deep analysis on token profitability. If you don't believe OpenAI and Anthropic CEOs, just look at inference providers on Openrouter. They don't have VCs backing them selling tokens at a loss. They should be making margins on every token in order to keep the lights on.

HackerThemAll 7mo ago
> I think OpenAI is going to be bigger than Microsoft in market cap within the next 3 years. I am yet to see how a one-legged business model with just a single product (that is not crude oil), without a plan and money is going to become sustainable. Oh yeah, maybe they'll finally make money on those autonomous lethal weapons. That sounds the easiest.
- aurareturn 7mo ago
  Sure. I'll give you a basic plan without any insider knowledge on OpenAI. First, OpenAI and Anthropic are the leaders in model capabilities. Google is a close 3rd but 3rd nonetheless. Second, ChatGPT likely has about 1 billion active users right now. I think ads on ChatGPT will surpass even Google search ads in the future. There will be a class of users who will never pay for ChatGPT subscriptions and that's ok. Meta and Google are two of the most profitable companies in history who almost rely solely on free users for their cash cows. "Ask ChatGPT" is already "google it" for the masses. Third, there is so much untapped revenue potential from science, medicine field that OpenAI can eventually own with Anthropic. Microsoft stands no chance here since they can't build competing models. Fourth, I can easily see ChatGPT morphing into agents for consumers and people will pay for them. AI is moving up the value chain fast. I don't see any reason why consumers won't pay for ChatGPT but will pay for Netflix. Just some basic ideas based on public knowledge. I'm sure there are plenty more. I'm not going to bet my house that OpenAI will become bigger than Microsoft in 3 years, but I'll put down a few hundred dollars on this bet.
  - niam 7mo ago
    I don't discount this as a possibility but my impression is that the OpenAI brand isn't very sticky. Internet Explorer being pre-installed on Windows devices didn't prevent it from being demolished by newcomer Chrome throughout the 2010s. Now we're looking at a product that's even less integrated, and whose value is exposed through universal interfaces (human language, images, etc.). If OpenAI succeeds, I imagine that remarkably little of it will have come from the brand. But subtracting the first-mover brand advantage: they can either compete on the frontier, which seems difficult and bears potentially diminishing returns (particularly wrt to distillation); or compete as a commodity, which I imagine cannot justify their valuation/spend. It seems very uphill of a battle.
    - fragmede 7mo ago
      For people that use ChatGPT the same way you do, yeah it's not. For people in the throes of AI psychosis who've named their ChatGPT and have a deep relationship with it, switching to a newer model from OpenAI is an issue, nevermind switching to a different model from a different company.
the_gipsy 7mo ago
> but Anthropic is kicking butt in AI that's not what the article said: > They turned to showing ads in ChatGPT, something Sam Altman once called a “last resort”, while Anthropic is crushing them
- aurareturn 7mo ago
  Yes, that's what he said. He said AI is going to bust because OpenAI needs to put ads on free tier. Then he said Anthropic is doing great with enterprise customers. So which is it? Is AI going to burst because OpenAI needs to put ads on ChatGPT? Or is AI not going to burst because Anthropic is doing great in enterprise? The logic has glaring flaws.
nunez 7mo ago
> I think AI agents could completely replace Microsoft Office How? What do you think lawyers/government will use to write briefs?
- aurareturn 7mo ago
  With ChatGPT
doom2 7mo ago
> Bottom line is that H100 prices are near 3 year highs, A100s are still profitable to run, B200 prices are increasing, no one has enough compute. Then why aren't the hardware manufacturers of components needed by AI companies making plans yesterday to bring new fabs online to meet demand? That isn't a gotcha question, I genuinely want to know. The money involved isn't that much compared to the money changing hands between Nvidia Microsoft, OpenAI, etc., and it's not like once in-progress data center construction is complete they won't need to buy more RAM and GPUs, especially with any new advances in technology that might happen. Inevitably someone will reply that hardware manufacturers don't want to be stuck losing money on a facility because the bubble popped and demand disappeared, but if Anthropic and OpenAI are going to "run laps around current big tech", it should be a no-brainer to increase production capacity.
- jsnell 7mo ago
  A new fab will need to be filled with advanced equipment like lithography machines. They are the most complex thing humanity has every built. There is one supplier of EUV lithography machines in the world, ASML. They are basically acting as an integrator for hundreds of highly specialized components manufactured to unimaginable levels of precision. Each of them has roughly one eligible supplier in the world who are operating at full capacity. To expand, they'll need yet another set of specialized and almost impossible to build equipment. So the supply chain moves incredibly slowly, and the slowness is intrinsic due to the complexity and depth of the supply chain. It can't be fixed with just money. IIRC ASML is aiming to merely double their production of EUV lithography machines by 2030.
  - doom2 7mo ago
    Sure, I didn't mean to suggest that it would be easy or fast to increase manufacturing capabilities, just that the confidence I'm seeing around AI should extend to the manufacturers (if that confidence for the future growth and success of OpenAI and Anthropic is warranted). That is, the business decision to increase RAM and GPU supply should be "easy".
    - 7mo ago
ratrace 7mo ago
[dead]
veunes 7mo ago
OpenAI overtaking Microsoft? Seriously? Microsoft has a massively diversified business spanning from gaming and cloud infra to B2B software that the entire world runs on. OpenAI has exactly one product (matrix weights), which is getting heavily commoditized by open-source models every single day. Once a theoretical Llama 4 catches up to GPT-5, an API price war is going to completely nuke their hyper-margins
- aurareturn 7mo ago
  That one product can reproduce or replace nearly all of Microsoft's services. It's not OpenAI that is going to do it. It's people and other companies wielding OpenAI's model that will do it.
  - veunes 7mo ago
    Your whole premise is built on the OpenAI model, but that's not a moat, it's just a temporary API endpoint. The second a theoretical Llama 5 drops that's 10% cheaper and 5% smarter, every single startup in that "ecosystem" will switch their base_url overnight to save their margins. Microsoft on the other hand, just owns Azure - they'll just add the new model as another option and continue to own the end customer. OpenAI it's just a swappable engine

HackerThemAll 7mo ago

> I think OpenAI is going to be bigger than Microsoft in market cap within the next 3 years. I am yet to see how a one-legged business model with just a single product (that is not crude oil), without a plan and money is going to become sustainable. Oh yeah, maybe they'll finally make money on those autonomous lethal weapons. That sounds the easiest.

aurareturn 7mo ago
Sure. I'll give you a basic plan without any insider knowledge on OpenAI. First, OpenAI and Anthropic are the leaders in model capabilities. Google is a close 3rd but 3rd nonetheless. Second, ChatGPT likely has about 1 billion active users right now. I think ads on ChatGPT will surpass even Google search ads in the future. There will be a class of users who will never pay for ChatGPT subscriptions and that's ok. Meta and Google are two of the most profitable companies in history who almost rely solely on free users for their cash cows. "Ask ChatGPT" is already "google it" for the masses. Third, there is so much untapped revenue potential from science, medicine field that OpenAI can eventually own with Anthropic. Microsoft stands no chance here since they can't build competing models. Fourth, I can easily see ChatGPT morphing into agents for consumers and people will pay for them. AI is moving up the value chain fast. I don't see any reason why consumers won't pay for ChatGPT but will pay for Netflix. Just some basic ideas based on public knowledge. I'm sure there are plenty more. I'm not going to bet my house that OpenAI will become bigger than Microsoft in 3 years, but I'll put down a few hundred dollars on this bet.
- niam 7mo ago
  I don't discount this as a possibility but my impression is that the OpenAI brand isn't very sticky. Internet Explorer being pre-installed on Windows devices didn't prevent it from being demolished by newcomer Chrome throughout the 2010s. Now we're looking at a product that's even less integrated, and whose value is exposed through universal interfaces (human language, images, etc.). If OpenAI succeeds, I imagine that remarkably little of it will have come from the brand. But subtracting the first-mover brand advantage: they can either compete on the frontier, which seems difficult and bears potentially diminishing returns (particularly wrt to distillation); or compete as a commodity, which I imagine cannot justify their valuation/spend. It seems very uphill of a battle.
  - fragmede 7mo ago
    For people that use ChatGPT the same way you do, yeah it's not. For people in the throes of AI psychosis who've named their ChatGPT and have a deep relationship with it, switching to a newer model from OpenAI is an issue, nevermind switching to a different model from a different company.

the_gipsy 7mo ago

> but Anthropic is kicking butt in AI that's not what the article said: > They turned to showing ads in ChatGPT, something Sam Altman once called a “last resort”, while Anthropic is crushing them

aurareturn 7mo ago
Yes, that's what he said. He said AI is going to bust because OpenAI needs to put ads on free tier. Then he said Anthropic is doing great with enterprise customers. So which is it? Is AI going to burst because OpenAI needs to put ads on ChatGPT? Or is AI not going to burst because Anthropic is doing great in enterprise? The logic has glaring flaws.

nunez 7mo ago

> I think AI agents could completely replace Microsoft Office How? What do you think lawyers/government will use to write briefs?

aurareturn 7mo ago
With ChatGPT

doom2 7mo ago

> Bottom line is that H100 prices are near 3 year highs, A100s are still profitable to run, B200 prices are increasing, no one has enough compute. Then why aren't the hardware manufacturers of components needed by AI companies making plans yesterday to bring new fabs online to meet demand? That isn't a gotcha question, I genuinely want to know. The money involved isn't that much compared to the money changing hands between Nvidia Microsoft, OpenAI, etc., and it's not like once in-progress data center construction is complete they won't need to buy more RAM and GPUs, especially with any new advances in technology that might happen. Inevitably someone will reply that hardware manufacturers don't want to be stuck losing money on a facility because the bubble popped and demand disappeared, but if Anthropic and OpenAI are going to "run laps around current big tech", it should be a no-brainer to increase production capacity.

jsnell 7mo ago
A new fab will need to be filled with advanced equipment like lithography machines. They are the most complex thing humanity has every built. There is one supplier of EUV lithography machines in the world, ASML. They are basically acting as an integrator for hundreds of highly specialized components manufactured to unimaginable levels of precision. Each of them has roughly one eligible supplier in the world who are operating at full capacity. To expand, they'll need yet another set of specialized and almost impossible to build equipment. So the supply chain moves incredibly slowly, and the slowness is intrinsic due to the complexity and depth of the supply chain. It can't be fixed with just money. IIRC ASML is aiming to merely double their production of EUV lithography machines by 2030.
- doom2 7mo ago
  Sure, I didn't mean to suggest that it would be easy or fast to increase manufacturing capabilities, just that the confidence I'm seeing around AI should extend to the manufacturers (if that confidence for the future growth and success of OpenAI and Anthropic is warranted). That is, the business decision to increase RAM and GPU supply should be "easy".
  - 7mo ago

ratrace 7mo ago

[dead]

veunes 7mo ago

OpenAI overtaking Microsoft? Seriously? Microsoft has a massively diversified business spanning from gaming and cloud infra to B2B software that the entire world runs on. OpenAI has exactly one product (matrix weights), which is getting heavily commoditized by open-source models every single day. Once a theoretical Llama 4 catches up to GPT-5, an API price war is going to completely nuke their hyper-margins

aurareturn 7mo ago
That one product can reproduce or replace nearly all of Microsoft's services. It's not OpenAI that is going to do it. It's people and other companies wielding OpenAI's model that will do it.
- veunes 7mo ago
  Your whole premise is built on the OpenAI model, but that's not a moat, it's just a temporary API endpoint. The second a theoretical Llama 5 drops that's 10% cheaper and 5% smarter, every single startup in that "ecosystem" will switch their base_url overnight to save their margins. Microsoft on the other hand, just owns Azure - they'll just add the new model as another option and continue to own the end customer. OpenAI it's just a swappable engine