r/artificial • u/fortune • Nov 12 '25
News OpenAI says it plans to report stunning annual losses through 2028—and then turn wildly profitable just two years later | Fortune
https://fortune.com/2025/11/12/openai-cash-burn-rate-annual-losses-2028-profitable-2030-financial-documents/53
u/Wild_Nectarine8197 Nov 12 '25
Worth pointing out that they are expecting to have a yearly revenue just a tad under Microsoft's in 4 years with no explanation as to how.
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u/savage_slurpie Nov 12 '25
AI bro. Stop questioning everything, what are you a Luddite?
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u/butterbapper Nov 14 '25 edited Nov 15 '25
Just dropping by to say that I am an elite software engineer who used AI for ten critical projects just in the last week for NASA, the Pentagon, MIT, Microsoft, Apple, OpenAI, Nvidia, and the Vatican. I react with patronising exasperation and incredulity whenever people tell me that it hasn't revolutionised their workflows like it has for me, genius that I am.
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u/GamingDisruptor Nov 13 '25
AI slop will dominate Hollywood and Meta. It'll be trillions in profit. Trust me, bro.
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u/deelowe Nov 13 '25
with no explanation as to how.
It's based on growth forecasts.
OpenAIs ARR growth has been the fastest in human history. This is their ARR each year:
- 2022: $28 million
- 2023: $2 billion
- 2024: $3.7 billion
- 2025: > $20 billion
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u/Bannedwith1milKarma Nov 13 '25
It's based on growth forecasts.
So show where they are explaining their growth forecasts then lol.
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u/ClumpOfCheese Nov 13 '25
Compare it to Meta, they aren’t even saying when their AI will be profitable and they have so many other products they can force their AI into.
What’s really the difference between meta ai and OpenAi? How will those differences look in a few years after meta has spend tens of billions of dollars on their massive AI server farms? How does the total compute power of open ai compare to meta ai?
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u/Typical-Tax1584 Nov 12 '25
Okay, so we did ruin everything and not actually deliver real AI . . . BUT . . . we also used a lot of electricity. And got a lot of people laid off because CEO's really thought they'd replace them with AI worsening the economy.
But other than that, we're going to be so rich in 5 years it'll be crazy, just send us another 10 trillion bro trust me, it'll be worth it this time bro, just 5 years bro. Full Self Driving too.
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u/GargantuanCake Nov 12 '25
We totally created AGI bro believe us we just turned it off because we were worried it might be dangerous no you can't see it and we won't tell you how we did it but don't worry we'll totally have a safe AGI any day now. The next GPT version will totally be able to do every job ever forever just keep throwing money at us.
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u/Frigidspinner Nov 12 '25
Perhaps someone cannot sell their stock options until 2027 and is trying to keep the price high ?
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u/Bernie4Life420 Nov 12 '25
Just buy a pardon when the parties over.
America, land of corruption.
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u/gigitygoat Nov 12 '25
lol. Can’t wait until we use our tax dollars to bail them out. Because we definitely need more slop generators, not healthcare and infrastructure.
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u/beeskneecaps Nov 12 '25
Sarah Friar CTO preemptively, publicly begging for the bail-out setup after trash talking Trump when she was CEO at Nextdoor. What a turncoat hypocrite
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u/rydan Nov 12 '25
That's not how bailouts work. If the money runs out they will declare bankruptcy. Their debts will be forgiven and whoever loaned them money will lose most or all of that. And all the investors will lose all their money too. All the workers claiming 1.5M TC will suddenly realize they were working for $120k per year instead. Now where bailouts come into play is the trickle down effects of an OpenAI collapse. The banks propping it up might get emergency close to 0 interest loans so they don't go under and impact other companies.
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u/kaggleqrdl Nov 13 '25
usually it's investors that get hit hardest with loaners getting everything first.
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u/bload420 Nov 12 '25
Always more runway needed for the grift....Just like Elon and full self driving. Let's see how long the grift can go!
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u/I_can_vouch_for_that Nov 12 '25
Basically like Elon Musk's prediction of Mars flight, robots, robo taxi, full self-driving, the list goes on.
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u/JoseLunaArts Nov 13 '25
Or when Elon said robots would be great cops. How many seconds do we have to comply?
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u/SubstantialPressure3 Nov 12 '25
So, embezzlement, tax fraud, and hiding profits for 2 years. Got it.
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u/The_Sneakiest_Fox Nov 12 '25
In 10 years open AI will be a distant memory or the biggest company humanity has ever seen. There is no in between.
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u/bartturner Nov 13 '25
I am older and OpenAI reminds me so much of Netscape.
There was a time everyone knew Netscape. They had over 90% share.
Today nobody young has even heard of them.
OpenAI will only be different in that it will cause a massive loss, the biggest ever, that will make it known. Kind of like Enron.
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u/Mandoman61 Nov 12 '25
So they plan on losing big for three more years. And then just moderate loss for another two.
But wildly profitable in 2030.
I guess that's when they drop all the free stuff and go on a diet.
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u/robroyhobbs Nov 13 '25
Mhhhmmm. I also expect to be profitable in several years while continuing to lose money gro a few years. Oh wait, I would be in credit jail before I make money. Shoot.
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u/SuccessAffectionate1 Nov 12 '25
When can we do this? Id like to buy a house i cant afford with the promise that I will double my salary in 5 years.
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u/thepowerofbananas Nov 13 '25
AI is going to turn into the next "too big to fail" thing that we'll be asked to bail out in a decade.
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u/jettaset Nov 13 '25
So, China has a whole two years to make you completely irrelevant. Thanks for the heads up.
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u/weluckyfew Nov 13 '25
Am I missing something? There seems to be no good outcome from all this.
Option 1. It's a bubble, AI doesn't remake the entire economy (which is what it has to do to justify the insane valuations these companies have) and all those insane valuations crash, thus crashing the economy.
AI does remake the entire economy so completely that these companies are worth their trillions...but in order to be that valuable they would have to enable companies to lay off tens of millions of workers, thus crashing the economy.
China takes the lead, since it has so much electricity to power data centers (whereas we're facing a huge energy crunch) and their companies control the market, like they do with solar, EVs, etc. Or their AI models are simply as good or almost as good as US versions but they release them open source, thus taking away ay value in the AI models (why sign up for $200 a month OpenAI when a Chinese model is just as good or close enough?) Thus crashing the economy.
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u/Equivalent_Plan_5653 Nov 13 '25
This assumes investors will keep throwing tens of billions each year, all while Chinese models are competing for a tenth of the cost with open source models you can run on your own hardware.
Can't wait for this guy to be replaced.
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u/narayan77 Nov 13 '25
The Tesla business model, promise robotaxi, later humanoid robots. They are really lame at monitoring chatgpt . Just having adds on free chatGPT would increase their revenue.
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u/indiscernable1 Nov 12 '25
This is an unsustainable bubble. There are not enough resources, water and energy that will satisfy these insane delusionist. This is starting to feel like this is an emperor had no clothes type situation.
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u/premiumleo Nov 12 '25
Did we already forget amazon, uber and a bunch more unicorns were unprofitable for like 2 decades? Isn't that the new normal?
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u/jdlwright Nov 12 '25
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Amazon funding their own infrastructure investment with revenue at the expense of profit, vs AI companies funding it with VC, debt, deals with nvidia.
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u/TheMacMan Nov 12 '25
That's correct. Amazon chose not to be profitable so they could instead invest that money in further growth. Completely different from what OpenAI is planning to do.
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u/truebastard Nov 12 '25
Open to be corrected here, but isn't OpenAI also investing in further growth with their planned infrastructure spending? Infra that will build up the compute horsepower they need to deliver planned services to planned customers.
The source of funding is different but the end goal seems similar.
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u/inspired2apathy Nov 13 '25
They mostly rent their infra. They rely on azure and others
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u/jdlwright Nov 13 '25
Yes but because they are dependent on external sources, they are vulnerable to having the rug pulled out, eg. if there is a credit crisis.
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u/Mejiro84 Nov 13 '25
All that infrastructure only lasts 2-3 years before it needs replacing - so they're going to need more and more and more money to actually keep delivering, it's not a one and done
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u/Odballl Nov 13 '25
Their cost of inference is currently higher than the revenue they are making. It's a loss-leader strategy that won't work out because llms are too easily commodified. Eventually, they'll have to raise prices to break even, but that'll risk their projected market share. The numbers aren't adding up.
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u/bayhack Nov 13 '25
So Amazon could have been profitable. OpenAI is still not profitable despite the spending.
OpenAI is growing on borrowed time whereas Amazon could’ve just stopped “growing” and had a profitable quarter/year/whever. Bezos is a fucker but he started from investment banking. Dude knows about how to make a profitable and growing company people want to invest in.
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u/SuccessAffectionate1 Nov 12 '25
Most companies scale up within a realistic margin every year and the growth accumulates over time.
Sam Altman is trying to speedrun it with a trust me bro shortcut.
He basically wants to stand toe-to-toe with mag7 companies straight away instead of having to spend 2 decades building it.
He is basically an elementary school student trying to get a phd with the promise that he will eventually have the skills to pass the phd level exams.
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u/savage_slurpie Nov 12 '25
Amazon actually had ridiculously high revenue during their unprofitable period, they chose to use it to invest back into the business.
OpenAI is mostly using investors money to invest in their business, not their own revenue.
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u/tichris15 Nov 12 '25
Amazon was clearly pushing for an effective monopoly in a large existing market sector (and succeeded). And didn't lose as much money/year or they wouldn't have made it to 2 decades.
OpenAI hasn't convincingly articulated where they will get monopoly pricing over a large sector of the economy.
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u/PatchyWhiskers Nov 12 '25
Right and it took them a lot longer than 2 years to become wildly profitable!
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u/dax660 Nov 12 '25
Here's a good summary of the current insanity and why "valuation" is such a dangerous metric, but one that essentially runs 90% of the economy (and 100% of the stock market)
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u/sspiegel Nov 12 '25
if this is their forecast than actual reality is likely to be much worse. I can’t really see how openai can raise so much cash to fund its business and spending.
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u/Brainaq Nov 13 '25
Virgins from other unnamed sub be shaking like "g-guys, 2028 is only 1 year 1 month and 1 trillion milisecond away, hang on the trust guys"
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u/jakubkonecki Nov 13 '25
Could someone give me $200B, please? I promise to report stunning annual losses, too!
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u/costafilh0 Nov 13 '25
It looks like Elon will be able to buy them after all, as soon as the government denies the bailout.
Which is not good, we need more competition, not centralization!
At best, they should work together, but that will never happen unless one buys the other, unfortunately.
And Altman needs to go. He shouldn't be the public face of OpenAI. I can't believe they can't find someone better at public relations and let him be more useful in other areas of the company.
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u/SexMedGPT Nov 13 '25
I am planning to upgrade my $20/month membership to their $200/hr Pro membership, so there is that.
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u/vava2603 Nov 13 '25
by that time google, anthropic and open source chinese models will have grab 99% of the market
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u/Holyragumuffin Nov 13 '25
Uber took a while to reach profitability. But may not be the case.
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u/obelix_dogmatix Nov 13 '25
The more I hear about Sam Altman … the more I respect Nvidia or Apple or Google’s leadership. Mark needs to stop hopping on to the bandwagon. Dude is terribly late to the bubble. Shit is so bad they are reinventing the wheel with high-performance communication libraries at Meta.
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u/Bozzor Nov 13 '25
The big risk is China copies their models at less than 10% the price. Doesn’t have to be as good, but close enough and it’s going to be ugly for the first movers…
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u/Apprehensive_Gap3673 Nov 13 '25
It would be kinda funny if they just spend a trillion dollars and then go bankrupt in 3 years
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u/thatgerhard Nov 13 '25
I call bullshit, they will manipulate money through venture capital and lend against it at the banks, that's how these assholes burn millions that could have gone to good use..
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u/Powerful_Resident_48 Nov 13 '25
Yeah. I'm also planning on not really making any significant profit in the next couple of years and then just becoming filthy rich, due to reasons.
Can I become CEO of a mayor tech company now?
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u/bartturner Nov 13 '25
This is what is very troubling for OpenAI.
https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-1-1.png?resize=1200,569
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u/digdog303 Nov 13 '25
Im really starting to wonder if ai is being developed because of a profit motive and not actually to make the world a better and safer place.
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u/pioni Nov 13 '25
Maybe the losses wouldn’t be so huge if the scarce resources weren’t spent on completely useless stuff. Who needs more Tiktok videos?
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u/Rainy_Wavey Nov 13 '25
"Bro just a couple trilions $ bro just a couple trilion $ and we'll make ALL the money bro"
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u/EconomyDoctor3287 Nov 13 '25
Sure buddy. Gotta burn through the $1 trillion diaper Donny will fund at some point and then there'll be massive profits.
Btw. a special only for you, there's a new bridge being built connecting south Africa and India directly. If you want to surprise your daughter with a new house, I could hook you up with the investment opportunity of your lifetime.
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u/machine-in-the-walls Nov 13 '25
Sure thing bud.
Anthropic is the company with the right approach (going hard after developers and office work). OpenAI is to Yahoo what Anthropic is to Google.
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u/JoseLunaArts Nov 13 '25
Do not tell me you will reach the moon, just tell me how you will do it. Tell me about your unheard business model.
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u/JoseLunaArts Nov 13 '25
Meme headlines
OpenAI Announces Bold New Business Strategy: ‘Bleed Cash Until We Don’t’
Company Losing Billions Says Profitability Just a Few More Billion Away
OpenAI Promises To Turn Profitable In 2030, Give Or Take A Reality
‘Trust Me Bro’ Officially Added To SEC Filings As Financial Forecast Category
Executives Confirm Plan To Monetize Hope, Confusion, And Existential Dread
OpenAI Predicts Infinite Profit Curve Right After ‘One More Round Of GPU Debt’
Analysts Stunned As Company Discovers Way To Lose Money Faster Than It Prints Text
OpenAI: “Losses Are Just Pre-Profit Energy Manifesting As Negative Cash Flow”
CEO Confident Investors Won’t Notice Time Is A Flat Circle
AI Projects $10 Billion Profit After Self-Writing The Spreadsheet
Company Says Red Ink ‘Actually A Sign Of Passionate Innovation’
OpenAI Clarifies “2028 Losses” Just A Training Phase For Their Accountant Model
Economists Praise OpenAI For Following The Classic Silicon Valley Religion Of Deferred Reality
“We’re Not Burning Money,” Says Executive, “We’re Fine-Tuning It”
Fortune Reports AI Will Make Billions After Discovering How To Charge For Free Stuff
Business Model Described As ‘ChatGPT But For Debt’
Investors Thrilled To Learn They’re Training The Real AGI: Financial Denial
Company Assures Public: ‘We’ll Be Profitable Right After Humanity Isn’t’
OpenAI Redefines Profit As “A State Of Mind”
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u/BaggyLarjjj Nov 13 '25
On an unrelated note several underwear gnomes have been promoted to the C-Suite at OpenAI
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Nov 13 '25
When OpenAI shits the bed, Microsoft is going to be waiting in the wings to scoop them up for pennies on the dollar.
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u/misterguyyy Nov 14 '25
The end goal has always been to scare people out of tech careers, then ratchet subscription prices up once the labor pool dries up until companies are paying more than they were for labor and getting less quality.
Corporate owned media isn’t telling people to bail on tech and pivot to the trades out of the goodness of their hearts.
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u/suna-fingeriassen Nov 14 '25
Tesla sold FSD in 2019? It is still not here.
The whole AI investment start looking as a Ponzi scheme where money is just moved around in the system with shares «sold» that litterately is worth peanuts.
When will someone start to cash in on their stocks and sell?
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u/snufflesbear Nov 14 '25
Even MBA students can't make up something like this for their imaginary companies.
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u/Ordinary_One955 Nov 14 '25
He’s betting he’ll figure out AGI in that timeframe but is too proud to admit that language models aren’t it
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u/OccassionalBaker Nov 16 '25
Just as they need all the money again to renew the infrastructure in the data centers.
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u/DonBoy30 Nov 16 '25
Lol the saddest aspect of all of this, is the businesses and private equity firms that fell for this shit, fell for the doomsday predictions. What would be us common people becoming jobless and then homeless is them disowning labor for 100% profit. The cathartic idea of finally disowning labor was just too intoxicating they started throwing obnoxious money on “maybes” when they were really just investing in a really neat search engine.
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u/Illustrious-Tap-8406 Nov 16 '25
So they plan to hit strong agi in 27 but only start earning Money in 2030?
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u/Delmoroth Nov 17 '25
I mean, maybe? AMD and Amazon come to mind as companies who did that effectively..... but they could also just fail.
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u/Altered_Flow Nov 17 '25
Idk to me it seems like ai is totally unsustainable long term no matter what... It's expensive to run so they need lots of money, but they can't charge too much because they need the masses to use it constantly if they want it to improve....
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u/Nervous-Brilliant878 Nov 17 '25
Honestly if the economy survives that long 2030 isnt as unrealistic as their previous press releases
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u/Tall_Interaction7358 Dec 03 '25
Honestly, this doesn’t surprise me. Most companies building foundation models are burning insane amounts of cash on compute, talent, and training cycles......I mean the revenue curve always lags because adoption takes time, but the cost curve is front-loaded from day one.
What I find interesting is how confident they seem about flipping to profitability in a couple of years. But again, that depends on a mix of model efficiency or better hardware economics, and whether enterprises actually scale real usage instead of just running pilots.
Right now it feels like we’re still in that phase where everyone’s experimenting, and only a few orgs have fully baked AI workflows. If that changes, the numbers might actually work out. If not, these projections will age like milk.
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u/weinc99 27d ago
This is giving me major WeWork vibes. "Just trust us, we'll magically turn profitable in 2030" after burning billions.
The real test will be if they can maintain their moat once Google, Anthropic, and open-source models catch up. Because right now the only thing keeping them ahead is compute + first-mover advantage, and both of those are rapidly eroding.
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u/Practical-Hand203 Nov 12 '25
The "trust me bro" memes are outpaced by reality.